REIMAGINING THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Dani Rodrik 1
January 2023
The post-1990s era of hyper-globalization is now commonly acknowledged to have come to an end. The
Covid pandemic and Russia’s war on Ukraine have relegated global markets to a secondary and at best
supporting role behind other national objectives -- public health and national security, in particular. In
fact, hyper-globalization had already been in retreat for a while, since the global financial crisis of 20072008. The share of trade in world GDP began to decline after 2007, as China’s export-GDP ratio
plummeted by a remarkable sixteen percentage points. Global value chains stopped spreading.
International capital flows never recovered to their pre-2007 heights. And populist politicians openly
hostile to globalization became much more powerful in the advanced economies.
All the talk about de-globalization should not blind us to the possibility that the present crisis may in fact
produce a better globalization. But we must begin by diagnosing where we went wrong.
Hyper-globalization’s contradictions
Hyper-globalization crumpled under its many contradictions. First, there was an economic tension
between the gains from specialization and the gains from diversification. The principle of comparative
advantage told countries they should specialize in what they were presently good at producing. But
there was also a long line of developmental thinking that suggested governments should instead push
their economies to produce what countries richer than them did. The result was a conflict between the
interventionist policies of the most successful economies, notably China, and the “liberal” principles
enshrined in the world trading system.
Second, hyper-globalization exacerbated distributional problems in many economies. Trade theory
predicted that a substantial redistribution of income from trade’s losers to its winners would be the
inevitable flip side of the gains from trade. That is exactly what happened as many regions and groups of
workers experienced income losses, with further negative consequences for social and health status.
And as globalization deepened, redistribution loomed larger and larger in comparison to the net gains.
Economists and technocrats who pooh-poohed the central logic of their discipline ended up
undermining public confidence in it.
Third, hyper-globalization directly undermined democracy by eroding the accountability of public
officials to their electorate. Reducing barriers to trade and financial globalization became code words for
diluting decades-old domestic social bargains in social safety nets, industrial policy, labor markets,
health and safety regulation, and macroeconomic stabilization. Calls to rewrite the rules of globalization
were met with the retort that globalization was like a physical force, immutable and irresistible -- “the
economic equivalent of a force of nature, like wind or water,” as Bill Clinton put. To those who
questioned the prevailing rules of globalization, British Prime Minister Tony Blair responded: “You might
as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.”
Prepared for Omidyear Group. This piece draws heavily on my previous writings for Project Syndicate and in
Foreign Affairs (September 2022).
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Fourth, there was an inherent tension between national security and geopolitical competition, on the
one hand, and international economic cooperation, on the other. The zero-sum logic of the former was
antithetical to the positive-sum logic of the latter. With the rise of China as a geopolitical rival to the
U.S., and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, strategic competition eventually reasserted itself over economics.
With hyper-globalization having collapsed, future scenarios for the world economy run the full gamut
from the good and the bad to the ugly. The worst outcome would be nations (or groups of nations)
retreating behind autarky, a la 1930s. A less bad, but still ugly, possibility is that international trade and
finance will turn merely into weapons of geopolitics, with trade wars and economic sanctions looming
large. The first of these scenarios seems unlikely -- as the world economy is more interdependent than
ever and the economic costs of would be huge – but we certainly cannot rule out the second one.
But it is also possible to envisage a good scenario whereby we achieve a better balance between the
prerogatives of the nation state and the requirements of an open economy. Such a rebalancing might
enable inclusive prosperity at home and peace and security abroad.
Two essential prerequisites
A healthy world economy necessarily rests on healthy national economies. Hence policy makers need to
prioritize mending the damage done to their economies and societies by hyper-globalization along with
other market fundamentalist policies. This will require going back to the spirit of the Bretton Woods era,
when the global economy was in the service of domestic economic and social goals – full employment,
prosperity, and equity – rather than the other way around. Under hyper-globalization, policy makers
inverted this logic, with the global economy becoming the end and domestic society the means,
reversing the “embedded liberalism” compromise of the Bretton Woods period. International
integration led to domestic disintegration.
One might worry that prioritizing domestic economic and social goals would undermine openness of the
economy. In reality, shared prosperity makes societies more secure and more likely to countenance
openness to foreigners and to the world. A key lesson of economic theory is that trade benefits the
nation as a whole, but only as long as distributive concerns are addressed. It is in the self-interest of
well-managed, well-ordered nations to be open. This is also the lesson of actual experience under
Bretton Woods, which witnessed significant expansion of trade and long-term investment.
There is also a second important prerequisite for the good scenario. Nations must not to turn a
legitimate quest for national security into aggression against others. For great powers, and the U.S. in
particular, this means acknowledging multipolarity and abandoning the quest for global primacy.
Washington tends to regard American predominance in global affairs as a natural and desirable state of
things. In this view of the world, China’s growing economy and advances in hi-tech are inherently and
self-evidently a threat and everything turns into a zero-sum game. This mindset is both dangerous and
unproductive. For one thing, it exacerbates the security dilemma. American policies designed to
undermine China’s hi-tech initiatives are likely to make China feel threatened and respond in ways that
validate U.S. fears of Chinese expansionism. It also makes it harder to reap the mutual gains from
cooperation in areas such as climate change and global public health, while acknowledging that there
will be necessarily conflict in many others. As for Russia, the country may have had reasonable concerns
against NATO expansion, but its war in Ukraine is a completely disproportionate response. It will likely
leave Russia less secure and less prosperous in the longer run.
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The Limits of Global Governance
Globalization requires rules. These rules are enforced either formally or informally, in the latter case
through states internalizing shared norms of behavior. The key question that ought to determine
whether a policy domain should be globalized is: does the domain in question necessitate global
cooperation and coordination, or can we leave decision-making to national authorities without great
cost to other nations? In view of the US-China geopolitical competition and the turn towards domestic
priorities, the appetite for global cooperation will be in even shorter supply in the years ahead. This
makes it all the more important that we focus on those areas where there is a genuine and significant
need for global governance.
Nearly all domestic policies create some spillovers across the border for other nations. So we might be
tempted to answer this question in favor of globalist outcomes in almost all instances. Since what we do
at home affect others, shouldn’t there be always some global rules that discipline national practices?
By this logic, there would be few policies that would be left strictly to national authorities. For example,
our education policies shape our future comparative advantage, and hence the gains from trade of other
nations. When we acquire a more skilled labor force, some of our trading partners may well end up
worse off because their skill-intensive exports will face tougher competition. By the spillovers logic,
education should not be left to national policy makers! Or to take perhaps an even more outlandish
example, each nation’s rules on highway speed limits should be subject to global discipline because
these policies obviously influence the price of oil and hence the well-being of oil-exporting nations!
The reason that such examples don’t seem to make such sense is that there is a contending logic that
pushes in the other, anti-globalist direction. Nations each have different needs and circumstances, and
national political authorities are, in principle, the best judge of how to respond to those. In other words,
nations should be free to choose what is best for them. Such freedom can be valuable even when the
argument for global coordination is otherwise unimpeachable.
Hence every globalization regime faces a central tradeoff. Global rules have the advantage that they can
maximize global efficiency, reduce transaction costs across national borders, and allow nations to reap
the gains from trade and benefits of scale. But they have the disadvantage of reducing policy autonomy,
hence inhibiting policy diversity and experimentation at the national level. A well-designed globalization
regime would pursue an appropriate mix of global efficiency and policy diversity, without seeking to
maximize either.
In global economics, architects of the Bretton Woods regime got the balance mostly right. Having lived
through the Gold Standard’s eventful demise during the interwar period, John Maynard Keynes was
keenly aware of the need to carve out space for national stabilization policies. He envisaged capital
controls, to prevent disruptive speculative financial flows, to be an essential element of the post-war
global economic system. In trade, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade similarly established a
thin veneer of global rules, enabling a significant expansion of trade in manufactures while governments
were left free to devise their own regulatory models.
The post-1990 push into hyper-globalization ignored the lessons of the earlier era. The World Trade
Organization, established in 1994, and subsequent trade agreements pursued a model of “deep
integration” under which domestic regulations (in health, environment, intellectual property, subsidies,
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industrial policies) were increasingly viewed as trade barriers, impeding global efficiency. The free flow
of short-term capital became the rule, rather than the norm, imposing limits on countries’ monetary,
fiscal, and tax policies.
A little appreciated irony of the post-1990 arrangements is that their greatest beneficiary was China, a
country that played the globalization game not by hyper-globalization rules, but by Bretton Woods rules.
China actively managed its exchange rate, restricted capital flows, and deployed a wide range of
subsidies and other industrial policy tools, while taking advantage of other countries’ open markets, to
engineer economic history’s most impressive economic growth and poverty reduction experience.
Where Global Governance is Really Needed
Beyond this basic trade-off, there are two sets of circumstances under which the argument for global
rules carries significant weight. In economists’ technical jargon, these are “beggar-thy-neighbor” policies
and “global public goods.” I will use these terms here because they have clear analytical content and
cover very specific conditions. They clearly demarcate areas where global rules are necessary from those
where they are not.
Beggar-thy-neighbor policies refer to policies that provide benefits at home only to the extent that they
impose costs on foreign countries. Note that it is not enough that there be harm for others. The
domestic benefits must be the direct result of that harm. The classic case is the abuse of monopoly
power on world markets through trade restrictions. For example, some years back China imposed export
restrictions on rare earth elements, used in many electronics products such as mobile phones. China has
a near-monopoly in the production of these minerals and the policy was clearly aimed at jacking up
world prices.
Another illustration is undervaluing the value of the national currency to gain a competitive advantage
and “export” unemployment to other countries. This practice, common during the Great Depression of
the 1930s, is what prompted the British economist Joan Robinson to coin the term “beggar-thy-nation.”
A third example are “pure” tax havens – practices that shift paper profits without attracting real physical
investment. Some small nations such as Bermuda or the Cayman Islands maintain very low corporate tax
rates to attract corporate headquarters. This results in substantial tax losses for other, higher-tax
jurisdictions.
Global public goods (or bads) refer to circumstances where benefits (or costs) of national action are
shared equally by all nations. The clearest and most significant example is climate change. Whether
greenhouse gases are produced in my country or yours makes no difference to global warming. If I
impose carbon taxes in mine, you benefit as much as I do. Under these circumstances, individual nations
are likely to under-invest substantially in providing for the collective good and have strong incentive to
free ride on other nations’ contributions -- sadly an all-too apparent reality in climate change. Many
aspects of fighting health pandemics also have a global public good nature. Early-warning systems,
information collection, development of vaccines and medicines provide benefits to all nations regardless
of where the investments are made. Our common humanity means that basic human rights – freedom
from discrimination and degrading treatment -- are yet another global public good.
These considerations clarify why climate change and global public health in particular call for globalizing
policy. In these domains, moving beyond the nation state to develop global rules that allocate
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responsibilities and prerogatives is a worthwhile, if challenging objective. On the flip side, these
principles reveal that the case for global regimes is much weaker in other domains. This is especially true
for economic globalization. Much of the effort and political capital invested in recent decades in building
global rules for the world economy cannot be justified on the basis of these first-order considerations.
This may be a surprising claim. In the vernacular of the financial press, business circles, and policy
technocracy, the world economy is a “global commons” that necessitates global cooperation. But the
metaphor is misleading for the most part. There are some exceptions to be sure, and I mentioned the
most important ones previously. Abuse of national market power, competitive currency manipulation,
and tax havens do need to be disciplined through global rules. But the vast majority of the problems we
encounter in international economics derive neither from beggar-thy-neighbor policies nor from failures
to provide for a global public good.
In economics, virtue is its own reward. The policies that expand the national economic pie also tend to
be good for other nations. Openness to foreign trade and foreign investment, full-employment policies,
price stability, appropriate prudential regulation of financial institutions, growth-promoting structural
policies are all the cornerstones of a healthy global economy. Well governed nations do not need
persuasion from other countries to pursue such policies, because they are even more essential for the
home economy to function well. Take free trade. As economists delight in demonstrating to first-year
students, the point of free trade is to expand domestic consumption possibilities; it is not to confer
benefits to other nations. The same is true for openness to long-term capital flows, growth policies, or
macroeconomic stability.
There is a key caveat in the previous paragraph, and it shows up in the phrase “well governed.”
Incompetence or the power of special interests frequently push governments to make mistakes that are
costly to their economies, and hence to others’ as well. Trade barriers or subsidies may redistribute
income to politically well-connected firms or sectors. Regulators may err in allowing banks to take
excessive risks, increasing the likelihood of financial crises. Failures of this sort are common enough. But
they do not arise from weak global governance. They are the product of bad local governance. The costs
– to consumers, taxpayers, financial stability – are borne primarily at home.
It is possible that global rules might enhance national governance in some instances. Global information
sharing, transparency norms, and rules that promote evidence-based decision making cannot hurt. But
there cannot be a presumption that globalizing policy regimes will reliably prevent domestic policy
mistakes. Global rules can be hijacked by special interests just as easily as domestic policies can, to
overturn social contracts or arrangements in the broader public interest. Perhaps the clearest example
of this is how big pharma has managed to rewrite global rules on patents to preserve and increase
monopoly profits. It is no secret that the agenda of hyper-globalization has been set by multinational
corporations and big banks, with labor, environmental and civil society groups typically on the defensive.
Instead of targeting genuine domestic governance failures, global economic rules have been designed
for the most part to privilege one set of distributive interests over others. The recent history economic
globalization provides ample reason for global rules to be restricted to clear-cut instances of beggar-thyneighbor and global public goods.
A Meta-Regime for Global Order
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With these considerations as background, it is possible to envisage a thinner form of globalization that
enables countries to reap most of the benefits from trade and encourages the provision of global public
goods, while also leaving adequate space for governments to address their domestic economic, social,
political, and national-security priorities. In a recent piece, Steve Walt and I have outlined a meta-regime
for global order with that objective. The regime makes a distinction between four categories of policies:
(i) prohibited actions; (ii) negotiations and mutual adjustments; (iii) independent actions; (iv)
multilateral governance. To participate in it, states would agree on the desirability of this four-fold
classification of policies, without having to agree in advance on which actions or issues belong in each
category or on specific policy outcomes. The meta-regime presumes little agreement at the outset but
might allow increasing cooperation over time as a result of transparency, mutual reason-giving, and
trust-building.
Consider how this framework might be applied in one contentious policy domain: competition in hightech industries. As China’s high-tech industries have developed, U.S. and European policy-makers have
become concerned not only about the commercial consequences but also the national security
implications. Our meta-regime would allow Western nations considerable latitude in limiting Chinese
firms’ activities or presence within their own countries, largely on national security grounds. But it
would also limit attempts to undermine Chinese industries through deliberate international restrictions.
For example, as the Chinese company Huawei has become a dominant force in global 5G networks, U.S.
and European policymakers have grown concerned not only about the commercial consequences but
also the national security implications, because Huawei is believed to have close ties to the Chinese
security establishment. But the hardline response by the United States—which has sought to cripple
Huawei’s international activities and pressured U.S. telecom operators not to do business with it—is
unproductive and has ratcheted up tensions. The recent, much broader restrictions on advanced
semiconductors are even more extreme.
In fact, there are more effective strategies for dealing with tech conflicts such as Huawei. In contrast to
the United States, the British government negotiated an arrangement with Huawei under which the
company’s products in the British telecoms market undergo an annual security evaluation. The
evaluations are conducted by the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC), whose governing
board includes a Huawei representative along with senior officials from the British government and
telecom sector. If the annual evaluation finds areas of concern, it must make them public and state its
rationale. Thus, the 2019 HCSEC report found that Huawei’s software and cybersecurity system posed
risks to British operators and would require significant adjustments to address these risks. In July 2020,
the United Kingdom decided to ban Huawei from its 5G network.
Ultimately, HCSEC may have had less to do with the British ban than direct U.S. pressure, but it still
illustrates the possibility of a more transparent and less contentious approach. The technical reasoning
on which a national-security determination has been made can be seen and evaluated by all parties,
including domestic firms with a commercial stake in Huawei’s investments, the Chinese government,
and Huawei itself. This feature alone can help build trust as each party develops a fuller understanding
of the other’s motives and actions. Transparency also makes it more difficult for home governments to
invoke national security concerns as a cover for purely protectionist commercial considerations. And it
may facilitate negotiating over time mutually beneficial bargains.
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Nonetheless, most actions in hi-tech are likely to end up in our third category, where states take
unilateral measures to protect themselves. Here, our framework requires the responses to be
proportionate to actual or potential harms rather than as a means to gain strategic advantage. The
Trump administration violated this principle by barring U.S. corporations from exporting microchips and
other components to Huawei and its suppliers, regardless of where they operated or the purposes for
which their products were used. Instead of seeking to protect the United States from espionage or some
sort of cyberattack, the clear intention was to deliver a fatal blow to Huawei by starving it of essential
inputs.
Moreover, the U.S. campaign has had serious economic repercussions for other countries. Many lowincome countries in Africa have benefited from Huawei’s relatively inexpensive equipment. Since U.S.
policy has important implications for these countries, Washington should have engaged in a multilateral
process that acknowledged the costs that cracking down on Huawei would inflict on others—an
approach that would have conserved global goodwill at little cost to U.S. national security.
President Biden’s recent policy on U.S. semiconductor sales to China -- a vast array of new restrictions
on the sale of advanced technologies to Chinese firms -- raise these problems to an altogether new
level. Biden has gone much further than Donald Trump, who had targeted individual companies. The
new measures are astounding in their ambition, aiming at nothing less than preventing the rise of China
as a high-tech power. Edward Luce of the Financial Times calls it “a full-blown economic war on China.”
Gregory C. Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies calls it “a new U.S. policy of actively
strangling large segments of the Chinese technology industry—strangling with an intent to kill.”
In this case, the U.S. response amounts to doubling down on U.S. primacy instead of accommodating to
the realities of a post-unipolar world. The Biden administration has given up on making a distinction
between technologies that directly help the Chinese military (and hence might pose a threat to U.S.
allies) and commercial technologies (which might produce economic benefits not just to China but
others as well, not least American firms). The U.S. has now crossed a line, with momentous implications.
Such a broad-brush approach by the U.S., even if partially justified by the intertwined nature of the
commercial and military sectors in China, raises significant dangers of its own. China will justifiably treat
this as an aggressive move and will find ways to retaliate, raising tensions and heightening mutual fears
even further.
Great powers (and indeed all nations) look out for their interests and protect their national security,
taking counter-measures against other powers as necessary. But a secure, prosperous, and stable world
order requires that these responses be well-calibrated, meaning that they have to be clearly linked to
the damage inflicted by the other side’s policies and intended solely to mitigate their negative effects.
They should not be taken for the express purpose of punishing the other side or weakening it in the long
run. Biden’s export controls on high-tech does not pass this test.
A Thinner but Better Globalization
The retreat from hyper-globalization can lead us down the path of trade wars and rising ethnonationalism, damaging economic prospects for all. But it need not do so. It is possible to envisage a more
sensible, less intrusive model of economic globalization that focuses on areas where international
cooperation truly pays off – global public health, international environmental agreements, global tax
havens and other beggar-thy-neighbor policies -- but otherwise leaves nations unencumbered to
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prioritize their economic and social problems at home. Such a global order would not be inimical to the
expansion of world trade and investment. It might even facilitate it insofar as it opens up space for
restoring domestic social bargains in the advanced economies and crafting appropriate growth
strategies in the developing world.
Such a good outcome, however, looks more and more remote by the day, as nations choose to overreact to geopolitical concerns. Until recently, we made the error of letting international banks and
corporations write the rules of globalization. We now run the risk of handing the same privilege to the
national security establishments of great powers. In the earlier era, it was our domestic social fabric and
politics that paid the cost. Today, we are risking global peace as well.
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Journal of Evolutionary Economics (2022) 32:1391–1394
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-022-00774-7
BOOK REVIEW
Eswar S. Prasad (2021): The future of money: how the
digital revolution is transforming currencies and finance
Belknap press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts,
LCCN 2021008025
Simarjeet Singh1
· Manika Sharma2 · Sandeepa Kaur3
Accepted: 3 June 2022 / Published online: 7 July 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022
JEL Codes E42 · E50 · E58
Industry 4.0 technologies are gaining strong momentum and thrust around the globe
(Toorajipour et al. 2021). These technological advancements are disrupting every
sphere of human life. The financial sector is not an exception. Banking, finance and
money are witnessing a wave of transformation. The advent of cryptocurrencies, sovereign digital currencies, and efficient digital payment systems are moving economies towards cashless societies. Challenger banks, discount brokers, Robo-advisors,
crowdfunding and p2p lending platforms are challenging the traditional financial
institutions through cost-effective and personalized financial services. Decentralized finance through smart contracts and decentralized autonomous organizations
aims to offer direct peer to peer financial services by “cutting out the traditional
intermediaries”. Although at first glance, these financial innovations seem to be a
potential solution for inefficiencies in traditional finance, detailed evaluation of these
financial innovations reveal that these innovations can bring unknown financial and
non-financial risks. The present book is an initial step for economists, academicians,
policymakers, and entrepreneurs who want to understand contemporary and ongoing
financial innovations, the mechanism, and their implications. From the exponential
escalation of m-money in China to the on-demand insurance in the advanced countries, the book gives an integrated overview of social, economic and political impli-
Simarjeet Singh
jeetsimarkamal93@gmail.com
1
Indian School of Business, Mohali, India
2
IILM, Noida, India
3
Department of Management, Jagannath International Management School, Kalkaji, India
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S. Singh et al.
cations of ongoing financial advancements. The entire book is segregated into ten
chapters.
