Reconstructing Westphalian Sovereignty As an Effort to Enforce Human Rights Case Study: Humanitarian Intervention in the Libyan Conflict
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Nation State: Journal of International P ISSN 2620-391X Studies Vol. 2 No. 1 | Juni 2019 E ISSN 2621-735X Reconstructing Westphalian Sovereignty as an Effort to Enforce Human Rights Case Study: Humanitarian Intervention in the Libyan Conflict Anna Kharisma Fehmita Mubin International Relations Department, University of Indonesia, Jakarta – Indonesia Email: [email protected] Submitted: 09 April 2019 | Accepted: 24 April 2019 Abstract State sovereignty and humanitarian intervention are two sides of a coin, presenting a threat to human rights enforcement, especially when human rights violation is done by the state. Failure from a state to provide human rights protection for its citizen will lead to intervention from the international community to enforce human rights in the name of humanitarian norms. The humanitarian intervention will indirectly weaken the principles of Westphalian state sovereignty as the main premise in the politics of international relations. This article is a case study of the Libyan conflict in 2011. This study uses the constructivism approach to analyze the contrasting relation between the principles of traditional Westphalian sovereignty and humanitarian intervention concept, and how this relationship may shift the human rights norms in the international community. In the constructivism approach, it is not enough to offer a causal explanation in order to understand international politics. Instead, it needs a more interpretative understanding. Hence, this study is conducted with a qualitative method, a critical approach to human rights in contemporary international politics. Keywords: State, Sovereignty, Humanitarian, Intervention, Constructivism. Abstrak Kedaulatan negara dan intervensi kemanusiaan adalah dua sisi mata uang yang menghadirkan ancaman bagi penegakan hak asasi manusia, terutama ketika pelanggaran hak asasi manusia dilakukan oleh negara. Kegagalan suatu negara untuk memberikan perlindungan hak asasi manusia bagi warganya akan menyebabkan intervensi dari komunitas internasional dalam nama kemanusiaan. Intervensi kemanusiaan secara tidak langsung akan melemahkan prinsip-prinsip kedaulatan negara Wesphalian sebagai premis utama dalam politik hubungan internasional. Artikel ini merupakan studi kasus tentang konflik Libya pada 2011 dengan menggunakan pendekatan konstruktivisme untuk menganalisis kontradiksi antara prinsip-prinsip kedaulatan, konsep intervensi kemanusiaan, dan hubungan dengan norma-norma hak asasi manusia di komunitas internasional. Dalam pendekatan konstruktivisme, tidaklah cukup untuk menawarkan penjelasan sebab akibat untuk memahami politik internasional, melainkan perlu pemahaman yang lebih interpretatif. Oleh karena itu, penelitian ini dilakukan dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan mengadopsi pendekatan kritis terhadap hak asasi manusia dalam politik internasional kontemporer. Kata Kunci: Kedaulatan, Negara, Intervensi, Kemanusiaan, Konstruktivisme. INTRODUCTION A recent development in conflict with its own main premise international relation studies faces a when addressing the issue of human 1 Nation State: Journal of International P ISSN 2620-391X Studies Vol. 2 No. 1 | Juni 2019 E ISSN 2621-735X rights enforcement, in particular, a as Hugo Grotius, Thomas Hobbes, conflict between state sovereignty and and John Locke, have consistently humanitarian norms. There is a used the conception of rights and contradiction between Westphalian natural laws, which evolved into the state sovereignty norms, which have term “liberal positions on rights” been adopted in the international laws (Soetjipto, 2015, p. 17), consisting of by all state actors in international two main aspects. First, each politics, and the humanitarian individual has the right to life, liberty, intervention norms as measures to property, as well as the freedom of enforce human rights enforcement, opinion and expression, which cannot which have been growing more be traded, transacted, and is attention from international societies, unconditional. The only reason that both state and non-state actors. It is can be accepted to limit these rights is such an irony that the fundamental in order to protect other individual’s concepts of human rights and state right. Second, the government must sovereignty norms are being protect and guarantee these contradicted, their definitions being fundamental rights, and their debated, as well as which is the more performance shall be measured as important norms (Brooke, 2017). such. Rooted from liberal ideas, human The liberal positions on rights rights are the fundamental rights and promoted a growing sense in-state freedoms that all human should be actors’ responsibility