National Interest vs Global Responsibility: What should Nations Choose?

Nilabh Pandey

[email protected]

IIGL (Indian Institute of Governance and Leadership)

Abstract

There is a Revolution -- in fact, a worldwide spread one. It has changed our traditional methods of Governance and Diplomacy. This paper analyses the importance of National Interest vs Global Ethics for the Nations. It especially focuses on the Historic accounts of the situations dealing in these cases. Due to the diverse interests of each state, the international community faces problems dealing with the consequences of atrocities. A large number of states that integrate into international or regional organizations cause tension between national interest and the collective interest of a state. It may be diplomatic pressure or even the leader’s wish, which can cause him/her to focus on Global Responsibility. There is a point where every nation thinks twice about what they choose. This paper tries to present a relevant comparison based on facts.?

Introduction

National interest is one of the most important aspects of a state’s foreign policy. It can be a guide towards achieving a state’s goals. The national interest concept strongly relates with a realism view in international relations, where security becomes the primary goal. This concept, however, needs to adapt to the changes caused by Globalization. The changes happening all over the world cause problems to the national interests.?

This nascent global interest varies from national interests not only in its scope. it is not an aggregation of national interest, but also in its premises. National interests are inherently based on competition, both for resources and power, in what amounts to a form of political Darwinism where the “fittest” dominate and take advantage of the weakest. In this scheme, “Others” are conceived only in terms of whether or not they constitute a hindrance to one’s national interests.

In September 2005, during the UN World Summit, the participating representatives of states concluded an agreement on the concept of Responsibility to Protect, which was shaped in Summit’s Outcome Document paras. 138-139:

“Par. 138. Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it. The international community should as appropriate, encourage and help States to exercise this responsibility and support the United Nations in establishing an early warning capability”. “Par. 139. The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. In this context, we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. We stress the need for the General Assembly to continue consideration of the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity and its implications, bearing in mind the principles of the Charter and international law. We also intend to commit ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to helping States build capacity to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity and to assisting those who are under stress before crises and conflicts break out.”

The commitment of R2P (Responsibility to Protect) by the UNGA serves as a starting point for the nations to discuss and solve the international agendas which affect the world as a whole. The R2P as an evolution step is led by the United Nations Secretary-General. In his 2009 report “Implementing the Responsibility to Protect” the Secretary-General introduced three pillars agenda of responsibility to protect:

Pillar I - States have the primary responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity;?

Pillar II - the international community shall provide assistance to States in building capacity to protect their populations from these atrocities and to assist those, which are under stress before crises and conflicts break out;?

Pillar III - in case of State manifestly failing to protect its population’s international community shall take timely and decisive action to prevent and halt these atrocities?

(The SG’s report, 2009, section II-IV)

The pillars mentioned above defines two responsibilities for the International Community, to assist states in building their capacity to protect their populations and to react in a timely and decisive manner in case of states manifestly failing in their primary responsibility to protect. The United Nations takes the credit as it is a leader in the creation of Peace, Human Rights, and a democracy-based international environment, where productive diplomacy can be practiced. An effective R2P at the national level entails a burden for the country and as a result accepting various political, financial, and legal commitments. Due to this reason, it is always difficult to establish a unified approach for the states in an International Community.?

We can differentiate three categories for the National Interest in the Republic of Poland according to the National Security Strategy 2007, Pg 11-13:

1- Vital interests like independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of borders, the safety of citizens, human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy.

2- Significant interests such as sustainable economic development of the state, prosperity, scientific and technical development, protection of national heritage, and the environment.

3- Other essential interests meaning Poland's strong position in the international arena, the effective promotion of Polish interests, strengthening major international institutions including the development of international relations based on respect for law and multilateral cooperation, consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

According to the above qualification Pillar, I of R2P lies in the sphere of “vital interests”, while Pillars II and III are covered by “other essential interests”, which as hierarchically lower cannot be implemented at the expense of the former (Lewandowski, 2015, p. 190). This leads to the conflict of values, which cannot be solved without a gentle evaluation of state priorities (Tomasz A. Lewandowski). In these cases to decide whether to allow a state to participate actively in R2P, keeping in mind the Foreign Military Deployment, is a difficult process that requires weighing of different interests. The R2P’s focus is to achieve long-term results.