The introductory chapter shed light on the idea of cashless societies and how
contemporary and ongoing disruptions in financial technologies are rewiring the
financial systems. Nevertheless, balancing these financial disruptions with risk management is a critical challenge for governments and regulators. The chapter discusses
the transformative potential of private digital currencies, i.e., cryptocurrencies and
stable coins and central banks response to these currencies in form of sovereign digital currencies.
To evaluate whether the looming changes in the financial landscape are truly
transformative, one needs to understand the fundamental structure of the financial
systems and supportive institutional framework, i.e., regulators, effective judicial
systems and government oversight. Chapter 2 set the stage for understanding how
disruptive financial innovations could impact money and finance. Through a detailed
discussion about functions, forms and measures of money, financial markets, instruments and institutions, this chapter outlines the various pain points in current financial systems that can be potential opportunities for financial incumbents and startups.
Chapter 3 explores the financial landscape’s core areas where novel financial technologies are making inroads. Democratization of banking, lending, insurance and
payment services highlights the revolutionary potential of ongoing financial innovations. Although these innovations in the form of challenger banks, Robo advisors,
p2p lending platforms, insurtech and digital payment services providers promise
enormous potential benefits, the evolution of untested business models can also bring
some unknown risks.
Chapter 4 lays the foundation for a detailed evaluation of digital currencies. The
chapter introduces Bitcoin, one of the revolutionary ideas in the world of finance.
This chapter also discusses distributed ledged technologies, consensus mechanisms,
cryptography and other aspects related to algorithm currencies. Despite the remarkable staying power, Bitcoin falls short due to high volatility, power-intensive consensus protocol, scaling issues, the possibility of de-anonymization, unbacked private
currency and crummy medium of exchange. This plethora of imperfections and
lacunas has spawned a variety of alternative cryptocurrencies. Chapter 5 carefully
examine these crypto alternatives and reveal that these alternatives do not fulfil the
promise they claim. The chapter also introduces contemporary themes in the crypto
space such as Initial coin offerings, Initial equity offerings, Securities token offerings, Equity token offerings and decentralized finance. The author concludes this
chapter with a caution that efficiency gains arising from these decentralized systems
need to balance against technical fragilities that could entail substantial financial and
economic damage.
In response to the emerging popularity of decentralized private digital currencies,
several central banks are testing the possibility to introduce digital versions of their
currencies. Chapter 6 analyze the various forms of the Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the principal motivations behind issuing CBDCs. Transactional
efficiency, increased financial inclusion, higher seigniorage revenues, broadened tax
base, and additional monetary policy tool are major advantages of CBDCs. Nevertheless, technological vulnerabilities, financial instability and squelching innovation
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Eswar S. Prasad (2021): The future of money: how the digital revolution…
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are possible downsides that should be balanced against the benefits that arise from a
CBDC. Continuing the discussion on CBDCs, Chap. 7 gives insights into the status
of various wholesale and retail CBDCs projects. The author illustrates various design
principles and challenges involved in implementing a CBDC project through these
projects. Apart from the CBDCs, this chapter also covers the concept of sovereign
cryptocurrencies through which Venezuela tried to bypass international sanctions.
Chapter 8 outlines the consequences of financial innovations on international
monetary systems that encompasses international payments, exchange rates between
currencies, global capital flows and several rules of games that nations have agreed
to honour. These innovations can have a limited impact on the operation and structure of financial markets; however, there will not be any fundamental reordering of
the international monetary system. Network effects seem to be a potent force against
rapid financial changes. Chapter 9 pinpoints the complex challenges for financial
regulators and governments that arise due to fintech developments. This chapter also
discusses several creative regulatory approaches such as regulatory sandboxes to
balance the innovation-risk tradeoff. In the concluding chapter, the author presents
financial innovations as a double-edged sword. At one end, these financial advancements are broadening financial inclusion and causing more efficiency in financial
intermediaries. On the other end, these advancements can broaden the gap between
richer and poorer as economically marginalized populations lack financial literacy
and internet access.
The current book suggests that the success of financial innovations depends on
sound and flexible regulatory frameworks and sensible government policies. Risks
arising from premature financial advancements, particularly in emerging markets,
should be balanced against the threats of adopting a passive approach that has its
own drawbacks. Since money is on the verge of another transformation, economists
and financial researchers need to understand motivations, design and macroeconomic
implications of digital currencies. This book offers valuable insights to understand
the impact of digital currencies on monetary policy, commercial banks and financial
stability.
Funding Authors do not receive any funding for this project.
Data Availability Statements Not applicable.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest There is no conflict of interest among authors.
Ethical Conduct This is an original work of authors.
References
Prasad ES (2021) The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and
Finance. Belknap Press
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Toorajipour R, Sohrabpour V, Nazarpour A, Oghazi P, Fischl M (2021) Artificial intelligence in supply
chain management: A systematic literature review. J Bus Res 122:502–517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jbusres.2020.09.009
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
13
Digital currencies and the future of the monetary system
Remarks by Agustín Carstens 1
General Manager, Bank for International Settlements
Hoover Institution policy seminar
Basel 27 January 2021
Introduction
It is a great pleasure to be here today. Thank you to John Taylor and John Cochrane for the invitation. It is
an honour to speak to this select group of Hoover Institution affiliates, Stanford faculty and Stanford
students – who are surely the policymakers, entrepreneurs and innovators of tomorrow.
In my remarks today, I will address the digitisation of money. 2 Does the economy need digital
currencies? Digital money itself is not new. Commercial bank money has been digital for decades, and we
already use digital means of payment on a daily basis. Central banks already provide wholesale digital
money to banks.
In today’s lecture, though, I would like to discuss new forms of digital currencies or “digital cash”
that have been in the news lately, including central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. If we need digital
currencies of these new kinds, who should issue them, and how should they be designed? What are the
implications of digital currencies for the monetary system? These are weighty issues that are much on the
minds of central bankers, scholars and the general public. Today I hope to clarify the concepts and sketch
a path for the way forward.
1. Do we need new digital currencies? If so, who should issue them?
Let’s start with whether the economy needs digital currencies, and from whom.
It is stating the obvious that our economy is in the middle of a technological revolution. 3 A
combination of new digital technologies and greater online activity allows huge volumes of data to be
1
I would like to thank Raphael Auer, Jon Frost, Leonardo Gambacorta and Hyun Song Shin for support in preparing this speech,
and Morten Bech, Sarah Bell, Stijn Claessens, Emma Claggett and Tara Rice for providing comments. I thank Giulio Cornelli for
research assistance.
2
“Digitisation” refers to the process of changing information from analogue to digital form. In the context of money, this refers
to creating a digital representation of money, or moving it to digital form. “Digitalisation”, meanwhile, refers to the use of digital
technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities, or the process of moving
to a digital business. See Gartner, Gartner Glossary, 2021, accessed 15 January 2021.
3
F Caselli, “Technological revolutions”, American Economic Review, vol 89, no 1, 1999 defines a technological revolution simply as
“the introduction of a new type of machines” that are “more productive than machines of the pre-existing type”. T Kuhn, The
structure of scientific revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962 discusses the related notion of scientific revolutions, when, in
the accumulation of new knowledge, anomalies lead to a sudden “paradigm shift” or change in beliefs. K Schwab, “The fourth
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collected, managed and telecommunicated. This has dramatically lowered the costs of many tasks. 4 It has
resulted in powerful, hyper-scalable applications that have disrupted entire industries – everything from
taxis to print media. New players have entered the digital economy to provide these services. While
advances in information technology and communications have been under way for many decades, the
past decade has ushered in truly far-reaching changes. The Covid-19 pandemic may have further
accelerated the pace of digital change. 5
The technological revolution has also reached the financial system – and even the design of
money itself. Just to name one example, on primary foreign exchange (FX) venues, market-makers can
now access real-time prices at five-millisecond time intervals. Project Rio, a new application for monitoring
fast-paced markets developed at the BIS Innovation Hub, allows the entire market order book to be
monitored every 100 milliseconds, or 36,000 times every hour. 6
The first point of entry into finance is the market for payment services, which are foundational to
all economic activity. 7 Payments are attractive for digital disrupters because they are relatively less capitalintensive than other financial services, and the information they generate is highly valuable for crossselling. Perhaps it is no surprise that we’ve seen a burst of digital innovation in payments, including new
digital payment offerings by fintech startups, big techs and incumbents. 8
Many payment innovations build on improvements to underlying infrastructures that have been
many years in the making. For instance, harnessing technological progress, central banks around the world
have instituted real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems over the past decades. Meanwhile, operating
hours of these systems have continued to lengthen around the globe, and in several countries are already
operating almost 24/7. Also on the retail side, innovation is rampant, and a growing number of economies
– 51 by our last count – have fast retail payment systems, which allow 24/7 instant settlement of payments
between households and businesses (Graph 1). These include systems like the Unified Payment Interface
(UPI) in India, CoDi in Mexico, PIX in Brazil and the FedNow proposal in the US. Together, these innovations
have shown that the existing system can adapt, providing good examples of how innovation in publicprivate partnerships is working.
industrial revolution: what it means, how to respond”, Foreign Affairs, December 2015 discusses the unique features of the fourth
industrial revolution, which involves “a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological
spheres”.
4
For an overview, see A Goldfarb and C Tucker, “Digital economics”, Journal of Economic Literature, vol 57, no 1, 2019.
5
To name just one example, the pandemic has led to a surge in e-commerce, particularly in countries with stricter lockdown
measures and where e-commerce was previously less developed. See V Alfonso, C Boar, J Frost, L Gambacorta and J Liu,
“E-commerce in the pandemic and beyond”, BIS Bulletin, no 36, 2021.
6
Project Rio is being developed in the BIS Innovation Hub’s Switzerland Centre, together with the Swiss National Bank. See BIS,
“BIS Innovation Hub sets out annual work programme and launches Innovation Network”, press release, 22 January 2021; and
A Carstens, “Central bank innovation – from Switzerland to the world”, speech at the founding ceremony of the BIS Innovation
Hub Swiss Centre, Zurich, 8 October 2019.
7
See BIS, “Central banks and payments in the digital era”, Annual Economic Report 2020, June 2020, Chapter III.
8
See M Bech and J Hancock, “Innovations in payments”, BIS Quarterly Review, March 2020.
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Diffusion of retail fast payment systems1
Number of countries
1
Graph 1
The dotted part of the lines corresponds to projected implementation.
Source: BIS, “Central banks and payments in the digital era”, Annual Economic Report 2020, June 2020, Chapter III.
Yet no one is compelled to choose the path of the existing monetary system. In addition to
improvements to existing systems, many attempts to innovate in less traditional fields have been
unleashed. One example is digital currencies – which could transcend both traditional account-based
money and physical cash. As already mentioned, account-based money has been digital for decades, as
electronic deposits on a digital ledger. Yet there have been calls and attempts to digitise all money,
including cash. 9 In my view, fully replacing either bank accounts or cash is neither desirable nor realistic,
but let us discuss what a further digitisation of money could look like.
Narayana Kocherlakota – one of the world’s leading monetary theorists, former president of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and a former Stanford professor – argued in a famous 1998 paper
that “money is memory”. By substituting for an otherwise complex web of bilateral IOUs, money is a
substitute for a publicly available and freely accessible device that records who owes what to whom. 10
The idea that money is the economy’s memory leads us to two forks in the road for the design
of digital money (Graph 2). At these junctions, decisions about architecture and access need to be taken.
First, it needs to be ensured that the memory is always and everywhere correct. In payments parlance, this
means ensuring the integrity and safety of the payment system, as well as the finality of payments. How
to do this relates to the role of a central intermediary versus a decentralised governance system. And
second, rules to guide who has access to this information, and under what circumstances, need to be
determined, with appropriate safeguards in place to protect privacy. In other words, we need to establish
both proper identification and privacy in the payment system. Let me discuss these in turn.
9
For instance, see K Rogoff, “The case against cash”, Project Syndicate, 5 September 2016; and K Rogoff, “Will Covid make countries
drop cash and adopt digital currencies?”, The Guardian, 6 August 2020.
10
See N Kocherlakota, “Money is memory”, Journal of Economic Theory, vol 81, issue 2, 1998.
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Two forks in the road for digital currencies
Graph 2
Source: Adapted from R Auer and R Böhme, “The technology of retail central bank digital currency”, BIS Quarterly Review, March 2020, pp 85–
100.
If societies want digital money, the first fork in the road is the choice of operational architecture.
Should the payment system rely on a trusted central authority (such as the central bank) to ensure integrity
and finality? Or could it be based on a decentralised governance system, where the validity of a payment
depends on achieving consensus among network participants on what counts as valid payments?
This is the concept behind Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto’s protocol envisions a decentralised
consensus, with no need for a central intermediary. Yet in practice, it is clear that Bitcoin is more of a
speculative asset than money. One contact recently told me that like Bitcoin is “Tesla without the cars” –
observers are fascinated by it, but the actual value backing is lacking. Perhaps the Bitcoin network should
be seen more like a community of online gamers, who exchange real money for items that only exist in
cyber space. Bitcoin poses as its own unit of account, but fluctuations in value mean it is unrealistic to set
prices in bitcoin. This also undermines its usefulness as a means of exchange, and makes it a poor store of
value. The structure of the Bitcoin market is decidedly concentrated and opaque, and there is research
evidence on price manipulation. 11
Above all, investors must be cognisant that Bitcoin may well break down altogether. 12 Scarcity
and cryptography alone do not suffice to guarantee exchange. Bitcoin needs a hugely energy-intensive
protocol, called “proof of work”, to safely process transactions. Currently, so-called miners sustain the
system’s security, and are rewarded with newly minted coins. A sad side effect is that the system uses more
electricity than all of Switzerland. In the future, as Bitcoin approaches its maximum supply of 21 million
coins, the “seigniorage” to miners will decline. As a result, wait times will increase (Graph 3, left-hand panel)
11
See J Griffin and A Shams, “Is Bitcoin really untethered?”, The Journal of Finance, vol 74, no 4, 2020.
12
On the outlook for Bitcoin, see R Auer,: “Beyond the doomsday economics of ‘proof-of-work’ in cryptocurrencies”, BIS Working
Papers, no 765, January 2019.
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and the system will be increasingly vulnerable to the “majority attacks” that are already plaguing smaller
cryptocurrencies (right-hand panel). 13
Bitcoin is increasingly vulnerable; others already have been “majority attacked”
Substantially longer waiting time results when block
reward declines1
Graph 3
A timeline of cryptocurrency majority attacks since 2017
2017
2018
2019
Attack ETH Classic
Attack ETH Classic
Attack ETH Classic
Reorg Bitcoin Gold
Attack Vertcoin
Reorg Bitcoin Gold
Reorg Bitcoin Cash
Attack Vertcoin
Attack Vertcoin
Attack Karbo
Attack Vertcoin
Attack ETH Classic
Attack Pigeoncoin
Attack Bitcoin Private
Attack Vertcoin
Attack AurumCoin
Attack Verge
Attack Bitcoin Gold
Attack Litecoin cash
Attack Electronuem
Attack Monacoin
Attack Verge
Attack ZenCash
Hours
2020
The lines show the implied waiting time (number of block confirmations before merchants can safely assume that a payment is irreversible)
required to make an economic attack unprofitable: the attacker rents mining equipment on a short-term basis and executes a change-ofhistory attack. The dashed pattern indicates predicted values (see Auer (2019) for calculations).
1
Sources: R Auer, “Beyond the doomsday economics of ‘proof-of-work’ in cryptocurrencies”, BIS Working Papers, no 765, January 2019;
S Shanaev, A Shuraeva, M Vasenin and M Kuznetsov, “Cryptocurrency value and 51% attacks: evidence from event studies”, The Journal of
Alternative Investments, Winter, 2020; blocksdecoded.com; bravenewcoin.com; btcmanager.com; coinbase.com; Coindesk.com; deribit.com;
github.com; medium.com.
What then of so-called stablecoins – cryptocurrencies that seek to stabilise their value against
sovereign fiat currencies or another safe asset? Facebook’s Libra – recently renamed Diem – was initially
marketed as a “simple currency for billions”. It would import credibility by being pegged to a basket of
stable currencies like the US dollar and euro. More recent incarnations of Diem would be denominated in
individual sovereign currencies, looking more like so-called e-money or other digital payment services.
This is certainly more credible than Bitcoin. But there are still serious governance concerns if a private
entity issues its own currency and is responsible for maintaining its asset backing. Historical examples
show us that there may be strong incentives to deviate from an appropriate asset backing, such as pressure
to invest in riskier assets to achieve higher returns. 14 Overall, private stablecoins cannot serve as the basis
for a sound monetary system. There may yet be meaningful specific use cases for stablecoins. But to remain
credible, they need to be heavily regulated and supervised. They need to build on the foundations and
trust provided by existing central banks, and thus to be part of the existing financial system. 15
13
See A Carstens, “Money in the digital age: what role for central banks?”, speech, 6 February 2018; and BIS, “Cryptocurrencies:
looking beyond the hype”, Annual Economic Report 2018, 2018, Chapter V.
14
For one such example, see J Frost, H S Shin and P Wierts, “An early stablecoin? The Bank of Amsterdam and the governance of
money”, BIS Working Papers, no 905, November 2020.
15
See Libra Association, White Paper v 2.0, 16 April 2020; D Arner, R Auer and J Frost, “Stablecoins: risks, potential and regulation”,
Bank of Spain Financial Stability Review, no 39, 2020.
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I side here with Milton Friedman, who argued, “Something like a moderately stable monetary
framework seems an essential prerequisite for the effective operation of a private market economy. It is
dubious that the market can by itself provide such a framework. Hence, the function of providing one is
an essential governmental function on a par with the provision of a stable legal framework.” 16 This idea
remains as relevant as ever in the digital age.
So, clearly, if digital money is to exist, the central bank must play a pivotal role, guaranteeing the
stability of value, ensuring the elasticity of the aggregate supply of such money, and overseeing the overall
security of the system. Such a system must not fail and cannot tolerate any serious mistakes.
The second fork in the road is the question of how access should be arranged. There are many
nuances, but the main choice is whether access should be around verification of identity as in bank
accounts (sometimes called “account-based access”) or around validity of the object being traded as with
physical cash, for instance with cryptography (“token-based access”). 17 In other words, is it “I am, therefore
I own” or “I know, therefore I own” (Graph 4)?
16
M Friedman, A program for monetary stability, Fordham University Press, 1960.
17
Importantly, this definition of token versus accounts must not be confused with the one used in the field of computer science.
Here the distinction between accounts and tokens is the identification requirements: “In a token-based system, the thing that
must be identified for the payee to be satisfied with the validity of the payment is the ‘thing’ being transferred – ‘is this thing
counterfeit or legitimate?’ In an account-based system, however, the identification is of the customer – ‘Is this person who she
says she is? Does she really have an account with us?’” (C Kahn, “How are payment accounts special? Payments innovation”
symposium, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, 2016).
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Account-based access compared with token-based access
Graph 4
In an account-based CBDC (left-hand side), ownership is tied to an identity, and transactions are authorised via identification. In a CBDC based
on digital tokens (right-hand side), claims are honoured based solely on demonstrated knowledge, such as a digital signature.
Source: R Auer and R Böhme, “The technology of retail central bank digital currency”, BIS Quarterly Review, March 2020, pp 85–100.
Again, this harks back to the notion of money as the memory of society’s economic interactions
and the need for identification in it. Just as our memories are tied to experiences we have in specific
relationships, money does not exist in a vacuum that is separate from economic relationships. Economic
transactions weave a web of long-term relationships between suppliers, intermediaries and customers, as
well as between borrowers and lenders. Such a web of trading creates – and rests on – a reservoir of
relationship-specific capital that sustains financial relationships. 18 This capital is built up with the
identification of all counterparties, as well as some degree of traceability of the underlying transactions.
Historical examples show that identification has been critical to allow commerce to flourish. For
instance, in 18th century Europe merchants used so-called bills of exchange to solve the lack of trust
between physically remote lenders and borrowers. Instead of extending loans directly to borrowers in
distant cities, merchants could make arrangements with others whom they personally knew, creating a
web connecting far-flung parties together. Another example are the Maghreb traders of the 11th century.
As Avner Greif – also of Stanford – famously showed, it was identity and traceability that allowed these
traders to sustain trade, even over long distances and in the presence of great uncertainty. 19
This is even more the case today: your virtual ID is key to government benefits like pensions and
cash transfers. Some form of identification is crucial for the safety of the payment system, preventing fraud,
and supporting anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). There are
trade-offs between access and traceability. Socially, there are many benefits to having more information,
for example to prevent money laundering or tax evasion. Good identification can help here, giving law
enforcement authorities new tools to fulfil their mandate.
So overall, my sense is that a purely anonymous system will not work. And the vast majority of
users would accept for basic information to be kept with a trusted institution – be that their bank or public
18
This is also true in today’s credit or trade finance relationships, but the roots go back much further. See I Schnabel and H S Shin,
“Liquidity and contagion: the crisis of 1763”, Journal of the European Economic Association, vol 2, no 6, 2004.
19
See A Greif, “Reputation and coalitions in medieval trade: evidence on the Maghribi traders”, The Journal of Economic History,
vol 49, no 4, 1989.
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authorities. The idea of complete anonymity is hence a chimera. Users have to leave a trace and share
information today with financial intermediaries. This makes it easier for them to work online and prevent
losses. To recount one recent anecdote, the user who lost his hard drive with $220 million of bitcoin would
have probably liked to have a backup. 20
So if we take the path I have laid out just now, where do we end up? I argue that we end up with
central bank digital currencies with some element of identification – that is, with primarily account-based
access.