to protect and guaranteed, by virtue of them being a guarantee human rights. As stated in human. These rights are characterized the international law on human rights, as universal, basic, and absolute. state actors are responsible for acting Universal means that human rights are or not acting in such a way to promote the same everywhere, regardless of and protect human rights and race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, fundamental freedoms of individuals language, religion, or any other status. and groups (Dewi, 2015). The essence of human rights is the On the other hand, from an principles of equality, justice, and international relations perspective, the freedom, to protect human dignity Westphalian international law and from any form of unlawful political system, adopted since 1648, imprisonment, torture, and execution stated that any sovereign state (Soetjipto, 2015, pp. 15-16). possesses full sovereign rights (Hall, The development of human 2010). Sovereignty refers to the rights by political philosophers, such concept of highest independent 2 Nation State: Journal of International P ISSN 2620-391X Studies Vol. 2 No. 1 | Juni 2019 E ISSN 2621-735X authority in a territory. It can be seen dealing with human rights as a norm where each state cannot (Lauterpacht, 1958). interfere with each other’s problems, The interrelation between state and each state has the highest sovereignty and human rights independent authority over its own protection has also shifted the territory (Delbruck, 1982). paradigm of state sovereignty from The problem arises when action Westphalian school to Hobbessian by the state, as a consequence of the school, where international possessed sovereignty, results in community shall not be isolated, and violations in human rights. It is often there should be freedom in interstate caused by a broad and limitless relations (Snyman, 2009, p. 18). interpretation of state sovereignty, that Hobbesian school, developed by a state is free to use the however Thomas Hobbes, Immanuel Kant, and authority it possesses and no other Hans Kelsen perceived state states may interfere (Ramdhany, 2015, sovereignty as a relative-control from a p. 51). This problem creates a paradox sovereign state to its people and between international law and political justified the role of external forces in system, which is based on the creating and maintaining social principles of state sovereignty, and the stability for individuals or groups in a international human rights policies, sovereign state (May 2005; Reuter, which prioritize state’s moral on 1983). The hobbesian school has humanitarian, thus protecting human promoted the shift from traditional rights. These antagonistic roles result politics of state-centered to mixed in the difficulty to process human actors, where non-state actors such as rights violations occurring in a non-government organization, sovereign state’s territory, particularly international media, and inter- for domestic conflict cases. government organization are The paradox between increasingly acknowledged for their international law and political system roles in creating order and values in and international human rights policies modern international communities. creates various debates among Furthermore, the shift from international law communities. Westphalian state sovereignty system Among them, state authority should in the international politics is also due be restricted, such as through the to the rise in the concept of “doctrine of restrictive interpretation”. “responsibility to protect” (R2P) In this doctrine, the state should be which is rooted from humanitarian restricted to its sovereign rights when intervention norms in enforcing severe 3 Nation State: Journal of International P ISSN 2620-391X Studies Vol. 2 No. 1 | Juni 2019 E ISSN 2621-735X human rights violations (Ramdhany, CASE STUDY 2015, p. 36). This concept was first For more than forty years after given by Francis Deng to justify the the military coup in 1969, Libyan obligation of other states to intervene people lived under the authoritarian to a state’s problem when that state regime of Moammar Gadhafi. United cannot resolve its own problem Nations Commission on Human according to the international Rights (UNHCR) received many standards (Deng, 1996). This concept reports on human rights violations is then comprehensively reformulated during this regime period. by the International Commission on (Vandewalle, 2006, pp. 77-96). The Intervention and State Sovereignty most recent and major conflict started (ICISS) as a response to the in January 2011, when Libyan people Millennium Report from UN started to hold demonstrations to Secretary-General (ICISS, 2001). protest the regime, which was The humanitarian intervention responded by the regime with heavy started to evolve after the cold war. It military aggression,