Tomasz A. Lewandowski in his paper states that “The biggest problem lies in building a nexus between different set of interests to find reasons for sacrificing national self-interest for the common universal good. In this matter, responsibility to protect is supplemented by the ideas of international solidarity and good international citizenship.”

History of Cooperation for Common Universal Good

It was the European Countries in the 19th Century to meet up and achieve their National Goals in the areas of health, trade, and knowledge. More efforts came in in the early 20th Century, with the formation of the League of Nations and its agencies. After World War II, motivated by the widespread desire to avoid the recurrence of war. The United Nations (UN) was founded with its members’ explicit rejection of the use of military force except as justified by the common good. Supporting the goal the foundation was laid for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) with the desire to look upstream at the underlying economic causes of conflicts and to pre-empt them. (Secretariat of International Task Force on GPG). With the same in mind, the creation in 1948 of the World Health Organization (WHO) built on earlier efforts, geared to controlling the spread of communicable diseases.?

But many things have changed since then, The Cold War started, and ended. The Bretton-Woods fixed exchange rate system gave way to a floating exchange rate regime. Globalization caused the expansion of International Trade geometrically, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and the World Trade Organization (WTO) has been created. Smallpox was eradicated, only to make a comeback as a possible weapon for the terrorists. New and deadly diseases like AIDS have emerged. Climate Change stepped forward as a major issue, nationally, regionally, and globally, although many of its key issues remain unresolved.?

For the first time in history, more people die from old age than from infectious diseases, and violence is also down. For the first time in history, more people commit suicide than are killed by crime and terrorism and war put together. Statistically, you are your own worst enemy. At least, of all the people in the world, you are most likely to be killed by yourself. This is very good news compared to the level of violence that we saw in previous eras.?

Today what we are seeing is the immediate human reaction: If something doesn't work, let's go back. And we see it all over the world, that people, almost nobody in the political system today, have any future-oriented vision of where humankind is going. Almost everywhere, we see the retrograde vision: "Let's make America great again" like it was great in I don't know, in the '50s, in the '80s, and we have Russia a hundred years after Lenin, Putin's vision for the future is, ah, let's go back to the Tsarist empire. And in Israel, the hottest political vision of the present is: "Let's build the temple again." So let's go back 2,000 years backward. So people are thinking sometime in the past we've lost it, and sometimes in the past, it's like you've lost your way in the city, and you say OK, let's go back to the point where I felt secure and start again. This can’t work, but for a lot of people, this is their gut instinct.?

(Yuval Noah Harari)

The old 20th-century political model of left versus right is now largely irrelevant, and the real divide today is between global and national, global or local. And we see it again all over the world that this is now the main struggle. We probably need completely new political models and completely new ways of thinking about politics. In essence, we can now have global ecology, we have a global economy but we have national politics, and this doesn't work together. This makes the political system ineffective because it has no control over the forces that shape our lives. And we have two solutions to this imbalance: either de-globalize the economy and turn it back into a national economy, or globalize the political system. And this is not possible so that’s why we need to have a balance between National Interest and Global Responsibility.?

For Example, the genetic engineering research in humans, won't help if just a single country, let's say the US, outlaws all genetic experiments in humans, but China or North Korea continues to do it. So the US cannot solve it by itself, and very quickly, the pressure on the US to do the same will be immense because we are talking about high-risk, high-gain technologies. If somebody else is doing it, I can't allow myself to remain behind. The only way to have regulations, effective regulations, on things like genetic engineering, is to have global regulations. If we just have national regulations, nobody would like to stay behind. And that comes from Global Responsibility.?

Concept of National Interest in the modern era of Global Ethics

National Interest is one of the old concepts which exists as the foundation of foreign policy. From George Washington to Hans Morgenthau, national interest has always been the major topic of discussion in the state and foreign policy. But in this modern era, we need to reform our old way of making foreign policy. In this era, nations need to include the concept of the Common Universal Good in their foreign policy. Nuechterlein (1976: 247) defines national interest as “the perceived needs and desires of one sovereign state in relation to other sovereign states comprising the external environment”. Even the national interest of the United Kingdom, one of the most developed countries in the world, is being questioned. The UK government receives many criticisms since their action, especially foreign policy in the Middle East, Libya, and Mali is not representing a national interest in the public eye (Edmunds, Gaskarth, and Porter, 2014: 1-2). Wearing (2014: 118- 119) argues that, based on empirical evidence, the UK prefers to follow the interest of global capitalist rather than national interest. Thus, the effect of globalization and capitalism is apparent. (Rifki Dermawan)