Today we have the possibility to produce a technologically superior representation of central
bank money. This can combine novel digital technologies with the tried and true characteristics of central
banks – such as trust, transparency, legal backing and finality – that others would need to either rely on or
create for themselves from the ground up.
2. Designing CBDCs for the benefit of societies
Let me turn now to CBDC design.
There are two types of central bank digital currencies. The first is in the wholesale realm, for
payments between financial institutions and large commercial parties. In the last few years, there has been
a lot of activity around both private and central bank-issued wholesale digital currencies. 21 These efforts
could introduce efficiency gains, for instance by allowing faster settlement and delivery versus payment. 22
Yet they may not be all that disruptive. Again, digital central bank money for wholesale purposes already
exists, in the form of central bank reserves. Notably, privately issued wholesale digital currencies, also
called utility tokens or wholesale stablecoins, are not separate currencies per se. They still depend on
central banks for the finality of clearing and settlement. Like the stablecoins I discussed before, they still
have an “umbilical cord” connecting them to the existing financial system.
The second type of digital currency is in the retail space, and it is here where the real disruption
lies. Retail digital currencies could be used in daily transactions by households and businesses, and
depending on their design, they could upend our existing financial system.
The BIS has surveyed central banks around the world on their engagement with CBDCs. In a new
BIS Paper, out today, 23 we see that a full 86% of 65 respondent central banks are now doing some kind of
research or experimentation (Graph 5, left-hand panel). Some are working primarily on the wholesale side,
and some primarily on retail, but the largest number are looking into both (centre panel). Increasingly, we
see central banks moving beyond research towards actual pilots (right-hand panel). Since 2020, there has
been a live CBDC, with the Sand Dollar project in the Bahamas. The People’s Bank of China is performing
20
See N Popper, “Lost passwords lock millionaires out of their Bitcoin fortunes”, New York Times, 12 January 2021.
21
For instance, on private digital tokens, see Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Wholesale digital tokens,
December 2019. For various models for wholesale CBDCs, see Bank of Canada, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Bank of England
and HSBC, Cross-border interbank payments and settlements: emerging opportunities for digital transformation, 15 November
2018.
22
See eg BIS, Project Helvetia: settling tokenised assets in central bank money, December 2020.
23
See C Boar and T Wehrli, “Ready, steady, go? Results of the third BIS survey on central bank digital currency”, BIS Papers, no 114,
January 2020.
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large-scale pilots across China. And the Boston Fed is working with the MIT Digital Currency Initiative on
retail CBDC research that will be open source, for all to review. 24
Central bank engagement on CBDCs is rising
Share of respondents
Engagement in CBDC work
1
Graph 5
Focus of work1
Type of work in addition to research1
Share of respondents conducting work on CBDC.
Source: C Boar and A Wehrli, “Ready, steady, go? Results of the third BIS survey on central bank digital currency “, BIS Papers, no 114,
January 2021.
The motivations for central banks engaging in CBDC work vary across central banks, and across
retail versus wholesale projects (Graph 6). But it is striking that in both cases, and particularly for those
central banks that have moved beyond research toward proofs of concept or pilots, safety and robustness
are highlighted as being a key requirement. In the context of declining cash use and a lack of universal
access to the banking system, many central banks see CBDC as a means to ensure that the public maintains
access to a safe, publicly issued payment option to complement cash. Notably, central banks see
opportunities in digital technologies, not least to enhance payments efficiency and promote financial
inclusion. Thus, the question here is not so much “Do we need digital currencies?” but “Can central banks
grasp the opportunity for what could be a technologically superior representation of central bank
money?”.
24
See Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, “The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston announces collaboration with MIT to research digital
currency”, press release, 13 August 2020.
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Main motivations of CBDC work by stage
Average importance
Retail CBDC
Graph 6
Wholesale CBDC
(1) = “Not so important”; (2) = “Somewhat important”; (3) = “Important”; (4) = “Very important”.
Source: C Boar and A Wehrli, “Ready, steady, go? Results of the third BIS survey on central bank digital currency “, BIS Papers, no 114, January
2021.
The work on CBDCs does not imply replacing private sector initiatives. Of course, we need to take
advantage of private sector innovation, and in many research projects and pilots the private sector is a key
partner. The CBDC work shows that while disruptive innovation can be a threat, it can also be an
opportunity. Thus, even with CBDC, central banks are sticking to what money has always been: a social
convention that involves a role both for the private sector and for the central bank or other public
authorities. In this sense, money is an instance of a public-private partnership.
Thus, CBDCs can and must also be designed to preserve the two-tiered financial system, as a
public-private partnership. In terms of involvement by the private sector, we should not think only about
models where the central bank provides retail services directly (such as the FedAccounts idea). 25 From a
user perspective, a successful retail CBDC would need to provide a resilient and inclusive digital
complement to physical cash – but that does not preclude an important role for the private sector.
Research at the BIS scopes out how two-tier “Hybrid” and “Intermediated” CBDC architectures
can involve the private sector as the default operator of payments, with the central bank optionally
operating a back-up infrastructure to provide additional resilience (Graph 7). Users could pay with a CBDC
just as today, with a debit card, online banking tool or smartphone-based app, all operated by a bank or
other private sector payment provider. However, instead of these intermediaries booking transactions on
their own balance sheets as is the case today, they would simply update the record of who owns which
CBDC balance. The CBDC itself would be a cash-like claim on the central bank. In this way, the central bank
avoids the operational tasks of opening accounts and administering payments for users, as private sector
intermediaries would continue to perform retail payment services. The benefit is that there are no balance
sheet concerns with private sector intermediaries. Further, these architectures also allow the central bank
to operate backup systems in case the private sector runs into technical outages.
25
See M Ricks, J Crawford and L Menand, “FedAccounts: digital dollars”, George Washington Law Review, 2018.
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Hybrid CBDC architectures allow for public-private partnership in payments
Graph 7
Sources: R Auer and R Böhme, “The technology of retail central bank digital currency”, BIS Quarterly Review, March 2020, pp 85–100; R Auer
and R Böhme, “Central bank digital currency: the quest for minimally invasive technology”, BIS Working Papers, forthcoming.
A system that in many ways resembles today’s system could run successfully on distributed ledger
technology (DLT), as a BIS working paper that we are releasing today shows. 26 This paper finds that despite
all the limitations with Bitcoin and other permissionless cryptocurrencies, greater economic promise lies
with the “permissioned” variant of DLT. In permissioned DLT, a known network of validators replaces the
traditional model with one central validator. The BIS Innovation Hub has already demonstrated that this
works in a lab environment, in a proof of concept that involved the settlement of tokenised assets in central
bank money using a DLT-based software. 27 Going beyond the lab environment, the working paper shows
that the technology may have economic potential primarily in niche markets. It shows that while the
permissioned version of DLT holds more promise than the permissionless one, a trusted central
intermediary fares even better. DLT hence can improve upon the traditional model of centralised exchange
only where trust in, and enforcement of, the rule of law is limited.
26F
In addition to the governance of the system itself, the governance rule of how participants can
access it also warrants attention. What about the role of identification, and of the transaction data that
digital currencies will generate? Here, we need to compare different governance rules and analyse the role
of the public and the private sector in guarding data. Of course, the danger of data breaches or abuse by
public authorities warrants a careful approach. But there are designs where some level of individual privacy
can be preserved – a CBDC does not have to entail an Orwellian Big Brother, where the central bank sees
each and every transaction.
Private sector intermediaries have a role to play in this, too, as settlement agents in a competitive
payment system. In particular, private intermediaries could (temporarily) record and guard users’ data. Yet
decisions on data privacy are very important. This is not just a technical issue, but an important policy issue
that transcends the financial sphere. Central banks will need to listen to societies in this respect. Moreover,
public sector supervision and clear frameworks for the governance of data will still be needed. If multiple
26
See R Auer, C Monnet and H S Shin, “Permissioned distributed ledgers and the governance of money”, BIS Working Papers,
no 924, January 2021.
27
See BIS (2020), op cit.
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parties are involved in collecting, transferring and storing data, it must be ensured that one institution is
ultimately responsible to the user. If this is done successfully, such a system could help maintain privacy
while allowing access to law enforcement under clearly defined rules, much like today’s system. Moreover,
it could put competitive pressure on today’s intermediaries, pushing for more efficiency, lower costs and
better service in payment markets. 28
Again, different jurisdictions may pursue different avenues. This relates in part to different
preferences regarding data privacy across different societies. In China and India, for instance, users are
much more comfortable with their data being securely shared (Graph 8). And in China, the approach of
the People’s Bank of China in its CBDC, the e-CNY, is to periodically record all user data from private
intermediaries. In Europe and the United States, users report in surveys being more worried about their
privacy. For these cases, there are also technical designs that allow the central bank to be shielded from
knowing identities, or even from having access to retail transaction data, recognising that it may not want
this information. 29
28
29
For one take on these points, see J Cochrane, “The digital euro is a threat to banks and governments. And that’s OK”, Il Sole 24
Ore, 23 December 2020.
This approach has been hinted at by Jay Powell, who noted the data privacy and information security issues associated with the
central bank keeping a running record of all payments data. See J Powell, “Letter to Congressman French Hill”, 19 November
2019.
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Preferences regarding privacy vary across countries
In per cent
Graph 8
The question in the survey reads, “I would be comfortable with my main bank securely sharing my financial data with other organisations if
it meant that I received better offers from other financial intermediaries”; for Belgium, the figure covers Belgium and Luxembourg.
1
Source: S Chen, S Doerr, J Frost, L Gambacorta and H S Shin, “The fintech gender gap”, BIS Working Papers, forthcoming; EY, Global FinTech
Adoption Index 2019, June 2019.
Above all, the discussion of identification in CBDC needs to be considered in the wider context
of digital ID. The use of personal data is necessary to improve the provision of financial services. Financial
inclusion is about overcoming inequality, in particular by reducing information asymmetries. CBDCs can
be the entry point for financial services, but they need to be linked to an ID. By offering the unbanked
access to a digital ID, authentication can help to support inclusion in the long term and to formalise the
informal economy. While this appears to create trade-offs, as citizens also value their privacy and enjoy
the anonymity of cash, there can be long-term gains from overcoming this.
Again, this seems to be the direction in which central banks are moving. As central banks report
being more likely to issue CBDCs in the medium term (Graph 9, left-hand and centre panel), CBDCs tied
to an identity scheme (“primarily account-based CBDCs”) are also relatively more common (right-hand
panel). These can serve as the basis for well functioning payments with good law enforcement. 30 The idea
that CBDCs will be like $100 bills floating around is a mischaracterisation of what CBDC would look like in
practice. My own view is that CBDCs without identity (purely token-based CBDCs) will not fly. First, they
would open up big concerns around money laundering, the financing of terrorism and tax evasion. Second,
they may undermine efforts to enhance financial inclusion, which are based on good identification and
building up an information trail for access to other financial services. Third, they could have destabilising
cross-border effects, allowing large and sudden shifts of funds between economies. For these reasons, we
need some form of identity in digital payments.
30
See R Auer, G Cornelli and J Frost, “Rise of the central bank digital currencies: drivers, approaches and technologies”, BIS Working
Papers, no 880, 2020. The authors also document that that all central banks that are developing CBDCs have also promised to
keep cash around. So, also in the digital era, central banks will continue to offer a fully anonymous means of payment – cash.
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Likelihood of CBDC issuance is increasing, with account-based access preferred
Responses on likelihood of retail
CBDC issuance in the medium term1
Share of respondents, in per cent
Graph 9
Responses on likelihood of wholesale Relatively more central banks are
CBDC issuance in the medium term1
leaning toward account-based access
Share of respondents, in per cent
Number of retail CBDC projects
Medium term: 1–6 years. “Likely” combines “very likely” and “somewhat likely”. “Unlikely” combines “very unlikely” and “somewhat
unlikely”. 2 Includes models with token-based access for small transactions.
1
Sources: C Boar and A Wehrli, “Ready, steady, go? Results of the third BIS survey on central bank digital currency “, BIS Papers, no 114, 2021;
R Auer, G Cornelli and J Frost, “Rise of the central bank digital currencies: drivers, technologies and approaches”, BIS Working Paper, no 880,
August 2020.
3. Implications for the monetary system
Let me move now to the implications for the monetary system.
If they are properly designed and widely adopted, CBDCs could become a complementary means
of payment that addresses specific use cases and market failures. They could act as a catalyst for continued
innovation and competition in payments, finance and commerce at large.
But if that happens, how will it affect national financial systems beyond payments? And what are
the international repercussions of CBDC issuance?
Let me discuss these considerations through the lens of the core principles for CBDC issuance, as
laid out in a recent report of the BIS, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and six other
major central banks. This report laid out a Hippocratic Oath for CBDC design, the premise to “first, do no
harm”. 31
First and foremost, this oath implies that a precondition for CBDC issuance is that its design will
not disintermediate commercial banks, nor lead to heightened volatility of their funding sources. Central
banks do not dismiss these risks. But there are tools to address digital runs and the potential for
disintermediation, like caps on the size of CBDC holdings, or variable interest rates that discourage very
large holdings by users. 32 If depositors did temporarily move funds from bank deposits to CBDCs during
31
See Group of Central Banks, “Central bank digital currencies: foundational principles and core features”, joint report no 1, October
2020.
32
See U Bindseil, “Tiered CBDC and the financial system”, ECB Working Paper no 2351, 2020.
14/17
financial turmoil, central banks could also quickly re-channel liquidity back to commercial banks, much as
they do now with open market operations. Structurally, I do not anticipate the central bank becoming a
major player in intermediating savings in the economy. While such risks do need to be managed, CBDCs
do not need to threaten the stability of bank funding or lending to the real economy. 33
Second, as long as CBDC is supplied in response to transactional demand for it, this oath means
that the impact on monetary policy and its transmission will be limited. Naturally, the monetary policy
implications have received ample attention. In theory, retail CBDCs could be interest-bearing, influencing
monetary policy transmission and, in today’s context, for some advanced economies, allowing for more
negative policy rates. However, one has to keep in mind that since CBDC would complement cash rather
than replace it, and since another policy objective is to limit the central bank’s systemic footprint, these
monetary policy effects might be contained in practice. Much as cash holdings and even total central bank
assets are currently moderate in relation to bank deposits (Graph 10), I expect that CBDC holdings will not
become very large. This could also mean that the central bank toolkit will remain largely unaffected.
CBDCs can be designed to have a limited systemic footprint – like cash today
As a percentage of GDP
Graph 10
Cash holdings are moderate…1
1
Data for 2018.
2
…and consumers’ sight deposits vastly exceed central
bank balance sheet sizes1,2
Closest alternative where data is not available.
Source: R Auer and R Böhme, “Central bank digital currency: the quest for minimally invasive technology”, BIS Working Paper, forthcoming.
Third is the international aspect and the threat of international currency competition. 34 Payment
system design is a domestic choice, but it has important international implications. Wherever there are
macroeconomic or institutional reasons for dollarisation today, foreign CBDC issuance may aggravate this
threat, by making it even easier for users to adopt a foreign (digital) alternative. Some have argued that
33
See D Andolfatto, “Assessing the impact of central bank digital currency on private banks”, The Economic Journal,
September 2020.
34
This relates to the broader debate on the denationalisation of money and digital currency areas. For the classic appeal to allow
international competition between currencies, see F Hayek, The Denationalization of Money, Institute of Economic Affairs, 1976.
For a rebuttal, see M Friedman and A Schwartz, “Has government any role in money?” in A Schwartz (ed), Money in Historical
Perspective, University of Chicago Press, 1987. For the discussion of digital currency areas, see M Brunnermeier, H James and J-P
Landau, “The digitalization of money”, NBER Working Paper no 26300, 2019.
15/17
an e-CNY or digital euro could even challenge the dominance of the US dollar as a global reserve
currency. 35 But here, I doubt that CBDCs alone will tip the balance – especially if they are account-based.
Indeed, the main reasons why a reserve currency is attractive are related to the macroeconomy. The dollar
is the world’s premier reserve currency because it has a stable value (low inflation), a large supply of safe
assets and the credibility of the US economic and legal system. Investors can also easily access the US’s
deep and efficient capital markets, without worrying about capital controls. These factors are likely to
remain the primary drivers of global reserve currency status.
Yet beyond currency competition, there are opportunities from CBDCs to enhance the efficiency
of cross-border payments. Multi-CBDC arrangements (Graph 11) could tackle frictions in today’s
correspondent banking system, such as differences in opening hours, varying communication standards
and a lack of clarity around exchange rates or fees. 36
Potential models for multi-CBDC arrangements
Graph 11
Source: R Auer, P Haene and H Holden, “Multi-CBDC arrangements and the future of cross-border payments”, forthcoming.
Conclusion
Let me conclude. Sound money is central to our market economy, and it is central banks that are uniquely
placed to provide this. If digital currencies are needed, central banks should be the ones to issue them. If
35
For an argument in this direction, see A Kumar and E Rosenbach, “Could China’s digital currency unseat the dollar?”, Foreign
Affairs, May 2020. For a more nuanced take, see M Chorzempa, “China, the United States, and central bank digital currencies:
how important is it to be first?”, China Economic Journal, 2021.
36
See R Auer, P Haene and H Holden, “Multi-CBDC arrangements and the future of cross-border payments”, BIS Papers,
forthcoming for an examination of the potential of CBDC in cross-border payments, as well as Committee on Payments and
Market Infrastructures, Enhancing cross-border payments: building blocks of a global roadmap, July 2020 for a discussion of how
these could feature in global efforts to improve cross-border payments. M Ferrari, M Mehl and L Stracca, “Central bank digital
currency in an open economy”, ECB Working Paper no 2488, 2020, and International Monetary Fund, “Digital money across
borders: macro-financial implications”, IMF Policy Papers, no 2020/050, 2020 analyse the international ramifications of the
digitisation of money.
16/17
they do, CBDCs could also play a catalytic role in innovation, spurring competition and efficiency in
payments.
In this light, even as they fight the fires related to the Covid-19 pandemic, central banks around
the world have stepped up their CBDC design efforts (Graph 12). This should not be seen primarily as a
reaction to the emergence of cryptocurrencies or the announcement of corporate stablecoin projects.
Rather, they are proactively researching a new form of money and how it could improve retail payments
in the digital area, in line with central bank mandates.
CBDCs research and pilots around the globe
Graph 12
BS = The Bahamas; ECCB = Eastern Caribbean Central Bank; HK = Hong Kong SAR; SG = Singapore.
The use of this map does not constitute, and should not be construed as constituting, an expression of a position by the BIS regarding the
legal status of, or sovereignty of, any territory or its authorities, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and/or to the
name and designation of any territory, city or area.
Source: R Auer, G Cornelli and J Frost, “Rise of the central bank digital currencies: drivers, approaches and technologies”, BIS Working Paper,
no 880, August 2020.
However, developing CBDC comes with a host of technological, legal and economic issues that
warrant careful examination before issuance. Central banks – the guardians of stability – will proceed
carefully, methodically and in line with their mandates. Issuing a CBDC is a national choice. Wherever
issued, CBDCs will be an additional payment option that coexists with private sector electronic payment
systems and cash. Careful design – such as the architecture defining the roles of the central bank and
private intermediaries – would ensure that they preserve the two-tiered financial system, and that
monetary policy implementation and financial stability will not be jeopardised.
In all this, the need for international coordination cannot be overstated. It is up to individual
jurisdictions to decide whether they issue CBDCs or not. But if they do, issues such as “digital dollarisation“
and the potential role of CBDCs in enhancing cross-border payments need to be addressed in multilateral
forums. The BIS is supporting this international discussion, ensuring that central banks can continue
learning from one another and can cooperate on key issues in design. In this way, central banks can work
together to support digital money ready for the economy of the future.
17/17
Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of
Geography
ISSN: 0029-1951 (Print) 1502-5292 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sgeo20
Locating internally displaced people in the field of
forced migration
Nicholas van Hear
To cite this article: Nicholas van Hear (2000) Locating internally displaced people in the field
of forced migration, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift - Norwegian Journal of Geography, 54:3, 90-95,
DOI: 10.1080/002919500423681
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/002919500423681
Published online: 05 Aug 2010.
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Norsk geogr. Tidsskr. Vol. 54, 90–95. Oslo. ISSN 0029-1951
Locating internally displaced people in the field of forced migration
NICHOLAS VAN HEAR
Van Hear, N. 2000. Locating internally displaced people in the field of forced migration. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian
Journal of Geography Vol. 54, 90–95. Oslo. ISSN 0029-1951.
There appears to have been a shift in the nature of forced migration since the end of the Cold War: the total number of refugees
worldwide has been declining since the latter part of the 1990s, while the number of internally displaced people has risen. This
paper reflects on some aspects of this shift. First, it attempts to place internal displacement in the broader arena of forced migration:
it locates internally displaced people within a simple schema which seeks to account for different forms of forced migration and to
show the connections between them. Some cases of internal displacement in Sri Lanka are examined to show the close links
between different kinds of migratory movement. The paper then suggests some reasons, apart from the increase in numbers,
for the increase in interest in internally displaced persons in both the academic and policy arenas. Specifically, it attempts to
set the issue of internal displacement within the current debate on the ‘refugee regime’, especially the controversy about ‘containment’ of would-be asylum seekers in their countries of origin. The paper concludes that understanding the complex dynamics
between different forms of migration, internal and international, is needed for the construction of an effective ‘refugee regime’.
