Cosmopolitan Humanitarianism and the Use of Force

Abstract

Our contemporary world presents us with a steady array of undeniable expressions of common inhumanity, confirming the notion of common humanity by negative example. Ironically, the conditions that most urgently lead to calls for international intervention expose the fragmented nature of human solidarity and the attendant frailty of notions of universal moral obligation based on the idea of common humanity. In the face of widespread human suffering caused by various kinds of intrastate violent conflict, state repression or political incompetence leading to state failure, who has a moral obligation to respond? And what do they have as an obligation to do? A cosmopolitan conception of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ clearly obligates sovereigns to be agents of the domestic public good. When they fail to provide basic public goods such as security, subsistence and justice within their borders, and when domestic accountability systems are inadequate or incompetent, a cosmopolitan view of global order obligates the society of states, as well as the larger global civil society, to call sovereign power to account, and to intervene to alleviate the human suffering caused by the neglect, breakdown or abuse of sovereign power. From a cosmopolitan moral view, then, it is not just domestic or international political leaders who have moral responsibilities to respond to situations of politically induced humanitarian disaster — we all do, in our various individual, collective and institutional capacities.

It has been quite rightly said that suffering, like light, knows no national boundaries.

Cornelio Sommargua, Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention¹

America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery, prosperity to squalor, self-government to the rule of terror and torture.

George W. Bush, The New York Times²