Globalization in the international system :

Globalization has a major impact on conditions of international politics. Many current changes affect the pattern of communications within international systems (Humphreys, 2015: 577). The state is no longer regarded as a single actor because others are involved in the sphere, such as civil societies, multinational corporations, and international organizations (Scholte, 2011: 10). (Rifki Dermawan)

Issues of common interest make a state consider not focusing on its national interest. At times, a state needs to priorities the common interest, allowing the global system to work properly. For Example, sometimes several states in the European Union (EU) need to leave their national interest behind because the community demands that states concentrate on the EU’s economic activity (Patten, 2002). We need to have stronger organizations for corporations such as the EU. We need to keep in mind when National Interest calls, for instance, the United Kingdom (UK) has taken firm action and decided to play its role in its relation with the EU. The recent Brexit can be considered an act of defending national interest, as UK Prime Minister Theresa May mentioned this realist terminology twice during her speech on 17 January 2017 (Deighton, 2017). (Rifki Dermawan) These situations in history tell us that different nations can have a different perspective towards Global Ethics and National Interests.

Sometimes the nations need to put their National Interests over Global Responsibilities but still, we need to have a balance between the two. As many scholars say, nothing is great, neither far-left nor far-right, we need to think and balance the two.

"How does Nationalism different compared to the times of World War I and II in the last century?"

In the context of the dangers of nationalism, we are in a much better position than a century ago. A century ago, in 1917, Europeans were killing each other by the millions. In 2016, with Brexit, as far, a single person lost their life, an MP who was murdered by some extremist. Just a single person. If Brexit was about British independence, this is the most peaceful war of independence in human history.?

Let's say that Scotland will now choose to leave the UK after Brexit. So in the 18th century, if Scotland wanted, and the Scots wanted several times to break out of the control of London, the reaction of the government in London was to send an army up north to burn down Edinburgh and massacre the highland tribes. In 2018, the Scots vote for independence, the London government will not send an army up north to burn down Edinburgh. Very few people are now willing to kill or be killed for Scottish or for British independence. So for all the talk of the rise of nationalism and going back to the 1930s, to the 19th century, in the West at least, the power of national sentiments today is far, far smaller than it was a century ago. (Yuval Noah Harari)?

NATO as Collective Defence

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or the North Atlantic Alliance is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 European and North American countries. NATO was formed as an alliance to defend itself. We have seen in history that alliances have been formed for fighting wars but in this modern era, NATO is a perfect example that we can win by our perception of power by coming together. We need more alliances like this but not for defense but the corporation for the Common Universal Good.

Conclusion

We talked about National Interests, Nationalism, Global Ethics, Globalization, and many more things but we need to keep in mind that things have changed much we can’t use historic solutions for the modern problems in International Cooperation. Discussing the relevancy of national interest in modern foreign policy requires a deep understanding of the global condition in this era. The world has changed, the coming of new technologies has shaped our perspective to see things. National interest, understood as an expression of the government's commitments towards its population, is an indispensable element of the decision-making process. States are not fully resistant to arguments for the protection of international values. But the commitment such as R2P opens a new path for solving these problems. I don’t say that Global Governance is the answer but I can certainly say that the world is changing and so do we, the change is the only constant and we need to go with it. One day in the future we need to take action not one, not for two but all mankind. We would be held accountable by our future generations for not cooperating but putting our well against Common Universal Good. I would like to conclude by saying that I agree that it is not an easy task to come together and work, but we need to do it because it is necessary. Until then we need to have a balance between National Interests and Global Responsibilities. One day we will make this world a better place.

References

TEDx - https://www.ted.com/

NATO - https://www.nato.int/

THE NATIONAL INTEREST CONCEPT IN A GLOBALISED INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM?by Rifki Dermawan, Andalas University

RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT. BALANCING NATIONAL INTERESTS AND INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS THROUGH MULTILATERALISM by Tomasz A. Lewandowski, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland

INTERNATIONAL TASK FORCE ON GLOBAL PUBLIC GOODS

R2P, United Nations Secretary-General - Implementing the Responsibility to Protect 2009

RIO+20 Portal - https://rio20.net/en/

EIA, Carnegie Council - https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/