Keywords: internal displacement, migration, refugee regime, refugees
Nicholas Van Hear, Centre for Development Research, Gammel Kongevej 5, DK-1610 Copenhagen V, Denmark. E-mail:
nvh@cdr.dk
Introduction
There appears to have been a shift in the nature of forced
migration since the end of the Cold War. The total number of
refugees worldwide has been declining since the later 1990s,
while the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has
risen (UNHCR 1999, US Committee for Refugees 1998,
1999, Hampton 1998). Because of this numerical shift and
sustained lobbying, the plight of IDPs has moved up the
public and policy agendas to become a central concern in the
humanitarian arena. Among the outcomes of this new focus
have been the appointment of Francis Deng as Special
Representative of the UN Secretary General on IDPs, the
drafting of ‘Guiding principles on internal displacement’,
publication of two substantial volumes on internal displacement by the influential Brookings Institution (Cohen & Deng
1998ab), the establishment of the Global IDP project,
supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council, the publication of that project’s Global Survey in 1998 (Hampton 1998)
and the launch of its Global IDP Database (www.
idpproject.org).
This paper reflects on some aspects of this growth of
interest in IDPs. First, it attempts to place internal displacement in the broader arena of forced migration: it locates IDPs
within a simple schema which seeks to account for different
forms of forced migration and to show the connections
between them. Some cases of internal displacement in Sri
Lanka are examined to show the close links between
different kinds of migratory movement. The paper then
suggests some reasons, apart from the increase in numbers,
for the increase in interest in IDPs in both the academic and
policy arenas. Specifically, it attempts to set the issue of
internal displacement within the current debate on the
‘refugee regime’, especially the controversy about ‘containment’ of would-be asylum seekers in their countries of
origin. The paper concludes that understanding the complex
dynamics between different forms of migration, internal and
international, is needed for the construction of an effective
‘refugee regime’.
Migrants, refugees, IDPs and stayers1
Consideration of contemporary migration reveals many
forms of movement: people who move within their own
countries by choice or force, temporary contract workers or
labour migrants, professional, business or trader migrants,
permanent emigrants and settlers, students, refugees and
asylum seekers, cross-border commuters, and many others.
Moreover, people often shift between these categories.
People may move, or be forced to move, within their own
countries before crossing international borders. They may
enter other countries as students, tourists or visitors, but then
illegally overstay, ask for asylum or seek permanent
settlement, and eventually become naturalized as citizens.
They may return home and then be displaced again within
their own country. How can we make sense of this great
diversity of migratory forms, and of the connections between
them?
If we scrutinize migratory movements to see what they
have in common, we can identify five essential components.
All migrations, whether within countries or across borders,
involve some kind of outward movement, from a place of
origin or residence to some other place. This movement
necessarily involves some kind of inward movement –
people leaving a place must arrive at some other place, even
if only temporarily. Subsequently there may be a return to
the place of previous residence. Alternatively, following an
outward movement, there may be onward movement to some
other place. In addition to these four essential components of
movement, account must be taken of non-movement, or
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 54 (2000)
staying put. Almost all migrations involve leaving behind a
portion of the community.
Each of these components involves degrees of choice and
coercion, and are conventionally portrayed as voluntary or
involuntary movements. Yet most commentators now agree
that the categories ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ are unsatisfactory. It has become received wisdom that few
migrants are wholly voluntary or wholly involuntary. Much
migration involves some kind of compulsion; at the same
time almost all migration involves choices. ‘Economic’
migrants make choices, but they do so within constraints. For
example, what is the balance of force and choice for the
supposed ‘voluntary’, ‘economic’ migrant who ‘chooses’ to
seek work in her country’s capital or abroad, but whose child
would otherwise die if she did not earn money to pay for
medical treatment? ‘Forced’ migrants likewise make
choices, albeit within a narrower range of possibilities. Even
in the most dire circumstances, there is still some choice, as
some may choose to stay and suffer starvation or violence
rather than leave their homes. Many, if not most, migration
streams therefore involve varying degrees of choice and
compulsion.
Modifying the model developed by Richmond (1994),
these issues can be presented as lying along an axis ranging
from ‘choice’ or ‘more options’ at one end to ‘little choice’
or ‘few options’ at the other. The components of migration
outlined above, combined with the axis delineating degrees
of choice, may be seen as a matrix.
In the outward cells of such a matrix, some rural-to-urban
migrants, tourists, visitors, students and business travellers fit
fairly comfortably at the end of the axis encompassing more
choice. Refugees, expellees, people displaced in their own
countries through conflict or persecution and people displaced by disasters or ill-conceived development projects
largely fall at the other end of the continuum. However,
many economic or labour migrants, rural–urban migrants,
anticipatory refugees and others induced to move fall in
between these two clusters, as there is usually an element of
compulsion involved and yet some choices are still available.
In the inward cells, newcomers from the rural areas to the
cities, incoming primary migrants to new countries and
people entering under family reunion programmes are among
those who can be located at the end of the axis embracing
more choice. Incoming people displaced within their own
countries by conflict and asylum seekers sit at the other end
of the scale. People who enter countries as visitors, students,
tourists or in other ways before claiming asylum perhaps fall
into an intermediate area indicating some choice.
The return cells include return by choice of ‘economic’
migrants and voluntary return or repatriation of refugees,
displaced people or other forced migrants. At the other end of
the axis are located forced return or repatriation of
‘economic’ migrants and forced repatriation of refugees or
other forced migrants. Again there is a middle ground of
returnees partly compelled to move and partly opting to
return. Some of these returnees, by force or choice, may have
long been settled outside their places of origin. The
application of force and choice varies as much in return as
in outward movement.
The onward cells include households that choose strate-
Locating internally displaced people
91
gically to disperse their members throughout different parts
of the country, the region or the world as a means of
insurance or spreading risk. As they may exercise some
choice, refugees or other forced migrants settled in a third
country might be located at an intermediate position on the
scale, while at the other end of the continuum lie people
forcibly scattered or dispersed after prior migration.
Finally, the staying put cells include those who opt to stay
behind and those household members who remain at home as
part of a household insurance strategy which involves the
migration of other members; in this case, those who stay put
are the counterparts of those who move outward. Those
obliged to remain through lack of resources, physical
inability to travel, restrictions on internal movement or the
closure of borders, or through other inhibitions to movement,
fall at the other end of the axis. Examples include those
staying put because of national or international policies of
containment, a theme taken up later in this paper.
At first sight, it might seem odd to include those who stay
put when considering migration. Yet comprehensiveness
demands that they be included, as they are an essential
element in a migration order. They may service or support
migrants who move to other parts of the country or abroad,
especially in the period immediately after departure, or they
may be serviced or supported by the migrant members of
their communities, particularly after such members become
established.
Separating out movement in this way may help to resolve
the problem of distinguishing between ‘economic’ or
‘voluntary’ migration and ‘forced’ or ‘involuntary’ migration. Separation of movement into its components can reveal
differences in motivation. Thus, while outward movement
may be forced, precipitated by persecution, conflict, war or
some other life-threatening circumstance, inward movement
might involve more choice – of destination, for example –
and may be shaped more by economic, livelihood or lifechance considerations. At some point, forced migration may
transmute into economic, livelihood or ‘betterment’ migration. Similarly, return or onward movement might involve
more choice than the initial outward movement. Conversely,
migration that initially involved choice may transmute into
forced migration, as is the case with the expulsion of
migrants from the countries in which they are working or
have settled, or with the forced displacement of returnees
after they have come home.
The reality is much more complex than is suggested in this
simple model encompassing components of movement and
an axis of force and choice. Individual migrants, households
and communities may experience several forms of movement, sometimes over a short period of time. Outward
movement may involve compulsion or choice, as may
subsequent movements back or onwards. Individuals, households or communities may experience the full range of
compulsion and choice over time. Individual migrants may
therefore develop complex migration biographies; many are
twice, three-times or many-times migrants. Likewise, many
households and communities have complex migration
histories, involving combinations of outward, inward,
onward and return migration, sometimes forced, sometimes
involving varying degrees of choice. Moreover, one type of
92
N. Van Hear
migration can transmute into another, sometimes as a matter
of strategy, sometimes by chance or circumstance. In the
following section I draw on illustrations from Sri Lanka to
show how internal displacement can mesh with other forms
of migration, such as labour migration and asylum migration,
by force or choice.
Internal displacement and migration
strategies in Sri Lanka2
It has become widely accepted that migration within or
outside one’s country is often a matter of household strategy
– one among several – particularly for coping during times of
adversity. Of course, households are not undifferentiated,
homogenous units, capable of calculated, rational decisionmaking in the same way as firms; rather they are often riven
with differences in power, generation, gender and other
divisions that may make such decision-making difficult.
Nevertheless, whether to move within or outside the country,
when and how to move, who should go, how to raise the
resources to travel, how to use any proceeds from migration
and other key decisions are commonly matters for the whole
household or the extended family rather than for the
individual migrant alone.
Sri Lankans caught up in the war since the early 1980s
between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and
the Sri Lankan armed forces have had a number of migratory
options they could pursue, largely depending on the
resources their households could muster. Displacement
within the country is the most common form of movement,
particularly as the option of flight to southern India has faded
(US Committee for Refugees 1995, 1998, 1999). Depending
on the intensity of the conflict, between 500,000 and one
million people have been displaced within Sri Lanka at any
one time in recent years. For those households that can raise
the necessary resources, there have been broadly two
international migration strategies: labour migration, usually
to the Middle East (Eelans et al. 1992); and seeking asylum,
initially in India and later in Europe or North America
(McDowell 1996, Fuglerud 1999). Marriage to a partner
abroad in Europe, North America or Australasia might be a
third option (Fuglerud 1999). Three broad categories of
internally displaced households can be distinguished: households without migrants abroad, those with labour migrants
abroad and those with asylum migrants abroad.
Whatever the form of migration, decisions are often a
matter for the household or extended family. How such
decisions are made is not explored here in detail. The point is
that, even if the decision to migrate is the individual
migrant’s, household resources are often used, and these
investments may be considerable. Resources accumulated
for dowries might be invested in migration, delaying
marriage. Substantial numbers of households, especially
those displaced or otherwise war-affected, and those with
members who have sought asylum, resort to moneylenders,
or sell, mortgage or pawn assets such as land, equipment,
houses, shops or jewellery.
Partly because the different migration strategies require
very different levels of outlay or investment, they divide
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 54 (2000)
broadly along class lines. Households with meagre resources
often have to stay put or move short distances from their
homes in the face of conflict; others may move longer
distances to safer areas within the country. Migration for
work in the Middle East and elsewhere requires considerable
outlay, but this is within the reach of farming and working
class households who have some resources: it is pursued by
rural and urban Sinhalese families, both displaced and not,
and by Muslim and (to a lesser extent) Tamil households who
have been displaced. In the 1980s, Tamil households
displaced by the conflict were able to find refuge in southern
India. That option faded with the assassination of Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE in 1991, after
which India’s general tolerance of Tamil asylum seekers
hardened and the authorities attempted to repatriate Sri
Lankans or otherwise pressured them to leave (US Committee for Refugees 1995). Asylum migration to other destinations, particularly in Europe or North America, has become
increasingly costly. It has therefore become largely (though
not exclusively) the preserve of well-to-do Tamils, who have
both the grounds and resources to pursue it. Migration for
marriage may also be costly, as the outlay that must be found
is likely to be high when the spouse-to-be has residence
status abroad. Sometimes these options may be combined, so
that some members of a household may stay at or near home,
while others may flee to relative safety in other parts of the
country and still others may go abroad as labour migrants or
asylum seekers. In the following sections I examine how
internal displacement can be combined with labour and
asylum migration, depending largely on the socio-economic
background of the household concerned.
Labour migration: an option for the less well-off
Sri Lankan household might spend 5,000–15,000 rupees3 in
order for a woman to secure work as a housemaid in the
Middle East; it might cost double for men to secure work as
drivers or in the construction industry, where earnings are
higher. This might entail borrowing money at high rates of
interest, meaning that much of the first year’s earnings could
be swallowed up in debt repayments. Many households with
modest means are prepared to undertake such a risk. For
those households displaced or otherwise affected by the war,
whose margins for survival were slimmer, the risk is
correspondingly greater. Sending a member abroad has
nevertheless become an increasingly common strategy for
such displaced families. The following cases show how
labour migration to the Middle East has been used as a means
to sustain displaced and war-affected households, and in
some cases to assist them to recover after displacement or
distress.
A Sinhalese settler household in eastern Sri Lanka. This
household was relocated from the populous west under a
government settlement scheme in a hamlet in territory
traditionally peopled by Tamils. They were allocated land
to develop a paddy farm and to build a house. In 1992–
1994, the wife went to Lebanon as a housemaid to earn
money to strengthen the family finances while developing
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 54 (2000)
the farm. They paid an agent R12,000, part of which was
raised by mortgaging paddy land; the woman remitted most
of her monthly salary of R4,000. The house was destroyed
and the household displaced after the hamlet came under
attack by the LTTE in 1995. The wife again went to work,
this time in Kuwait, after the attack; the family paid
another agent R12,000, borrowing the money from him;
with interest, a debt of R20,000 accumulated, which they
were still paying off in 1998. Some of the wife’s earnings
abroad were used to fund the rebuilding of the house and
to restart the farm. Although apprehensive about further
attacks, they were expecting their first harvest soon after
the time of my visit.
A Muslim household in a displaced persons camp, eastern
Sri Lanka. This household of small farmers was displaced
from a village in eastern Sri Lanka after an LTTE attack in
1990. The wife had worked as a housemaid in Kuwait in
1989, but her stay was cut short by the Gulf crisis and she had
to return empty-handed late in 1990, shortly after which the
household was displaced by the LTTE attack. They thus
experienced two serious crises in 1990. They borrowed
R18,000 from an agent to send the wife to Kuwait, using their
house deeds as security. Her limited earnings – R4,900 for
seven months – were used for the household’s daily needs, to
pay off some of the debt to the agent and to buy bullocks and
a cart; however, when her earnings were discontinued
because of the Gulf crisis, payments for the bullock cart
could not be kept up and it was repossessed. The woman went
to the Middle East again in 1991–1993, by which time the
family was living in a camp; this time the agent charged
R12,000. During this two-year contract, she managed to
remit her monthly salary. More than half of the money she
earned was used to mark the circumcision of their son; some
was spent on the purchase of some livestock; and the
remainder on jewellery that could later be sold in case of
need. In the settlement as a whole, about 50 women had been
to the Middle East as housemaids. Most had gone since being
displaced and coming to the camp; few had gone before.
These two cases show how displaced families with modest
resources used the labour migration option to sustain
themselves or to reconstruct their lives after displacement.
In both cases, household members had already migrated
before displacement, and did so again afterwards in an effort
to revive their fortunes. In other cases, labour migration was
adopted as a strategy only after displacement, again as a
means of reconstruction or revival. In both cases described
above, the households went into substantial debt, but the debt
was paid off and some earnings were left over to invest,
although the outcomes of this investment were mixed. Other
households were not so fortunate. The early end of contracts
because of abuse or ill-treatment, failure of employers to
honour pay and employment conditions, and sickness or
other misfortune were potentially disastrous for a household,
particularly if a loan had been taken out at a pernicious rate
of interest. Nevertheless, displaced households that have, or
can raise, sufficient resources have increasingly sought to
invest in labour migration as a coping or reconstruction
strategy in the face of conflict or forced relocation.
Locating internally displaced people
93
Asylum migration: a middle-class strategy
While the amounts paid to send members abroad to work
were substantial, the outlay to move Tamil asylum migrants
to the west was considerably larger. By 1998, payments of
R400,000 and above to agents were commonly reported.
Given the size of such outlays, the strategy of families who
could afford it was to secure a future abroad for one child,
usually a son. Where several household members had to use
agents to secure refuge abroad, the drain on household
resources proved to be substantial, as was the case with the
following displaced Tamil household from a well-to-do
background in eastern Sri Lanka.
Following displacement as a result of fighting, and as a
result of the arrest and torture of the three sons in the family,
this household sent them abroad as asylum seekers or students
to Canada and Switzerland between 1990 and 1997. Their
departure involved substantial outlays: some 1,400,000
rupees in all. Their safety was assured at the cost of the
disposal of substantial assets, houses and shops. It is likely that
the two daughters had to forgo marriage, as remaining assets
were insufficient for dowries. The family income came from
remittances sent from family members abroad, a small
pension that the mother received from her former local
government employment, some rent from two shops and a
little income the daughters received. Total remittances of
about R15,000 were sent each time, on an irregular basis.
While this family, though seriously affected by the conflict
and spending much of their capital, were still comfortably
off, others were not so fortunate. For some of the many
thousands of Tamil households languishing in governmentrun camps in the areas bordering the conflict zone,
remittances from those who had sought asylum abroad and
the hope of resettlement abroad could be a lifeline, as was the
case with a female-headed Tamil household in a camp near
the northern town of Vavuniya. The husband was abroad, in
Toronto. His brother and younger sister had gone to Canada
in 1985 and 1990, respectively; they were married to Tamils
who came from the home area, and both had Canadian
citizenship. The family came from a small town in
Kilinochchi district, close to the Jaffna lagoon in the north,
where they had had a large house, five acres of paddy land, a
tractor and some livestock. They fled to Kilinochchi town in
1990 as a result of fighting. The husband left for Switzerland
in 1991, and went to Canada in 1995. The wife and two
young daughters stayed with a relative in a village near
Kilinochchi. In 1996 they were forced by fighting to flee to
Vavuniya, where they were put in a camp.
The whole family had decided that the husband should go
abroad. They paid agents in Colombo and Switzerland
R250,000 for the cost of the travel; part of this money was
raised by the sale of their tractor, and part by relatives
abroad. The household left behind now subsisted on rations
supplied in the camp and on remittances from the husband
and other relatives abroad. The husband and his sister in
Canada pooled their money to remit about R20,000 monthly
to the family in Vavuniya. The objective now was to join the
husband in Canada, but there were formidable obstacles. Not
least, the stringent government control of Tamil movement
made it extremely difficult to secure the paperwork necessary
94
N. Van Hear
to migrate, even if permission was given by the destination
country. The woman’s frustration was obvious. The family
had secured the safety of the husband, but she and her
children had been stranded in camps for nearly two years. At
the same time, the family was receiving substantial income in
the form of remittances – perhaps four or five times as much
as a manual worker’s pay – and much of this could be saved
because the family subsisted at least partly on rations.
Other Tamil families are still more widely dispersed, so that
remittances from abroad must be correspondingly widely
spread. One such extended family had some members scattered
in displaced persons’ camps in various parts of the country,
some who lived in camps in southern India, some who were
repatriates from India and some who had sought asylum in
Europe. This household had fled shelling in the late 1980s.
After displacement within the Jaffna peninsula, they had fled to
Tamil Nadu in south India, from where they returned in 1992,
ending up in a camp near Vavuniya. The husband left for
Germany in 1995, where he spent just over two years, but could
not find employment, and his claim for asylum appears to have
been rejected. He went to Norway in January 1997. His brother,
who had Norwegian citizenship, having fled in the early 1980s,
funded his moves to Germany and Norway: it cost R800,000.
Although the husband was not working regularly, he managed
to send some money from Germany and some from Norway.
The wife hoped that she and their three children would be able
to join her husband in Norway, but was (rightly) not optimistic
about this outcome. While the best outcome would be
relocation of the whole household to Europe, a less desirable,
but still welcome, outcome would be regular remittances to
support the family back home.
The woman and her eldest daughter had spent eight years
in camps; her other daughter and son were born in camps.
Living with them was her sister’s teenage son from the home
area. He had joined her partly to pursue his schooling, but
also to protect her, as there was general insecurity for lone
women in the camp. Some relatives were still in various
camps in Tamil Nadu, while other members of the family –
her mother, three sisters and two brothers – remained in the
home district. They were farmers, with paddy land, but had
been relocated in a displaced persons’ camp. Money sent
from abroad had to be spread among the scattered components of this extended family.
These cases show how asylum migration was essentially
the preserve of those with substantial resources, although
they might be impoverished in the process of sending
household members abroad. Raising the necessary funds
required the disposal of substantial assets, and often the
support of those already abroad. The returns from such
outlays may be substantial relative to standards of living in
Sri Lanka; but those at home may still languish in displaced
persons’ camps, efforts at family reunion may be stymied
and remittances often have to be spread among extended
family members dispersed in different parts of Sri Lanka.
Many other displaced households were not so fortunate in
terms of returns from migration, even after the substantial
outlays entailed.
In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, all forms of international
migration involve substantial outlays for households. This is
the more so for those that have been displaced, whose
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 54 (2000)
margins are slim; nevertheless, as the above cases show,
asylum and labour migration of a family member have
increasingly been pursued as a strategy by displaced households. As the cost of migration to the west has inflated, this
option has increasingly become limited to those who can
mobilize substantial resources. For the less well-off, labour
migration may be an option to help rebuild lives damaged by
the war, but even this requires large outlays. The poorest
households cannot afford to send any members abroad: for
them flight within the country may be the only way of
escaping danger.
Internally displaced people and the ‘refugee
regime’4
The Sri Lankan example shows how complex forced
migration has become in recent years. A single district may
contain a mix of households with asylum seekers or labour
migrants abroad, returning refugees or labour migrants, IDPs
and others affected by war. A single household may contain
several or all of these categories. The national and international organizations charged with providing protection and
assistance to people in distress are thus often confronted by a
complex picture of displacements. This has been one of the
reasons for a fundamental reappraisal of the refugee regime,
by which is meant the national and international body of
institutions, law, policy and practice that exists to deal with
refugees or forced migration. In the mid-1990s, there was the
prospect of a kind of general purpose humanitarian agency
emerging from the UN reform that was currently under way.
The idea was that one body should deal with the diverse
forms of displacement thrown up by increasingly complex
humanitarian emergencies. The UNHCR was one of the
organizations tipped to take on this role: indeed, in the mid1990s, it acknowledged that as a result of involvement in
increasingly complex emergencies, repatriation programmes
and the development of a ‘proactive and homeland-oriented
approach to refugee problems’ it had ‘been transformed from
a refugee organisation into a more broadly-based humanitarian agency’ (UNHCR 1995, 48). While this transformation
was not formally consolidated – by changing the organization’s mandate, for example – the prospect of such change
fuelled an already vigorous debate about the role of the
UNHCR and other agencies in what might loosely be called
the refugee or humanitarian regime. One argument was that
the UNHCR was diluting its traditional protection role as it
pursued interventions in arenas that, while within the rubric
of forced migration or displacement, some considered
beyond its brief. Interventions in situations of internal
displacement were highlighted as an example of such overreach (Shacknove 1993, Hathaway 1995, Barutciski 1998,
Chimni 1998, Goodwin-Gill 1999). Others, with a wider
view of the refugee regime, argued that the resolution of
forced displacement needed an explicitly comprehensive
approach that encompassed potential refugees or people in
refugee-like circumstances, such as IDPs and other victims
of human rights abuse, as well as former refugees, such as
returnees (Cohen 1996; Cohen & Deng 1998ab, Frelick
1998, Mooney 1999).
Locating internally displaced people
NORSK GEOGRAFISK TIDSSKRIFT 54 (2000)
Proponents of the former view (almost all lawyers) have
regarded the intensified interest in IDPs among policymakers, practitioners and scholars with some suspicion. They
argue that there has been a move away from an ‘exilic’
approach to one which focuses on the state or region of
origin, and in particular repatriation to, and containment
within, such countries or regions – hence the new-found
interest in IDPs. They suggest that along with other aspects
of a ‘homeland-oriented’ or ‘proactive’ approach, the
concern with IDPs can be seen as part of a project to contain
forced migration within the country or region of origin, with
a view to diminishing the prospects for seeking asylum. Such
critics suggest that the new interest in IDPs has less to do
with helping such people than with taking protection away
from refugees – and with the very creation of IDPs, by
making asylum-seeking difficult. International protection in
the form of asylum seeking is therefore seen as under threat.
The critics further argue that IDPs are not a sub-category of
refugees, but of general human rights victims, and should
accordingly be protected through the enforcement of existing
human rights law. To the extent that the refugee regime – and
the UNHCR in particular – has been drawn into proactive or
homeland-oriented activities, including involvement with
IDPs, there has been a cost because resources have been
diverted from the regime’s principal purpose of refugee
protection.
This controversy was reopened in a session of the UN
Security Council early in 2000, when the distinction between
refugees and IDPs in terms of international protection and
assistance was again highlighted in a debate about conflict
and displacement in Africa. The US Permanent Representative to the UN, Richard Holbrooke, urged the Security
Council to rethink the way in which the international
community dealt with IDPs, suggesting that to distinguish
them from refugees was anomalous in today’s conditions of
complex emergencies. He was quoted as saying: ‘What we
must do is expand the definition of what is a refugee, erode if
not erase the distinction between a refugee and a person who
is internally displaced, deal with these problems, fix the
responsibility more clearly in a single agency and not fall
back on one of the worst of all euphemisms: “we’re
coordinating closely”’ (New York Times 2000). He amplified
these views in a further statement in March 2000 (Holbrooke
2000). Such unequivocal pronouncements by a spokesman of
the world’s dominant superpower were bound to re-ignite the
debate about the direction the refugee regime should take
with respect to internal displacement and other forms of
forced migration.
Whatever the mechanisms eventually chosen under the
rubric of the ‘refugee regime’, they will have to take account
of the complexities of forced migration and the intimate
connections between its diverse forms: the growing appreciation of the dynamic nature of migration, internal and
international, and over place and time, necessitates a move
away from the compartmentalizing approach that has
prevailed until recently. One of the roles of refugee research
is to illuminate such connections and dynamics, and the
purpose of this paper has been to make a modest contribution
to that end.
95
Notes
1
This section draws on Van Hear 1998a, 40–51.
This section draws on fieldwork conducted by the author in 1998 in a
project funded by the Leverhulme Trust, whose support is gratefully
acknowledged.
3
In 1998 R100 was approximately equal to £1.
4
This section draws on Van Hear 1998b, 341–349.
2
Manuscript submitted 1 March 2000; accepted 31 May 2000
References
Barutciski, M. 1998. Tensions between the refugee concept and the IDP
debate. Forced Migration Review No. 3, December.
Chimni, B. 1998. The geo-politics of refugee studies: a view from the south.
Journal of Refugee Studies 11, 4, 350–374.
Cohen, R. 1996. Protecting the internally displaced. World Refugee Survey
1996. US Committee for Refugees, Washington D.C.
Cohen, R. & Deng, F. 1998a. Masses in Flight. The Global Crisis of Internal
Displacement. Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C.
Cohen, R. & Deng, F. 1998b. The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the
Internally Displaced. Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C.
Eelens, F., Schampers, T. & Speckman, J. 1992. Labour Migration to the
Middle East: From Sri Lanka to the Gulf. Kegan Paul, London.
Frelick, B. 1998. Aliens in their own land: protection and durable solutions
for internally displaced persons. World Refugee Survey 1998. US
Committee for Refugees, Washington D.C.
Fuglerud, O. 1999. Life on the Outside: The Tamil Diaspora and Long
Distance Nationalism. Pluto Press, London.
Goodwin-Gill, G. 1999. Refugee identity and asylum’s fading prospect.
Nicholson, F. & Twomey, P. (eds.) Refugee Rights and Realities: Evolving
International Concepts and Regimes, 221–249. CUP, Cambridge.
Hampton, J. (ed.) 1998. Internally Displaced People: A Global Survey.
Earthscan, London.
Hathaway, J. 1995. New directions to avoid hard problems: the distortion of
the palliative role of refugee protection. Journal of Refugee Studies 8, 3,
288–294.
Holbrooke, R. 2000. Statement by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke,
Cardozo Law School, New York, March 28, 2000. www.usinfo.state.gov/
global/refugees 28.03.00.
McDowell, C. 1996. A Tamil Asylum Diaspora: Sri Lankan Migration,
Settlement and Politics in Switzerland. Berghahn, Oxford.
Mooney, E. 1999. In-country protection: out of bounds for UNHCR?
Nicholson, F. & Twomey, P. (eds.) Refugee Rights and Realities: Evolving
International Concepts and Regimes, 200–219. CUP, Cambridge.
New York Times 14.01.00.
Richmond, A. 1994. Global Apartheid: Refugees, Racism and the New World
Order. OUP, Oxford.
Shacknove, A. 1993. From asylum to containment. International Journal of
Refugee Law 5, 4, 516–533.
UNHCR 1995. The State of the World’s Refugees: In Search of Solutions.
OUP, Oxford.
UNHCR 1999. Refugees and Others of Concern to UNHCR: 1998 Statistical
Overview. UNHCR, Geneva.
US Committee for Refugees 1995. World Refugee Survey 1995. USCR,
Washington D.C.
US Committee for Refugees 1998. World Refugee Survey 1998. USCR,
Washington D.C.
US Committee for Refugees 1999. World Refugee Survey 1999. USCR,
Washington D.C.
Van Hear, N. 1998a. New Diasporas: The Mass Exodus, Dispersal and
Regrouping of Migrant Communities. University College London Press,
London.
Van Hear, N. 1998b. Refugee studies and the refugee regime in transition.
Journal of Refugee Studies 11, 4, 341–349.
Reviews
hybrid corn seeds is shaped by the state (through judicial intervention and fair market rules governing labeling,
patents, etc.), seed companies (including industry associations), and experts (researchers, universities, professional
organizations and journals). With the increased technical specialization of farming, individuals and groups hide and
contest knowledge such as the identity of particular strains of hybrid seeds to make a profit. Ziegenhorn’s
description of the hybrid corn industry highlights the close connection between the structures of science and global
capitalism. Science itself is complicit in the penetration of global capitalism throughout the world because it both
naturalizes market economic ideology and structurally supports business companies in their accumulation of
knowledge and profit.
This penetration of global capitalism, however, does not come free of cost to those who adopt market
practices. Nicole Polier’s essay on changes in kinship and community relations resulting from the commoditization
of labor and food has resulted in a destabilization of everyday life in Papua New Guinea. Similarly, Bruce Roberts
shows how the commoditization of beer both helps and is harmful to local Kenyan society. The strategies selected
by local communities to meet the challenges of global capitalism, however, are dependent upon distant, impersonal
forces. Relying on such nonlocal vagaries make local strategies, such as the highly specialized Pecorino cheese
export by highland Sardinians as described by Gabriela Vargas-Cetina, may be inherent to the expansion of the
global market system itself. In her essay, Vargas-Cetina lays out a macroeconomic model of the commoditization
process that implies social dislocation through the emergence of disparities of wealth and access to opportunities.
The two archaeological contributions to the volume by Winifred Creamer and Mitchell Rothman give historical
depth to the significance of economic processes of commoditization and globalization.
The essays in this volume contain solid ethnographic description and theoretical discussions that clearly
delineate the local social issues of the world of goods. The variety of anthropological methods used by the authors
can help others in different disciplines contextualize a variety of economic phenomena. One limitation that I would
point out is the absence of any cases where the processes of globalization and commoditization are situated outside
the West, such as what has happened in East Asia (such as Japan, the second largest economy and a major national
agent of globalization). Nonetheless, this volume is well worth reading by those examining the cross-cultural impact
of commodities and globalization.
Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines. Edited by Caroline B. Brettell and James F.
Hollifield. New York: Routledge (2000). 239 pp.
Reviewed by Ellen Percy Kraly, Department of Geography, Colgate University, Hamilton,
New York
Migration Theory is a welcome contribution to the field of migration studies, which, as the editors state in the
Preface, “…cries out for an interdisciplinary approach” (p. vii). As several of the authors included in the volume
demonstrate through literature review, the study of migration has often been inter- and multidisciplinary. But the
editors are asking for greater analytic articulation of the conceptual value of interdisciplinarity within scholarship on
migration. One of their three goals for the book is to foster a ‘spirit of dialogue’ among migration scholars. This is
offered as one means to the dual ends of “gaining greater insight into the phenomenon of international migration” (p.
vii) through multidisciplinary and comparative research (p. 20) and of “moving toward a more unified field of study”
(p. vii). These analytic goals are highly relevant given the ever more significant role of international population
movements in contemporary social, economic, political and environmental change - at all geographic scales: local,
national, regional and global.
In the jointly authored Introduction, the editors provide a superb synthesis of the analytic characteristics of
migration studies from the perspectives of particular disciplines. Brettell and Hollifield compare how different
academic disciplines frame and implement research questions. They offer critical insight to the theoretical and
methodological traditions as well as empirical emphases of each of the fields and, in the process, help to identity the
major bodies of knowledge about international migration that have developed in many of the social sciences. This is
a fine organizing chapter. It concludes with a presentation of specific research questions or areas that would benefit
from interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration. For example, Brettell and Hollifield “foresee exciting
collaboration on the question of citizenship between the political scientists and political sociologists who frame the
Journal of Political Ecology
Vol. 8 2001
41
Reviews
in relation to the nation-state and the rights of a democratic society, and the anthropologists who frame the questions
in relation to ethnicity and the construction of identity” (p. 19).
Each of the individual chapters provides a critical review of the theoretical and research literature within the
respective social science disciplines represented in the volume: history, demography and population studies,
sociology, anthropology, economics, political science and legal studies. Each author makes his or her own decisions
about emphasis. Diner considers the receptivity of historians to theoretical models and hypothesis testing. Keely
underscores the awareness among demographers about issues of data reliability and cohort versus period effects.
Chiswick summarizes the economic literature concerning the issue of migrant selectivity and notes the policy
implications of differing interpretations of empirical findings. In her excellent summary of the sociological literature
on immigrant incorporation, ethnicity and citizenship, Heisler reveals the many different conceptual frameworks and
methodological approach adopted among her colleagues. Brettell too provides a rich discussion of the ways in which
the anthropology of migration has deepened to consider issues of identity and culture within the context of
globalization and transnationalism. Hollifield identifies what he considers three central issues concerning the politics
of international migration (national sovereignty and the control of migration; national security; and immigrant
incorporation and polity) and looks as how scholars in other social sciences have addressed these issues. Schuck
discusses how legal studies can illuminate critical immigrant policy concerns including the demand for immigration,
and policy and program enforcement and administration. In a similar vein, but using the lens of economics, Chang
focuses on four U.S. immigration policy issues: labor competition and labor market effects; distributive justice;
public goods and resources; immigration law and policy reform.
Each of the chapters in this volume stands on its own by offering critical synthesis of disciplinary scholarship
on international migration. Each discusses, in different ways, both the contributions and to some extent failings of
the discipline to insights about the phenomenon of international migration and population movements. As a
collection of papers organized to meet the goals set forth by the editors, however, I see two important limitations.
First, most of individual papers do not identify clearly, or clearly enough, the ways in which interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary research on international migration might proceed. For example, Chiswick concludes his chapter
by discussing the various dimensions of immigrant selectivity and social and economic mobility that might, we
presume, be considered in research by non-economists. But the fostering of an interdisciplinary perspective and
research program on immigrant selection remains implicit at best. Hollifield presents a detailed, well conceived
agenda of research for political scientists, a “call for research” that I hope might be considered seriously by a
foundation or other funding organization. But the agenda focuses specifically on work to be done within the field of
political science that benefit both the discipline as well as the store of knowledge about the politics of international
migration. The connections to other disciplines are not as clearly evident as one might hope given the goals of the
book.
In fact, in my review, only two papers in the collection succeed at explicitly and concretely discussing the
potential interdisciplinary ‘dialogue’ about research on international migration. Interestingly, Hania Diner discusses
at length the inherent difficulties in promoting interdisciplinary research on migration that would involve historians
and other social scientists. She draws a decidedly ominous conclusion: “…the nature of history as a field, the
particular perspective of American history, and the inner dynamics of American immigration history as a field has
militated against a conjoining of the study of immigration to the United States and migration theory. The two have
gone their separate ways. While they both may be the poorer for it, there is no reason to predict that in the
immediate future they will find common ground” (p. 39).
In contrast, but addressing the same goal of “interdisciplinary dialogue,” Barbara Schmitter Heisler concludes
her chapter on sociological studies of international migration by setting out a “constructive” agenda for research.
She suggests more scholarly connections among sociologists drawing from different emphases within the discipline,
specifically between “Americanists” and “Comparativists/Globalists.” Because the latter more often adopt an
interdisciplinary perspective, such dialogue will ultimately move analysis in a variety of new analytic combinations.
Schmitter Heisler identifies transnationalism as a focus of interdisciplinary dialogue between sociologists and
anthropologists as macrosociological processes emerge on all levels of human society. Similarly, according to
Schmitter Heisler, the study of state sovereignty is an opportunity for interdisciplinary analysis between sociologists
and political scientists given different assumptions about the significance of nation states in migration and settlement
processes. Finally, Schmitter Heisler discusses the need for interdisciplinary and comparative dialogue about
processes of immigrant assimilation, integration and incorporation and for critical assessment of biases inherent in
the conceptual models. This chapter seems to me to accomplish the goal for “talking across disciplines” set forth by
the editors.
The second limitation of the collection is the omission of professional geography from the social scientific
map. The movement of humans is a spatial process and a major force of landscape and hence social geographic and
42
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Journal of Political Ecology
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environmental change. The subfield of population geography is virtually defined as the study of human migration
and geographic mobility; in the past decade economic, cultural and feminists geographers studying globalization and
development has given close and critical attention in field studies to the roles of transmigration and transnationalism
in the ‘relationships between people and places.’ The work of Victoria Lawson (1998; 2000) is particularly notable
in this regard.
Beyond significant theoretical and empirical contributions of geographers in the study of migration of all
forms is the longstanding awareness among geographers of the need for disciplinary integration in the study of
human-environmental interactions. Intellectual integration and synthesis is considered by many of us who teach the
discipline at the collegiate level the analytic signature of the discipline. Among geographers Kevin McHugh (2000)
has made a most clear and eloquent argument for interdisciplinary perspective, and also multi-method approach, in
the study of migration, in his call for incorporating ethnography in the geographic analysis of migration and spatial
processes:
Geographers – steeped in thinking in terms of space, place and connection – are well posed to explore and
elucidate peoples, place and societal implications of migration and circulation systems. This challenge requires
openness to multiple epistemologies and perspectives, as intellectual life across the social sciences and humanities is
becoming increasingly defined by what Geertz (1983) term blurred genres in social thought. … Cultivating
ethnographic approaches will help enliven migration studies in geography and foster linkages with other branches of
the discipline, opening up new vistas in migration, culture and society (pp. 85-86).
The editors of this good volume of theory and practice in migration scholarship would have done better to
include the theoretical vantage and empirical insight of colleagues such as Lawson and McHugh in promoting
conversation across social scientific disciplines about the study of migration.
References Cited:
Geertz, C.
1983. Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic Books.
Lawson, V.
1998. Hierarchical households and gendered migration: Feminists extensions to migration research.
Progress in Human Geography 22: 39-53.
Lawson, V.
2000. Questions of migration and belonging: understandings of migration under neoliberalism in Ecuador.
International Journal of Population Geography 5: 261-276.
McHugh, K.
2000. Inside, outside, upside down, backward, forward, round and round: A case for ethnographic studies
in migration. Progress in Human Geography 24: 71-89.
Indians, Merchants, and Markets: a Reinterpretation of the Repartimiento and SpanishIndian Economic Relations in Colonial Oaxaca, 1750-1821. By Jeremy Baskes. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press (2000), 306 pp.
Reviewed by Jeffrey H. Cohen, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State
University
Jeremy Baskes’s Indians, Merchants, and Markets is an excellent addition to the history of colonial Mexico.
His discussion of the colonial economy, Indian-Spanish relations and the role structure and meaning of the
repartimiento should be welcomed by historians and anthropologists alike.
Baskes uses the production, trade and export of cochineal (a red dye made from the dried body of the beetle
Dactylopius coccus, that grow on nopal cactus) as a lens through which to question long held assumptions about
colonial Mexico’s economy, the place of natives in that economy, and the role of the repartimiento. For the author,
the colonial economy is not an isolated system built upon the needs and desires of colonial rulers, rather, it is part of
a broad global trade network that brought cochineal dye (called grana) from native communities throughout rural
Journal of Political Ecology
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43
Perspective
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01245-w
The meaning of net zero and how to get it right
Sam Fankhauser 1,2 ✉, Stephen M. Smith 1, Myles Allen 2, Kaya Axelsson1, Thomas Hale 3,
Cameron Hepburn 1, J. Michael Kendall 4, Radhika Khosla 1, Javier Lezaun 5, Eli Mitchell-Larson2,
Michael Obersteiner 6, Lavanya Rajamani7, Rosalind Rickaby 4, Nathalie Seddon8 and
Thom Wetzer 1,7
The concept of net-zero carbon emissions has emerged from physical climate science. However, it is operationalized through
social, political and economic systems. We identify seven attributes of net zero, which are important to make it a successful
framework for climate action. The seven attributes highlight the urgency of emission reductions, which need to be front-loaded,
and of coverage of all emission sources, including currently difficult ones. The attributes emphasize the need for social and
environmental integrity. This means carbon dioxide removals should be used cautiously and the use of carbon offsets should
be regulated effectively. Net zero must be aligned with broader sustainable development objectives, which implies an equitable
net-zero transition, socio-ecological sustainability and the pursuit of broad economic opportunities.
C
limate policy has a new focus: net-zero emissions. Historically,
climate ambition has either been formulated as a stabilized
level of atmospheric concentrations (for example, in the 1992
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) or as
a percentage emissions reduction target (for example, in the 1997
Kyoto Protocol). Now climate ambition is increasingly expressed
as a specific target date for reaching net-zero emissions, typically
linked to the peak temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. Almost
two-thirds of global emissions and a slightly higher share of global
gross domestic product are already covered by net-zero targets1.
Net zero is intrinsically a scientific concept. If the objective is
to keep the rise in global average temperatures within certain limits, physics implies that there is a finite budget of carbon dioxide
that is allowed into the atmosphere, alongside other greenhouse
gases. Beyond this budget, any further release must be balanced by
removal into sinks.
The acceptable temperature rise is a societal choice, but one
informed by climate science. Under the Paris Agreement, 197
countries have agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 °C
and make efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C. Meeting the 1.5 °C goal with
50% probability translates into a remaining carbon budget of 400–
800 GtCO2. Staying within this carbon budget requires CO2 emissions to peak before 2030 and fall to net zero by around 20502.
However, net zero is much more than a scientific concept or a
technically determined target. It is also a frame of reference through
which global action against climate change can be (and is increasingly) structured and understood.
Achieving net zero requires operationalization in varied social,
political and economic spheres. There are numerous ethical judgements, social concerns, political interests, fairness dimensions,
economic considerations and technology transitions that need to
be navigated, and several political, economic, legal and behavioural
pitfalls that could derail a successful implementation of net zero.
Getting net zero, the frame of reference, right is therefore essential. This Perspective recapitulates the scientific logic behind net
zero and sets out the attributes we believe are important to turn it
into a successful framework for climate action across countries.
The seven attributes complement an emerging set of operational
principles and criteria, which have been put forward to govern
specific net-zero decisions, such as country-level target setting3,
the design of institution-level net-zero commitments (https://
racetozero.unfccc.int/, https://sciencebasedtargets.org/ and ref. 4),
the management and disclosure of climate risks5, and the use of
carbon offsets6.
Net zero as a scientific concept
Net zero is just a number, begging the question ‘net zero what?’
For CO2, the answer emerged in the late 2000s from understanding
what it would take to halt the increase in global average surface temperature due to CO2 emissions. A series of papers noted the longevity of the impact of fossil carbon emissions7–9 and the monotonic,
near-linear (so far) relationship between cumulative net anthropogenic CO2 emissions and CO2-induced surface warming10–13. The
corollary of this result is that CO2-induced warming halts when
net anthropogenic CO2 emissions halt (that is, CO2 emissions reach
net zero), with the level of warming determined by cumulative net
emissions to that point.
Unless net CO2 emissions then go below zero, CO2-induced surface warming is expected to remain elevated at this level for decades
to centuries14. This occurs because for, and only for, time intervals
of 40–200 years, the rate of atmospheric CO2 uptake by the deep
oceans (acting to reduce warming) occurs at a rate similar to the
thermal adjustment of the deep oceans to raised atmospheric CO2
(acting to increase warming)9,15.
Total anthropogenic warming is a function not only of CO2,
but also of a range of other greenhouse gases and forcings16.
These have different efficacies and lifetimes of influence on
climate, generally shorter-lived than that of CO2. Non-CO2
anthropogenic warming is therefore better determined not by
cumulative emissions, but by the present-day emission rate plus a
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 2School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford,
Oxford, UK. 3Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 4Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
5
Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 6Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
7
Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. 8Nature-based Solutions Initiative, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
✉e-mail: sam.fankhauser@smithschool.ox.ac.uk
1
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15
Perspective
NaTure ClimaTe CHange
a
Anthropogenic carbon
flows into atmosphere are
imbalanced; climate warms
Atmosphere
Emissions from
land-use change
Emissions from
fossil fuels and
industrial processes
Sinks from
land-use change
Land and ocean
biosphere
Lithosphere
Current situation
b
Anthropogenic carbon flows
into atmosphere are balanced;
temperature stabilized
temporarily
Atmosphere
Emissions from
land-use change
Emissions from
fossil fuels and
industrial processes
Sinks from
land-use change
Sinks from air capture
and geological storage
Land and ocean
biosphere
Lithosphere
Sinks from biomass capture and
geological storage
Net zero
c
Anthropogenic carbon
flows in and out of each sphere
are balanced; temperature
stabilized sustainably
Emissions from
fossil fuels and
industrial processes
Atmosphere
Emissions from
land-use change
Sinks from
land-use change
Sinks from air capture
and geological storage
Lithosphere
The adoption of net-zero targets
Land and ocean
biosphere
Sinks from biomass capture and
geological storage
Durable net zero
Fig. 1 | Net-zero balance of carbon emissions and removals. a–c, Current
anthropogenic carbon flows to and from the atmosphere are not in
equilibrium: emissions from fossil fuels, industrial processes and land-use
change by far exceed the removal of carbon into land-use-related sinks
(a)16. Net zero requires anthropogenic flows to and from the atmosphere to
balance on aggregate. This necessitates a radical reduction in fossil-fueland land-use-related carbon emissions as well as an increase in geological
and biological sinks (b). A durable net zero further recognizes that biological
storage is limited in capacity and shorter-lived than geological storage. A
durable net-zero state therefore requires that net anthropogenic flows to
and from each sphere (not just the atmosphere) equal zero (c). Note that
natural flows of carbon are not shown in this figure and involve a small net
flow from the atmosphere to the biosphere when net zero is reached.
small correction for the long-term climate response to the average
non-CO2 forcing over a multi-decade to century time interval17.
Hence, the IPCC statement “reaching and sustaining net-zero
global anthropogenic CO2 emissions and declining net non-CO2
radiative forcing would halt anthropogenic global warming on
multi-decadal timescales2.”
16
These observations have an immediate policy implication:
it makes little sense to apply the net-zero concept on timescales
shorter than decades. Achieving net zero through an unsustainable
combination of fossil-fuel emissions and short-term removals is
ultimately pointless. Carbon emissions and removals must balance
over multi-decadal timescales (Fig. 1).
We must also accept that net-zero emissions may still be
associated with some further very slow warming or cooling on
longer timescales, and that the temperature implications of the
net-zero concept when applied to non-CO2 climate drivers are less
clear than they are for CO2 alone, depending on the specific mix
of drivers18.
There are alternative interpretations of net zero. Sometimes,
net zero is used simply to describe emissions trajectories consistent with 1.5 °C (https://sciencebasedtargets.org/). While a helpful
shorthand, this obscures the fact that halting global warming, at
whatever temperature level, requires net-zero CO2 emissions and
declining non-CO2 radiative forcing.
Alternatively, net zero is often understood to mean net-zero
CO2-equivalent emissions aggregated using the 100-year ‘global
warming potential’ metric. This cannot be related unambiguously to
any temperature outcome, but is generally seen as more ambitious,
and hence preferable, than ‘just’ halting human-induced global
warming19. It may, of course, be necessary to aim for a long-term
decline in global temperature. If so, the above empirical relationship remains applicable to determine what needs to be net zero to
deliver this more ambitious goal. However, as we see it, the concept
of net zero emerged from our understanding of what it would take
to achieve a temperature goal, not vice versa.
The importance of these differences in interpretation should
not be overstated: the fact that net zero needs to apply to a state
of balance that can be maintained over multiple decades, meeting
additional environmental and social criteria, limits the scope for
compensation among different climate drivers. It also limits the
scope for compensatory exchanges between different carbon pools
in the atmosphere, biosphere, oceans and lithosphere.
The carbon budgets calculated by scientists apply to the global
atmosphere, rather than individual entities. To turn net zero into
a useful frame of reference for decision-makers, the global carbon
constraint needs to be translated into individual decarbonization
pathways for nation states, sub-national entities, companies and
other organizations.
Setting such entity-level targets and defining how they interact
requires judgement. There are many ways in which the remaining
carbon budget can be managed. Although there is a considerable
literature on this subject18,20–23, in practice defining the scope, timing, fairness and relevance of entity-level net-zero targets has been
left to individual emitters and self-regulated voluntary codes. This
leaves open the question of how a diverse set of voluntary pledges
adds up to national targets and national targets add up to the global
carbon budget.
The Paris Agreement leaves it to its parties to define their own
emissions pathways or nationally determined contributions to
global net zero. There is no official yardstick against which the adequacy, ambition or fairness of nationally determined contributions
is measured. Instead, the Paris Agreement relies on process. Regular
stocktakes are intended to catalyse ambitious action and ensure that
national emissions pathways will gradually converge to a global
net-zero state consistent with the long-term temperature goals.
More than 120 countries have now pledged to reach net zero in
some shape or form around mid-century, consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. They include China, the European
Union and the United States, the world’s three largest greenhouse
gas emitters.
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Individual organizations are effectively accounted for in the
carbon targets of the countries in which they operate, but many
have made their own individual net-zero pledges. In doing so, they
are guided by voluntary schemes, such as Cities Race to Zero, the
Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance and the Science-based Target
Initiative, which encourage entities to bring down their emissions
as fast as reasonably practicable and many of which are partners
of the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign (https://racetozero.
unfccc.int/). Progress is measured and assessed by frameworks
such as CDP (https://www.cdp.net/en) and the Transition Pathway
Initiative (https://www.transitionpathwayinitiative.org/).
At the time of writing, more than 100 regional governments, 800
cities and 1,500 companies have adopted organizational net-zero
targets, often considerably earlier than mid-century1. One in five
corporations in the Forbes Global 2,000 list have set a voluntary
net-zero target.
Attributes of a credible net zero
The readiness with which a growing number of countries,
sub-national entities and individual organizations have made
net-zero pledges speaks to the unifying and galvanizing power
of the net-zero narrative. These pledges should be encouraged.
However, there is concern that these often-voluntary commitments
allow too much discretion in the design of net-zero pathways and
may therefore not be consistent with global net zero, or with ambitious climate action more generally24.
Governance, accountability and reporting mechanisms are
currently inadequate. Long-term ambition is often not backed up
by sufficient near-term action. Many entities have not yet set out
detailed plans to achieve their pledges and are opaque about the
role of carbon offsets in place of cutting their own emissions1. The
environmental and social integrity of some of these offsets is questionable. As a result, some advocates have accused these pledges of
amounting to little more than ‘greenwashing’24,25.
These concerns do not negate the scientific logic of global net
zero. However, they demonstrate the need for clear guardrails to
ensure the robustness of net zero as a framework for climate action.
Below, we set out seven attributes that we believe a successful
net-zero framework must have (Fig. 2).
Attribute 1—front-loaded emission reductions. There are many
different pathways to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. The
IPCC has identified over 200 scenarios that are consistent with
either 1.5 °C or 2 °C global warming2. However, there are sound scientific and economic reasons to reduce emissions as much and as
fast as possible.
Global temperature change is determined by cumulative emissions, that is, the total of all emissions over time, and not isolated
emissions at a particular point in time (see above). How quickly
emissions are reduced therefore matters. Scientists have demonstrated that every year of delay before initiating emission reductions
decreases the remaining time available to reach net-zero emissions
while keeping below 1.5 °C by approximately two years26,27.
Front-loading emission reductions also preserves optionality. In
particular, it maintains the option to further tighten remaining carbon budgets in light of new scientific findings, for example, if carbon cycle feedbacks (such as more rapid thaw of permafrost) begin
to add to anthropogenic emissions28,29.
Economic model calculations have shown that front-loading climate action, paired with long-term planning over several years, is
the most cost-effective way to reach a given temperature target30–33.
Earlier action helps (or would have helped) to overcome the inertia in economic systems34,35 and allows learning and scale effects
to unfold, bringing down technology costs36,37. It maximizes the
growth potential of clean innovation and reduces the risk of investing in stranded assets, particularly in growing economies38–40.
To encourage early emission reductions, governance experts recommend the combination of long-term net-zero commitments—
which set the direction of travel—with short-term interim targets,
which define emissions pathways over decision-relevant time horizons. The two sets of targets are complementary and mitigate the
well-known risk of time inconsistency in long-term political commitments41. Both at the corporate and country level, they should be
anchored in robust and enforceable legal frameworks (that is, contracts, legislation or enforceable regulation)42,43.
Attribute 2—a comprehensive approach to emission reductions.
A critical facet of net zero is the comprehensive emissions abatement that it implies. Under partial emissions targets, it was possible
to subsume difficult emissions sources under the residual emissions
that would remain. Net zero removes this option (except for the
possibility of carbon removal, see attribute 3 below). It means tackling all emissions.
The traditional focus of emissions reduction strategies has been
energy, and the scale-up of clean energy remains at the core of
decarbonization44. However, important tipping points have been
reached. The fall in renewable energy costs has been so steep that
the transition to zero-carbon electricity now seems hard to stop45.
The automotive industry appears to be at a similar tipping point,
although the uptake of zero-emissions vehicles is still low46.
In most other sectors, the transition to zero carbon is still uncertain. Without diverting attention from finishing the job in the
most advanced sectors, net zero is about extending the focus to
‘harder-to-treat’ sectors, such as heavy industries, buildings, food
and agriculture, aviation, and mining. In most of these sectors,
zero-carbon solutions exist, but they are still costly and not yet as
established as incumbent technologies and infrastructures47.
Tackling all emissions requires an equally comprehensive
approach to the involvement of stakeholders. There are signs that
supportive coalitions on net zero are starting to emerge. Climate
change is increasingly reaching community groups, city administrations, board rooms, regulatory agencies, central banks, international financial institutions and the courts48,49. In some countries,
the climate debate has been energized by an increased role for participatory democracy in the form of citizens’ assemblies and juries50.
This broad-based societal support will be essential for a successful
net zero and requires the concept to be operationalized in ways that
increase its public legitimacy.
Attribute 3—cautious use of carbon dioxide removal. In principle,
net zero can be achieved through different levels of residual emissions
and different forms of compensating removals. In reality, there is a
strong case for a net-zero carbon balance that combines a very low
level of residual emissions with low levels of multi-decadal removals.
Carbon dioxide removal will probably be constrained by cost
considerations and geopolitical factors, as well as by biological, geological, technological and institutional limitations on our ability to
remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it durably and safely.
There are also concerns about moral hazard risks arising from an
over-reliance on carbon removal strategies, which may enable business as usual rather than the drastic scaling back of fossil-fuel use24.
There are other unresolved issues. In the case of biological storage through large-scale plantations, often using exotic tree species,
there are concerns about trade-offs with other ecosystem services
and the permanence of the carbon store given the vulnerability of
these approaches to hazards such as weather fluctuations, fire and
pathogens. Conversely, nature-based solutions—biodiversity-based
protection, restoration and sustainable management of native ecosystems—involve fewer trade-offs and are more resilient (see attribute 6 below). An additional concern is that climate change itself
might already be destabilizing some terrestrial carbon reservoirs51.
While this arguably strengthens the case for nature-based solutions
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1
The urgency of ‘zero’
2
3
Net zero
The integrity of ‘net’
4
5
Consistency with sustainable
development objectives
6
7
Front-loaded
emission reductions
Comprehensive
emission reductions
Cautious use of
carbon dioxide removal
Effective regulation of
carbon offsets
Equitable transition to
net zero
Socio-ecological
sustainability
New economic
opportunities
Fig. 2 | Attributes of net zero as a frame of reference.
to mitigate climate risks, it also raises questions about relying on
them too heavily.
In the case of geological storage, the risk of physical reversal is
thought to be extremely low, but questions remain about the appropriate rate of injection and the geo-mechanical response of the
reservoir52. The public understanding and acceptability of subsurface geological storage is also still evolving. More nascent removal
options, such as soil carbon sequestration, ocean alkalinization and
mineralization need further development to ascertain their safety
and effectiveness53.
Prioritizing emission reductions neither equates to ‘reduction
only’, nor does it mean delaying the ramp-up of carbon dioxide
removal. Most modelled pathways to meet the Paris Agreement
involve a significant scaling up of removals2. Given that many
important technologies are still in their infancy, much investment is
and will be needed to ensure that there are enough removal options
for residual emissions. We need to make progress as fast as realistically possible on both emission reductions and removals.
The regulatory frameworks that will govern the deployment of
removals at scale are yet to be developed. Appropriate policy signals
will be required to ensure the right balance between emissions and
removals and the environmental integrity of any removal solutions
that are being deployed. These rules will form part of broader legal
and governance frameworks on the capture, transport and storage
of CO2, which will ensure clear accountabilities, transparent reporting, prudent risk management and transparency about the environmental characteristics of different removal options. This is essential
not just environmentally, but also to maintain public support and a
social and political licence for carbon removal technologies54.
Attribute 4—effective regulation of carbon offsets. The need for
social and environmental integrity in carbon dioxide removal is
linked to the integrity, and appropriate regulation, of carbon offsets.
Previous experience with carbon offset markets, such as the Clean
Development Mechanism or the current voluntary carbon market,
suggests that the environmental integrity of carbon offsets will be
problematic, unless quality standards are upgraded and scrupulously enforced55–57.
Because very few organizations and not even all countries will be
able to achieve the balance between residual emissions and removal
into sinks themselves, there is a need for systems that can deliver a
global balance between sources and sinks.
18
Such arrangements could take many forms58,59. Some governments may opt to procure carbon offsets centrally, through regular
purchases to balance their national carbon account. Another structure is a private market for carbon offsets. The increased ambition
embodied in net-zero pledges is already driving up demand for offsets60, renewing concerns over their effectiveness.
Social and environmental concerns about carbon credits centre
around the credibility of their purported carbon benefit, including the risk of non-additionality, the poor monitoring of emissions
avoidance, reduction or removal, and the presence of unwanted
side-effects (see attribute 6 below). Because net zero requires the
physical balancing of residual emissions with removals, any entity
using carbon credits to deliver net zero would need to purchase
exclusively carbon ‘removal’ credits6. This poses immediate technical challenges, as the infrastructures for robust monitoring, reporting and verification of removed carbon are yet to be developed.
A key issue is the longevity of storage, which depends on both
social and physical factors. As shown above, net zero demands
multi-decadal storage (see ‘Net zero as a scientific concept’).
Geological storage should be possible for millennia, but the timescales associated with biological carbon storage in, for example,
afforestation projects, range from less than a decade to over a century depending on governance and ownership61, and biophysical
factors. Scientific understanding of the sequestration potential of
different carbon sinks is constantly evolving, which introduces a
degree of inherent indeterminacy in any offset scheme.
Despite appearances to the contrary, with a number of standards in place, and a large range of independent verification agencies, the current carbon offset market and its attendant governance
mechanisms do not sufficiently address these concerns. Badly
conceived schemes have been accused of issuing credits for the
preservation of forests that were not under threat62,63 or, in the case
of commercial plantations, only offer short-term high-risk carbon
storage with negative outcomes for biodiversity and local communities. The scaled-up use of carbon offsets will have to be accompanied by a radical enhancement of their quality and scaled-up
regulatory scrutiny.
Attribute 5—an equitable transition to net zero. Fairness is an
essential aspect of climate action. The fairness of net zero depends
on how the burden of meeting the global target is shared across
countries and within countries (for example, between regions,
industries and population groups). This is a long-standing challenge
for climate action, now compounded by the need to ensure that carbon removals (for example, through nature-based solutions) bolster, rather than impede, a just transition to zero-carbon societies.
The Paris Agreement is explicit about the need for an equitable
transition. It urges global peaking of emissions, but emphasizes that
“peaking will take longer for developing countries” and that net zero
is to be achieved “on the basis of equity” and in the context of “sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty” (Article 4(1)).
The Paris Agreement does not advocate undifferentiated uptake
of net-zero targets across all countries. Rather, the emphasis in the
agreement on equity, sustainable development and poverty eradication suggests a thoughtful balancing of responsibilities between
countries at different levels of development, a recognition of transitions tailored to “different national circumstances”, and concern for
distributional impacts within a country (see also attribute 7 below).
This has at least three implications64. First, some countries may
need to reach net zero faster to create room for others that may take
longer to reach net zero. Second, every country may chart its own
path to net zero tailored to its own specific national circumstances
and constraints. The Paris Agreement privileges ‘national circumstances’ both by adding the clause “in light of different national
circumstances” to the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (Article 2(2)), and by centring its
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NaTure ClimaTe CHange
governance regime on nationally determined contributions. Third,
developing countries need to be supported—in terms of finance, technology and capacity building—in reaching net zero65,66.
The transition to net zero will thus necessarily take different
paths in different countries, and the dominant narrative driving
each such transition will reflect a mix of priorities and efforts to
harness multiple benefits, such as creating jobs, addressing local air
pollution, ensuring energy security, or protecting vulnerable population groups.
These equity guardrails are key to ensuring a sense of solidarity, collective ownership and political buy-in, thus enhancing the
chances of real action with global impact. They also anchor net zero
in the principle of sustainable development, which balances social,
economic and environmental objectives.
Attribute 6—alignment with broader socio-ecological objectives.
Climate change is one of several pressing socio-ecological challenges, most of them interlinked. In some cases, climate change is a
‘threat multiplier’, exacerbating the negative impacts of other stressors (such as land-use change) on ecosystems and the communities
dependent on them67. In others, climate change and other environmental stressors have the same root causes. For example, land-use
change is both the biggest driver of biodiversity declines (accounting for approximately 30% of declines in global terrestrial habitat
integrity)68 and the second biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions (accounting for 23%)69.
Nature-based solutions, such as protecting or restoring natural
ecosystems and sustainably managing working lands and seas, can
therefore, in theory, simultaneously help limit surface warming and
slow biodiversity declines while also supporting human societies in
countless essential ways, including public health, livelihoods and
food security68,70,71.
However, these multiple benefits are not guaranteed. Some
activities are incorrectly badged as nature-based solutions, but are
simply biological approaches to carbon storage, such as commercial
plantations of exotic tree species in naturally treeless habitats. They
can have negative outcomes for carbon storage, biodiversity and for
local people72,73.
If nature-based solutions are to provide sustained benefits to people, the ecosystems involved must be healthy and resilient, that is, their
ecological functions must be able to resist or recover from perturbations. Such ecological resilience is strongly determined by ecosystem
connectivity and the genetic, functional and species richness at multiple trophic levels74. There is a deepening consensus about the critical
importance of protecting, restoring and connecting a wide range of
habitats across landscapes for the broad range of benefits they bring.
There is also consensus around ensuring that nature-based solutions
are designed and implemented by or in partnership with Indigenous
peoples and local communities through a process that fully respects
and champions local rights and knowledge, and generates local benefits (ref. 75 and https://nbsguidelines.info/). Thus, nature-based solutions must be biodiversity-based and people-led71.
Therefore, rather than narrowly pursuing one objective—carbon storage—net-zero plans must acknowledge a full range of
ecosystem services and be embedded into broader strategies for
socio-ecological sustainability. Shifting support for nature-based
solutions from carbon-centric offsetting claims to unrestricted
contributions could eliminate some of the above unintended consequences, and help protect and restore ecological resilience.
Attribute 7—pursuit of new economic opportunities. The scientific reality of a finite global carbon budget makes it easy to frame
net zero as a zero-sum game. The narrative of burden sharing
remains prominent in the international negotiations, and indeed
how the remaining carbon space is allocated is an essential aspect of
climate justice (as discussed in attribute 5 above). Yet, as attractive
net-zero solutions begin to emerge, it will increasingly become clear
that net zero can also be an economic opportunity76.
The economics literature has started to document the channels
through which net-zero prosperity may materialize. In the short term,
this includes the contribution zero-carbon investment can make to a
sustainable economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, subject to debt constraints66,77. It also includes the removal of economically harmful market and policy failures, such as the prevalence of
fossil-fuel subsidies78. In the longer term, zero-carbon innovation
may unleash a virtuous cycle of investment, renewal and growth35,76.
Realizing these opportunities is key to a successful net-zero transition. In the short term, however, the pursuit of economic opportunities will be hindered by structural rigidities in the economy. The
net-zero transition requires large-scale changes in the way economies are run, the skills they demand and the capital assets they
require.
In developing countries, which are less locked into high-carbon
activities, this creates a need to proactively train a young workforce
in the skills of the twenty-first century and to make long-lived investment decisions with net zero in mind, which may affect returns79. In
industrialized countries, it will create short-term pressure on some
workers, who may have to be reskilled and redeployed80, and the risk
of stranded assets in high-carbon industries38.
Addressing these transition risks is an integral part of net-zero
prosperity. There are only a few examples of successful industrial
transitions, such as in Germany’s Ruhr region. They suggest that a
just transition is possible, but it requires close collaboration between
government, industry, labour unions and local communities, and
substantial investment in education, skills and social protection81.
Conclusions
Limiting the rise in global average temperatures to whatever level
ultimately requires a balance between the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and its removal into sinks. The growth
in net-zero commitments from countries, corporations and
sub-national entities suggests that decision-makers increasingly
understand this scientific reality.
This Perspective offers a series of interpretations of what net
zero means and how it should be achieved. These interpretations
ensure consistency with global temperature goals while embedding
net zero into socio-political and legal contexts. We argue that it is
possible to align net zero with sustainable development objectives,
allow for different stages of development, and secure zero-carbon
prosperity.
However, there are some clear constraints. Net-zero commitments are not an alternative to urgent and comprehensive emissions
cuts. Indeed, net zero demands greater focus on eliminating difficult emissions sources than has so far been the case. The ‘net’ in net
zero is essential, but the need for social and environmental integrity
imposes firm constraints on the scope, timing and governance of
both carbon dioxide removal and carbon offsets.
Not all these aspects are as yet sufficiently understood. The
socio-political interpretation of net zero is therefore also a rich research
agenda, and it will require input from many disciplines, from climate
science, biology and geology to anthropology, law and economics.
There are clear risks of getting net zero wrong. However, the science leaves no alternatives if global temperature is to be stabilized.
If interpreted right and governed well, net zero can be an effective
frame of reference for climate action.
Received: 19 May 2021; Accepted: 9 November 2021;
Published online: 20 December 2021
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Acknowledgements
All authors are part of Oxford Net Zero, which is supported by the University of Oxford’s
Strategic Research Fund. We also acknowledge funding from ClimateWorks (grant 191501), the Economic and Social Research Council (grant ES/S008381/1), EU Horizon
2020 (grants 869192 and 869357) and the Natural Environment Research Council (grant
NE/V013106/1). The charts were produced by S. Littlewood.
Author contributions
The production of the manuscript was coordinated by S.F., who also had overall editorial
responsibility. All authors contributed to the content, structure and framing of the article.
Drafting was led by K.A., M.A., S.F., L.R., N.S. and S.M.S.
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Correspondence should be addressed to Sam Fankhauser.
Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Hongbo Duan,
Daniel Huppmann and Sally Benson for their contribution to the peer review
of this work.
Reprints and permissions information is available at www.nature.com/reprints.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional affiliations.
© Springer Nature Limited 2022, corrected publication 2022
Nature Climate Change | VOL 12 | January 2022 | 15–21 | www.nature.com/natureclimatechange
21
Participation, Ambition and Compliance: can the Paris Agreement solve the
Effectiveness Trilemma?
Vegard H. Tørstad12*
1Department
of Political and Social Sciences, European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
2Department
of Law, PluriCourts, University of Oslo, Norway
*Email: vegard.torstad@eui.eu
Orcid: 0000-0003-3884-3436
Abstract
An effective climate agreement should simultaneously foster broad participation, high ambition, and
sufficient compliance: this is the ‘effectiveness trilemma’. While the Paris Agreement has been
acclaimed for spurring universal participation, its mitigation mechanism—an unenforced bottom-up
framework of voluntary pledges—has been criticized for lacking ambition and incentivizing free
riding. This article examines whether the Paris Agreement comes with effectiveness trade-offs. It asks:
how ambitious is the Agreement, and how likely is it that countries will comply with it? By using an
effectiveness formula to assess ambition, the article finds that the Paris Agreement constitutes an
important improvement compared to business-as-usual. Further, based on evidence from interviews
with 21 climate negotiators and observers, the compliance prospects of the Agreement are evaluated as
moderately positive. A concluding section argues that the Agreement has the potential to overcome the
effectiveness trilemma, and outlines policy measures for achieving that objective.
Keywords: Compliance; climate policy; international environmental agreements; NDCs; Paris
Agreement; regime effectiveness
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Aslak Brun, Jon Hovi, Sikina Jinnah, John Odell, Håkon Sælen, and
two reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions. Any errors or omissions are the sole
responsibility of the author.
Funding
This work was supported by Research Council of Norway, project no. 261491
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Introduction
On December 12, 2015—after two weeks of negotiations at the 21st Conference of the Parties
(COP21)—representatives of 196 states agreed to adopt the historic Paris Agreement
(UNFCCC 2015a). Diplomats applauded as the Agreement was adopted, and state leaders, the
media, and civil society swiftly praised the outcome (see e.g. BBC 2015; Climate Action
Network 2015; New York Times 2015b). For the first time in their history the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations produced a global1 and
legally binding framework wherein all countries, both industrialized and developing, are
required to contribute to mitigating climate change.
However, while its supporters celebrated the Paris Agreement’s high number of Parties, its
broad participation is potentially incongruent with other aspects of its overall effectiveness.
An effective climate agreement is characterized by broad participation, deep ambition and
sufficient compliance (Barrett 2008). The challenge of simultaneously satisfying these three
effectiveness components is a trilemma that international climate agreements face (Dimitrov
et al. 2019). First, participation is posited to conflict with the ambition of agreements, because
shallower agreements are easier to opt into (Barrett 1999; Young 2011). In the Paris
Agreement, self-determined targets defined through Nationally Determined Contributions
(NDCs) that are not legally binding ensured an easy opt-in and low commitment costs.
Second, an ambitious agreement with broad participation is likely to suffer from compliance
deficits unless it contains an enforcement mechanism (Downs et al. 1996). The Paris
Agreement contains no such mechanism.
In light of these two effectiveness trade-offs this article asks: how ambitious is the Paris
Agreement, and how likely is it that countries will comply with it? In the next section, I
discuss the ‘effectiveness trilemma’ of climate agreements and describe some defining
features of the Paris Agreement. Subsequently, I use an established framework for measuring
the ambition level of climate agreements to evaluate the ambition of the Agreement. Next, I
turn to implementation, and draw on in-depth interviews with negotiators and observers
present at COP21 in 2015 where the Paris Agreement was adopted to assess strengths and
1At
the time of writing (March 2019), 195 countries have signed the Agreement, and 185 of these have also
ratified.
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weaknesses in the Agreement’s compliance mechanisms. I conclude with an evaluation of the
current effectiveness prospects of the Paris Agreement.
The Effectiveness Trilemma in Climate Agreements
An effective climate agreement should attract broad participation, generate ambitious
emissions reductions and secure sufficient compliance with its provisions (Barrett 2008).
While achieving one or two of these goals is often feasible, negotiators face the challenge of
balancing all three components simultaneously—the so-called ‘effectiveness trilemma’ of
climate agreements (Dimitrov et al. 2019). Balancing the three goals is a trilemma in the
sense that all three effectiveness components must be present in an ideal agreement but
prioritizing one of the three components can undermine the others.
For example, the UNFCCC (UNFCCC 1992) was signed by 154 countries but did not set any
emissions targets for its parties nor outline any specific mechanisms for mitigation. The low
ambition provided an easy opt-in, and the Convention attracted broad participation. The 1997
Kyoto Protocol, in contrast, contained modest emissions targets and a strong enforcement
system but its mitigation provisions only applied to a group of industrialized countries.2 The
moderate ambition and strong enforcement system of the Protocol were significantly more
costly for states to take on than the Convention, precluding broad participation in its
mitigation scheme: the Protocol only covered about 14% of global emissions in the current
commitment period. Finally, the 2009 Copenhagen Accord both secured broad participation—
114 countries associated themselves with the Accord—and established ambitious goals such
as the 2C target and $100 billion per year in climate finance. However, the Accord is not
legally binding and contains no mechanism to enforce compliance.
Hence, the history of the UNFCCC negotiations suggests that reaching an agreement that is
strong on all three effectiveness components is difficult to achieve. Consequently, discussions
of how to strike the right balance between participation, ambition and compliance have
prevailed both in the literature on climate agreements (e.g. Barrett and Stavins 2003; Keohane
and Raustiala 2008; Hovi et al. 2013) and among the Parties in the negotiations (e.g. New
Zealand 2013). After the ‘narrow’ Kyoto Protocol the latter years have seen a shift toward an
However, other provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, for example the Clean Development Mechanism,
applied to all Parties.
2
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emphasis on participation, evidenced by the development of the pledge-and-review system
under the Copenhagen Accord and the Paris Agreement. Pledge-and-review under the Paris
Agreement consists of two components. The first part, pledge, requires that Parties submit
their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the UNFCCC secretariat. The second
part, review, is a ‘global stocktake’ of efforts that will regularly assess the aggregate impact
of Paris Agreement Parties’ NDCs, with the newly adopted ‘well below 2C’ goal as the
benchmark (UNFCCC 2015a).
The pledge-and-review system of the Paris Agreement lets Parties individually decide what
commitments to take on, aiming to safeguard the principle of full self-determination.
Considering that Parties to the Paris agreement constitute around 98% of global emissions, the
Agreement is clearly broad. While some have argued that broad participation is indispensable
for the effectiveness of a climate agreement (Keohane and Raustiala 2008; Hovi et al. 2016),
others express skepticism about a broad bottom-up system’s ability to produce sufficient
ambition and compliance (e.g. Bang et al. 2016; Barrett and Dannenberg 2016). These
critiques suggest that broad participation leads to agreements that are ‘shallow’ in terms of
substance, because they have to be acceptable to all participants (Barrett 1999), and that the
only way to overcome the participation-ambition dilemma is strong enforcement mechanisms
(Downs et al. 1996).
Since the Paris Agreement does not set any ambition requirements on the NDCs of its Parties
and does not contain any sanctioning mechanism for enforcing Parties’ compliance with their
pledged targets, the Agreement appears to have generated one participation-ambition trade-off
and one participation-compliance trade-off. In its two subsequent sections, I examine the
current ambition level of the Agreement and assesses the likelihood that Parties will comply
with their pledged targets in the absence of strong enforcement.
The Ambition of the Paris Agreement
The so-called Oslo-Potsdam solution to regime effectiveness (Hovi et al. 2003) is a useful
way to assess the ambition of climate agreements. The Oslo-Potsdam solution is a formula
based on the relative improvement a regime achieves, compared to the counterfactual state of
affairs—that is, the absence of the regime—and a collective optimum, which is the best
outcome one could hope to achieve (Underdal 1992). The solution provides three concepts for
measuring regime effectiveness: 1) the no-regime counterfactual (NR), 2) the actual
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performance of the regime (AP), and 3) the collective optimum (CO). The most effective
regimes are those that provide the greatest relative improvement from the counterfactual state
of affairs while minimizing the distance to the collective optimum.
Building on these concepts, Helm and Sprinz (2000) suggest that a regime effectiveness score
(RE) can be calculated by applying the following formula:
RE=(AP-NR)/(CO-NR)
In other words, the effectiveness of a regime is given as the distance between the actual
performance (AP) and no-regime counterfactual (NR) divided by the distance between the
collective optimum (CO) and the no-regime counterfactual (NR). To measure the ambition
level of the Paris Agreement, pertinent numeric values for the three different concepts in the
formula above must be defined. If the primary goal of the climate negotiations can be
understood as limiting the global average temperature rise, temperature figures can be used as
the numeric values. In evaluating ambition, a distinction should be drawn between the sum of
Parties’ NDCs, on the one hand, and the Agreement’s long-term goal on the other. The longterm goal of the Paris Agreement is to curb global warming to “well below” 2C, and strive
for 1.5C, compared to pre-industrial times (UNFCCC 2015a). However, the NDCs currently
fall short of that goal: early studies have proposed that global warming will be limited to
around 2.7C if the NDCs are implemented (Jeffrey et al. 2015; Rogelj et al. 2016). In this
analysis, 2.7 is therefore used as a numeric measure of the Paris Agreement’s current actual
performance. Furthermore, Jeffrey et al. (2015) estimate that a no-policy business-as-usual
scenario would lead to around 3.6C warming by the end of the century; this number is
therefore used as the no-regime counterfactual.
Defining a value for the collective optimum is more complicated, since this in theory would
entail a global cost-benefit analysis. Intuitively, it could be argued that the ideal collective
optimum would be no global warming. However, limiting global warming to 0C was not a
feasible option for the Paris Agreement, as the world is already around 0.85C warmer than
before the industrial revolution, and around 0.6C of warming is additionally already ‘locked
in’ to the Earth’s atmospheric system as a result of historical emissions (IPCC 2014; World
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Bank 2014). I therefore presume that the most ambitious outcome the Paris Agreement could
achieve would be limiting global warming to 1.5C.3 The Helm-Sprinz formula hence gives:
(2.7−3.6)/(1.5−3.6) =0.43
The effectiveness score takes values on the interval [0,1]. A score of 0.43 can therefore be
taken to indicate that the Paris Agreement is fairly ambitious: it solves 43% of the problem,
but still lacks 57% ambition to be ‘perfect’.4 Following the terminology of Underdal (1992),
the Agreement is an ‘important’ relative improvement compared to the counterfactual noregime, and somewhere between ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ on the collective optimumcontinuum.
To get a better grip of what this effectiveness score signifies, the score can be compared to the
effectiveness score of the Kyoto Protocol. According to a study that predicted the Kyoto
Protocol’s effect on global temperature rise, this climate agreement shaved off around 0.16C
of global warming, given that its provisions were implemented (Wigley 1998).5 Assuming
that in 1997, global warming could be limited to 1.5C6, this gives:
(3.44−3.6)/(1.5−3.6) = 0.07
A score of 0.07 indicates that the Kyoto Protocol was hardly an effective tool for limiting
global temperature rise and puts the Paris Agreement’s ambition level in a good light.
Comparing the potential effectiveness scores of the two agreements, the Paris Agreement
currently represents an improvement of about 35 percentage points from the Kyoto Protocol.7
What is more, this difference can reasonably be expected to increase further in the years to
3If
we instead assume that the collective optimum was 2C, the effectiveness score is increased by 13
percentage points: (2.7−3.6)/(2−3.6) =0.56.
4The effectiveness score of 0.43 above is based on the median scenario of Jefferey et al. (2015). The
effectiveness score is consistent with Rogelj et al. (2016) suggest the NDCs will limit warming to 2.63.1C (2.6C gives RE=0.48; 3.1C gives RE=0.24).
5 Note that the comparison between the ambition of the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol assumes
that the methodologies for calculating their effect on temperature rise were comparable.
6This assumption may be too strong, but the score is robust. If the CO is instead defined as 1C,
for example, RE=0.06.
7Note: both effectiveness scores assume full compliance.
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come, as the so-called ‘progression principle’ of the Paris Agreement binds Parties to take on
increasingly ambitious climate policy targets (UNFCCC 2015, art. 4.3).
This numerical approach provides a crude measure of the ambition level of the Paris
Agreement. However, even though ambition is central for the overall effectiveness of any
climate agreement, most NDCs are not yet implemented. The subsequent section therefore
offers a discussion of the likelihood that countries will comply with the Paris Agreement.
The Compliance Prospects of the Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement contains legally binding language on the topics of mitigation (UNFCCC
2015a, art. 4.2), transparency (art. 4.8), communication of NDCs (art. 4.9), accounting (art.
4.13) and national inventories (art. 13.7).8 This article predominantly focuses on mitigation
and defines compliance as adequate implementation of the mitigation components of the
NDCs.
To evaluate the compliance prospects of the Paris Agreement, I draw on 21 interviews
conducted with negotiators and observers that were present at COP21. The purpose of these
interviews was to understand how different Parties experienced the negotiation process that
led to the Paris Agreement and how they evaluate the content of the Paris Agreement itself. In
particular, I was interested in how strongly Parties support the Agreement. The negotiators
were recruited on the principle of maximizing geographical variation, and represented
Norway, France, EU, United States, Switzerland, Chad, DR Congo, Bolivia/G77,
Guatemala/AILAC, China, Netherlands, Peru, Maldives/AOSIS, Cuba and Tuvalu/LDC.9
This means that all major geographical regions and negotiation groups except the Middle East
and its Arab Group10 were represented in the pool of interview subjects. The two observers
represented the independent reporting service Earth Negotiations Bulletin, which cover UN
environmental negotiations. All interview subjects have been anonymized. The interviews
were semi-structured and consisted of 14 questions about COP21 and the Paris Agreement,
By ‘legally binding language’, I here refer to use of the word ‘shall’. Note that Voigt (2016) also includes
the progression principle (art. 4.3), which uses the word ‘will’, in listing the legally binding obligations of
the Agreement.
9 The respondents were recruited in the years 2016-2018 through UNFCCC participants lists and
recommendations by respondents. 13 interviews were conducted at the UNFCCC meeting SB48 in Bonn,
May 2018; 5 interviews were conducted via telephone; 3 interviews were conducted in Norway in 20162017; and 1 interview was conducted in written via email.
10 I invited several negotiators from the Middle East to be interviewed, but none agreed.
8
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which are listed in the Appendix.11 The discussion below is centered around three factors that
may spur Parties’ compliance with the Paris Agreement and three factors that may undermine
compliance.
Strength 1: Universality
Ten of eleven negotiators that responded to the question “To what extent does your delegation
accept and/or support the Paris Agreement?” express unreserved support for the Agreement. 12
In explaining the support, five of the interviewed negotiators emphasized the importance of
the universality of the Paris Agreement. 13 The Agreement defines a common, long-term goal
for all states to ‘achieve balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals
by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century’, and limit global warming to
‘well below’ 2C and ideally 1.5C (UNFCCC 2015a). While the Kyoto Protocol did not
contain a long-term goal and asked only industrialized countries to take on mitigation
commitments, the Paris Agreement signals that climate change is an issue that concerns all,
and that the Agreement is to remain valid for all states indefinitely (Allan 2019).
To achieve convergence on the vision and long-term goals of the Paris Agreement, the French
Presidency aimed to ‘align the intentions’ of the negotiating Parties (Tubiana 2016). During
the negotiations the French strategy involved organizing the negotiation process inclusively,
to ensure consensus on overarching goals (Ourbak 2017). A French negotiator conveys that
‘[the Presidency] made sure that we had people that would listen to everyone that had
something to say.’14 As a result, the Presidency was broadly applauded for the way it
facilitated an inclusive and transparent negotiation process by other negotiators (Brun 2016;
Dimitrov 2016; Kinley 2017). In the interviews, eleven negotiators and two NGO
representatives characterize the negotiation process as ‘inclusive’.15 These positive
Note that the interview questions were a guide (not a script). Four negotiators did not respond to all
interview questions because of time constraints.
12 Interviews with Cuban negotiator 4 May 2018, Guatemala/AILAC negotiator May 2 2018, Chinese
negotiator May 3 2018, Tuvalu/LDC negotiator June 1 2018, Maldives/AOSIS negotiator May 2 2018,
Peruvian negotiator May 2 2018, Bolivia/G77 negotiator May 1 2018,
negotiator September 14 2017, Norwegian negotiator September 21 2017, Chadian negotiator May 1 2018,
and Swiss negotiator April 30 2018. Only Tuvalu’s negotiator expresses reservations, on the grounds that
the Agreement it is not sufficiently ambitious.
13Interview with US negotiator 30 April 2018; Bolivia/G77 negotiator 1 May 2018; AILAC negotiator 2
May 2018; Cuban negotiator 4 May 2018, and Swiss negotiator 30 April 2018.
14Interview 20 February 2018.
15 Interviews with Chinese negotiator 3 May 2018, Guatemala/AILAC negotiator 2 May 2018, Peruvian
negotiator 2 May 2018, Maldives/AOSIS negotiator 2 May 2018, Tuvalu/LDC negotiator 1 June 2018,
11
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evaluations of the negotiation process may be important for the compliance prospects of the
Paris Agreement insofar as there is a link between states’ perceived procedural fairness and
their compliance with international institutions (Ostrom 1990; Franck 1995; Albin and
Druckman 2014). For example, Ostrom (1990) has shown that when participants in a
negotiation feel a sense of ownership to a decision, this can in turn have a favorable effect on
their disposition to comply with the decision. This point finds support by a Norwegian
negotiator, who underscored that is was important that ‘all felt heard’ in the process, including
the traditionally unambitious Parties, because inclusivity in this regard helps safeguard the
Agreement from being discarded later.16 Similarly, a Chinese negotiator contended that ‘the
[Paris] Agreement is very legitimized, so we can expect implementation and compliance’. 17
Illustratively, the French Presidency put Venezuelan lead negotiator, Claudia Salerno, in
charge of drafting the Preamble to the Paris Agreement. Having contributed to blocking the
Copenhagen Accord in 2009, Salerno was perceived to be a potential obstacle to the
unanimous adoption of the Agreement.18 Four negotiators independently suggested that
giving Salerno the task of drafting the Preamble of the Paris Agreement helped in spurring
Venezuela’s support for the Agreement.19 The more general point here is that the direct
involvement of all the different Parties in drafting of the Agreement contributed to their
feeling that they had a stake in the Agreement’s success. According to a procedural justice
strand in negotiation literature, this sense of ownership may contribute to increased
compliance in the long term (Franck 1995; Young 2011).
One negotiator suggested that the Paris Agreement’s approach to differentiation is a particular
strength.20 The Paris Agreement avoids defining a clear burden-sharing scheme, but its
provisions are more universally applicable than in previous agreements under the UNFCCC.
Notably, the differentiation scheme defined in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, which
Bolivia/G77 negotiator 1 May 2018, NGO representative 15 February 2018, NGO representative 12 March
2018, DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018, EU negotiator 26 April 2018, Chinese negotiator 3 May 2018,
US negotiator 30 April 2018, and Swiss negotiator 30 April 2018.
16Interview 20 September 2017.
17Interview with Chinese negotiator 2 May 2018.
18Interviews with Norwegian negotiator 20 September 2017, NGO observer 12 March 2018, EU negotiator
26 April 2018, and DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018.
19Interviews with EU negotiator 26 April 2018, DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018, and Tuvalu/LDC
negotiator 1 June 2018.
20 Interview with Swiss negotiator 30 April 2018.
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included a clear-cut division between ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries, does not exist
in the Paris Agreement. Climate agreements have higher likelihood for compliance if they are
based on a universally accepted understanding of distributive justice (Tørstad and Sælen
2017), and the self-determination approach to distributive justice likely renders the
Agreement more versatile to changing political and economic circumstances over time.
Relatedly, while the emissions targets of the Kyoto Protocol had to be periodically renegotiated between states, the system of NDCs under the Paris Agreement is designed to last
indefinitely (Allan 2019) and does not require further inter-state negotiations once the Paris
Rulebook has been completed.
Strength 2: Signaling changed Economic Incentives
Two of the interviewed negotiators suggest that a strength of the Paris Agreement is the way
it signals change in the economic incentives associated with mitigating climate change. 21
Climate agreements confront a free-rider problem when it comes to implementation of
mitigation measures, in the sense that the public good of mitigation is incongruent with the
private benefit of non-mitigation (Barrett 2007). However, by signaling that mitigating
climate change is economically beneficial, the Paris Agreement can potentially contribute to
increase the economic attractiveness of climate policy as a private benefit.
On a general level, the formulations in the Paris Agreement of a ‘global peaking of emissions’
and a ‘balance between global emissions and removals’ (UNFCCC 2015a) signal that, in the
long-run, fossil fuels will not be economically viable. Further, Article 2.1.c of the Agreement
asks Parties’ finance flows to be ‘consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas
emissions and climate-resilient development’ (UNFCCC 2015a). These formulations are
important insofar as treaty making in international politics is a learning process wherein
perceptions of national interests are developed (Chayes and Chayes 1993). EU negotiator
Dimitrov (2016) contends that the climate negotiations had already contributed to political
change before a formal agreement had been produced, because ‘convincing arguments’ had
changed Parties’ perceptions of costs and benefits associated with the implementation of
climate policies. Dimitrov describes how South Korea introduced the term ‘green growth’ to
the negotiations, and how the EU accentuated so-called ‘win-win’ solutions (2016). These
arguments corresponded with findings of influential reports on the economic consequences of
21Interviews
with Dutch negotiator 2 May 2018 and Norwegian negotiator 20 September 2017.
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global warming, including the Stern report (2007), which points to the economic benefits of
mitigating climate change as quickly as possible, the New Climate Economy report that
outlines the economic opportunities associated with a green transformation (GCEC 2014),
reports from the World Bank (Deichmann and Zhang 2013) and the International Energy
Agency (2015), but also others.
One negotiator asserts that compliance with the Paris Agreement will be driven by Parties’
economic interests.22 While that assertion may be overly optimistic, both states and private
actors have expressed support for Paris Agreement on the basis of their economic interests.
For example, 16 of the biggest private companies in the US, including Apple, BP, Google,
Microsoft, Schneider Electric, Shell, and Walmart, sent an open letter to President Trump,
demanding the US to remain in the Paris Agreement because the Agreement ‘strengthens
competitiveness’, ‘creates jobs, markets and growth’, and ‘reduces business risk’ (C2ES
2017).
This perception of climate policy as profitable is potentially significant for Parties’
compliance with the Paris Agreement. Negotiators Brun (2016), Dimitrov (2016), and Ourbak
(2017) describe how studies and trends such as the ones showcased above were used in the
negotiations to affect state leaders’ interest perceptions. While it is hard to know the direction
of causality here, several state leaders have since referred to climate policy as economically
beneficial. For example, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin highlighted the negative economic
consequences associated with climate change in a speech at COP21 (New York Times
2015a), US President Barack Obama accentuated the economic benefits of a shift to
renewables when he presented the Paris Agreement to his constituents (White House 2015),
and China’s President Xi Jinping highlighted that green investments are already economically
profitable when he delivered a speech to the world’s financial elite during the World
Economic Forum in Davos (Bloomberg 2017).
Strength 3: Collaboration with Non-state Actors
The World Economic Forum is one example of a venue for interaction and collaboration
between governments and non-state actors. This and other such fora play an important role for
22Interview
with Norwegian negotiator 20 September 2017.
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securing the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement. Three negotiators contend that a particular
strength of the Paris Agreement is the way it facilitates collaboration with non-state actors.23
The UNFCCC has increasingly delegated responsibility to civil society actors over time
(Bäckstrand and Kuyper 2017). In the Paris Agreement, Article 6 (UNFCCC 2015a), as well
as a number of accompanying decisions (articles 73d, 117 and 113 in UNFCCC 2016),
accentuate the importance of collaboration between states and the private sector for the
implementation of NDCs. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christina Figueres and the French
diplomatic corps put in a massive effort prior to COP21 to build momentum in civil society
and among private actors to put pressure on governments, for example at the World Economic
Forum, but also through setting up a number of bilateral meetings between business leaders
and heads of state (Tubiana 2016). Their efforts resulted in a number of ‘transnational
partnerships’ (Bäckstrand 2006), which involve collaboration between states, civil society and
the private sector. 24 Here, I call attention to four examples. The first example is the ‘Carbon
Pricing Leadership Coalition’—an alliance between international organizations, states, and
some of the world’s largest oil companies, airlines, banks and food producers—who prior to
COP21 demanded a global price on carbon. Second, ‘The American Business Act on Climate
Change’ (White House 2015b) includes companies like Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, General
Motors, Facebook, and others. A third example is the ‘Breakthrough Energy Coalition’—an
investment alliance comprising more than 20 billionaires who together invest in new climate
technology. The fourth example is that six of the world’s biggest oil companies jointly
submitted a letter to the UNFCCC in which they asked for a long-term, ambitious climate
policy framework that limited global warming to 2C (UNFCCC 2015b).
In addition to these examples, more than twelve thousand other initiatives have registered in
the UNFCCC portal for non-state cooperation (Bakhtiari 2017). Furthermore, these were
supplemented by an initiative called the ‘Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and
Energy’, that invited local and regional authorities to develop climate action plans.
Consequently, cities and regions representing in total more than 20% of the world’s
population had, before COP21, developed their own five-year plans for local climate action
and will continue to work together to implement the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC 2017).
Interviews with EU negotiator 26 April 2018, French negotiator 20 February 2018, and DR Congo
negotiator 1 May 2018.
24 Interview with EU negotiator 26 April 2018.
23
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This kind of anchoring in both the private sector and sub-national political levels can prove
central for states’ compliance with the Paris Agreement. First, governments that work to
implement climate policies may find their task easier when they have established
collaborations with lower political levels, businesses, and civil society. Considering that
private companies account for around 20%, and cities 71-76%, of global emissions (Bakhtiari
2017), these non-state actors can potentially make an important difference in the global
transformation toward a low-carbon future. Second, the anchoring of the Paris Agreement
among non-state actors helps in shielding the Agreement from domestic political
developments, such as changes in the composition of governments. Illustratively, when US
President Donald Trump announced his intention to withdraw from the Paris Agreement,
arguing that he represents ‘Pittsburgh, not Paris’ (White House 2017), the mayors of
Pittsburgh and Paris—who had connected through the Covenant of Mayors—reacted with a
joint statement in which they declared that their cities would implement the Agreement
regardless of national authorities (Hidalgo and Peduto 2017).
Obstacle 1: Domestic Politics
That said, shifting responsibility from the international toward the domestic level is a doubleedged sword. Two important domestic political trends constitute a threat to the compliance
prospects of the Paris Agreement at present. First, the rise of right-wing populism represents a
challenge for the compliance outlook of the Paris Agreement because contemporary rightwing populism is hostile to climate policies and international institutions (Gemenis et al.,
2012; Lockwood 2018). Illustratively, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has strongly criticized
the Agreement and accelerated deforestation of the Amazon (Economist 2019); the Yellow
Vests movement forced French President Emanuel Macron to scrap a fuel tax last year
(Bloomberg 2018); and, as noted above, US President Donald Trump begun the process of
withdrawing from the Agreement (BBC 2019). Two negotiators are concerned with the
latter25, especially because it may spur other countries to either refrain from complying with
the Agreement or withdraw themselves.
Second, increased autocratization globally also challenges the compliance prospects of the
Paris Agreement. Large-N studies have shown that democracies are more committed to
Interviews with Guatemala/AILAC negotiator 2 May 2018 and Norwegian negotiator 20 September
2017.
25
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environmental policy and climate policy than autocracies (Neumayer 2002; Bättig and
Bernauer 2009; Tørstad et al. in press). Therefore, the recent trend of increased
autocratization (Lührmann et al. 2018) in large countries such as China, India, Indonesia and
Russia pose a significant challenge to the Paris Agreement. When the accountability
mechanisms between political leaders and citizens are weak, leaders may be tempted to avoid
implementation of tough climate targets—especially if such targets conflict with economic
growth. In China, a fivefold increase in new coal mine approvals in the first half of 2019
illustrates this point (Reuters 2019).
Obstacle 2: Capacity Shortages
The second potential problem is that there is a difference between commitment and
implementation: capacity shortages may be a source of non-compliance for the Paris
Agreement (Grubb 2016). Four negotiators from developing countries conveyed that the
compliance prospects for their countries are uncertain because of capacity shortages. 26 As
mentioned above, all Parties to the Paris Agreement were asked to provide NDCs. These
NDCs vary substantially in terms of technical quality and in feasibility. Overall, developed
countries are more advanced in measuring and projecting their emissions, and therefore also
have more concrete plans for how to deliver on their targets, than do developing countries.
For example, two developing country negotiators describe their countries’ NDC targets as
‘aspirational’.27 One of these respondents recalled that the NDC was formulated in a hurry,
based on ‘default numbers’.28 A third developing country negotiator admits that their
country’s NDC was written without knowledge about how much each economic sector
emits.29
Two developing country negotiators further conveyed that, prior to COP21, the French
Presidency pushed several developing countries into submitting intended NDCs (INDCs)
even though many countries were not necessarily ready to do so at the time.30 Since those
countries were exempt from taking on economy-wide targets under the Kyoto Protocol, most
had not developed the same technical mitigation expertise as the developed countries had
Interviews with Guatemala/AILAC negotiator 2 May 2018, Cuban negotiator 4 May 2018, Peruvian
negotiator 2 May 2018, and DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018.
27 Interviews with DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018 and Cuban negotiator 4 May 2018.
28 Interview with DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018.
29 Interview with Peruvian negotiator 2 May 2018.
30 Interview with DR Congo negotiator 1 May 2018 and Guatemala/AILAC negotiator 2 May 2018.
26
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done. This lack of technical capacity reduces the likelihood of compliance: if an NDC is
based on default numbers or otherwise inaccurate information, it may not be feasible to
implement.
Obstacle 3: Climate Finance
Capacity is linked to the third potential problem for the compliance outlook of the Paris
Agreement, which is shortcomings in climate finance. Three developing country negotiators
see finance as an obstacle to compliance with the Paris Agreement. 31 Article 9 of the
Agreement asks developed countries to provide financial resources to assist developing
countries with both mitigation and adaptation (UNFCCC 2015). By 2020, developed
countries have pledged to mobilize $100 billion in climate finance annually. However, these
countries only provided around half of the pledged $100 billion in 2017 (OECD 2018), and it
is unclear how the large gap can be filled before 2020. Further, the US withdrawal is
particularly detrimental for the climate finance part of the Paris Agreement: in 2016, the US
was the largest donor to the Green Climate Fund (OECD 2019).
From a developing country perspective, climate finance matters for at least two reasons. First,
financial support can improve the technical capacities of these countries, and thus contribute
to compliance. Second, adequate finance will lead developing countries to pursue more
ambitious targets. In their NDCs, most developing countries have pledged one unconditional
target and one more ambitious target conditional on financial support (Pauw et al. 2016).
Hence, finance helps securing compliance with developing countries’ conditional targets.
Discussion and conclusion
An effective climate agreement should foster broad participation, high ambition, and
sufficient compliance (Barrett 2008). Extant theory posits that there are trade-offs between the
three effectiveness components (Dimitrov et al. 2019): because a universally broad accord
such as the Paris Agreement must accompany the preferences of the least interested countries,
the Agreement is likely to contain ambition and compliance deficits. However, this article has
argued that the Paris Agreement is fairly ambitious compared to a business-as-usual scenario
and that its compliance mechanism may work even though it is not based on strong
Interviews with Cuban negotiator 4 May 2018, Maldives/AOSIS negotiator 2 May 2018, and DR Congo
negotiator 1 May 2018.
31
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enforcement. Whether the effectiveness potential of the Agreement will translate into actual
effectiveness remains to be seen, and now depends on Parties’ gradually increased ambition
and implementation of their NDCs.
The compliance mechanism of the Agreement has been criticized for not altering incentives
sufficiently to eliminate the free-rider problem (Bang et al. 2016; Barrett and Dannenberg
2016; Allan 2019). In contrast to the Kyoto Protocol, which obtained high rates of compliance
with its system of penalty costs, the Paris Agreement contains no strong enforcement
mechanism for inducing Parties to implement their provisions. Instead, the Paris Agreement
attempts to reduce Parties’ incentives to free ride through other means. The interviews with
climate negotiators and observers suggest that the universality of the Agreement, its signals
concerning changed economic incentives, and its delegation of responsibility to non-state
actors, may reduce the need for strong enforcement.
Yet, the last few years have shown that the Paris Agreement still faces significant compliance
challenges that would not necessarily have been solved with an enforcement mechanism,
notably with regards to capacity shortages, finance and domestic politics. Money talks: If
developed countries manage to deliver on their $100 billion climate finance pledge, the
likelihood that developing countries will comply with the Agreement should increase
significantly. Finance may both improve the technical capacity of developing countries and
encourage them to achieve their conditional pledges. Further, states are overall careful to not
take on obligations they cannot comply with (Aakre et al. 2014), and the link between
capacity and compliance has been disproven in studies of other environmental agreements
(Kokkvoll Tveit 2018). Hence, there is reason to be moderately optimistic with regards to the
capacity problem.
On the other hand, the domestic political waves of right-wing populism and autocratization
represent long-term challenges to both the ambition and compliance prospects of the Paris
Agreement that may prove difficult to remedy. If the Paris Agreement is to overcome the
effectiveness trilemma, its remaining Parties may have to compensate for the non-cooperation
of countries such as the US by increasing their own ambition more aggressively. As shown in
the third section, the NDCs have so far contributed with 43% of the necessary ambition to
achieve the 1.5C target. While this ambition score marks a welcome improvement compared
to the Kyoto Protocol, it also points to a large unrealized potential. If applied in good faith,
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the progression principle of the Agreement ensures that ambition will be gradually ratcheted
up: but by how much? Will the ambition prove sufficient in the long run? Although the Paris
Agreement can be seen as a triumph for UN multilateralism, the Agreement cannot solve the
issue of global warming until its ambition increases substantially and Parties implement their
promised policies. Therefore, the actual effectiveness of the Paris Agreement now relies on
concrete follow-up actions by its Parties in the years to come.
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change. Available at http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/cities-subnationals/lpaa-focuscities-regions-across-the-world-unite-to-launch-major-five-year-vision-to-take-actionon-climate-change/ [Accessed 16 Apr 2017].
Voigt, C., 2016. The compliance and implementation mechanism of the Paris Agreement.
Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, 25 (2), 16173.
White House, 2015a. Statement by the President on the Paris Climate Agreement. Available
at https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/12/statement-president-parisclimate-agreement [Accessed 18 Dec 2019].
22
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3204273
White House, 2015b. White House announces additional commitments to the American
business act on climate pledge. Available at
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/30/white-houseannounces-additional-commitments-american-business-act [Accessed 27 Apr 2017].
White House, 2017. Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord. Available at
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/06/01/statement-president-trumpparis-climate-accord [Accessed 18 Dec 2019].
Wigley, T., 1998. The Kyoto Protocol: CO2, CH4 and climate implications. Geophysical
Research Letters, 25, 2285-2288.
World Bank, 2014. Turn down the heat: confronting the new climate normal. Washington,
DC: World Bank.
Young, O., 2011. Effectiveness of international environmental regimes: Existing knowledge,
cutting-edge themes, and research strategies. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America, 108 (50), 19853-19860.
Appendix: Interview guide
1.
2.
Which state/organization do you represent in the climate negotiations?
What are your primary responsibilities in your state’s negotiation team or
organization?
3. How long have you been a delegate or participated in the negotiations?
4. Could you describe, briefly, how you experienced the organization of negotiations at
COP21?
5. Overall, how satisfied were you with the way the decision-making procedures were
organized, and why?
6. If you have previously attended other UNFCCC climate negotiations conferences,
how were decision-making procedures at COP21 different than at previous ones?
7. At the outset of COP21, COP President Laurent Fabius outlined the strategy of the
Presidency as “ensuring transparency and inclusiveness” in the negotiations. I now
want to ask to what extent you think this strategy succeeded. First: during the course
of the negotiations, was your delegation kept sufficiently informed about the process?
Second: was your delegation given the opportunity to express its opinion and views
during the negotiations?
8. Scholars have suggested that maintaining neutrality is essential for the leadership of
negotiations. Would you say that the Presidency of COP21 organized negotiations in
an impartial way?
9. Do you think the UNFCCC is an appropriate institution for forging international
cooperation on climate change?
10. To what extent does your delegation accept and/or support the Paris Agreement?
Why/why not?
11. Do you think that the content of the Paris Agreement was affected by the way COP21
was organized? If so, how?
23
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3204273
12. How would you describe your country’s level of commitments as defined by the
agreement? How does the commitment level above differ from the level of
commitments that your state has undertaken in previous agreements? (more/less
ambitious)
13. To what extent do you believe that states should abide with the Agreement, even if
they disagree with its provisions?
14. To what extent do you see the Agreement as a strong response to the problem of
climate change?
24
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3204273
Political Studies (1999), XLVII, 2±16
Trust the People! Populism and the Two
Faces of Democracy
MARGARET CANOVAN*
Keele University
Populism, understood as an appeal to `the people' against both the established
structure of power and the dominant ideas and values, should not be dismissed as a
pathological form of politics of no interest to the political theorist, for its democratic
pretensions raise important issues. Adapting Michael Oakeshott's distinction
between `the politics of faith' and `the politics of scepticism', the paper o€ers an
analysis of democracy in terms of two opposing faces, one `pragmatic' and the other
`redemptive', and argues that it is the inescapable tension between them that makes
populism a perennial possibility.
The populist movements that have in the past decade burst into mainstream
politics in many Western democracies are usually treated as pathological
symptoms requiring sociological explanation.1 They are not seen as phenomena
that challenge our understanding of democracy, and democratic theorists who
are committed to increased popular participation in politics pay little or no
attention to populist attempts to mobilize the grass roots. While this disdain
may be understandable, it is too hasty. Populists see themselves as true
democrats, voicing popular grievances and opinions systematically ignored by
governments, mainstream parties and the media. Many of them favour `direct
democracy' ± political decision making by referendum and popular initiative.
Their professed aim is to cash in democracy's promise of power to the people.
This paper will argue that we cannot a€ord to brush these claims aside, and that
re¯ections on populism's disturbing recurrence in established democracies can
help us to a better understanding of democracy's complexities. The reason is
that the sources of populism lie not only in the social context that supplies the
grievances of any particular movement, but are to be found in tensions at the
heart of democracy. I shall suggest that democracy as we know it has two
faces ± a `redemptive' and a `pragmatic' face ± and that their coexistence is a
* I am grateful for critical comments made when ancestors of this paper were delivered at
seminars at the Universities of Manchester, Westminster, Birmingham and Sheeld, and at the
ECPR Joint Workshops in Bern. I am more particularly indebted to my colleagues John Horton
and Andrew Dobson, and to this journal's referees for their comments on previous drafts of the
present paper.
1 H-G Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe (Houndmills, Macmillan, 1994),
p. 4. The movements Betz covers are the Front National, the Austrian Freedom Party, the Lega
Nord, the Vlaams Blok, the Swiss Autopartei and Tessin League, the German Republikaner, the
Danish and Norwegian Progress Parties, and Sweden's New Democracy. Other recent phenomena
that are populist in the sense used in this article include Alberta's Reform Party, Pauline Hanson's
One Nation Party in Australia and the US presidential bids by Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan.
# Political Studies Association 1999. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
MARGARET CANOVAN
3
constant spur to populist mobilization. My conclusion will be that instead of
being a symptom of `backwardness' that might be outgrown,2 populism is a
shadow cast by democracy itself.
What is Populism?
Before we can investigate populism's relation to democracy we need to make
clear exactly what we are talking about, for `populism' is a notoriously vague
term. It has precise meanings in a number of specialist discourses, but attempts
at a general theory have been problematic.3 The (ideal-typical) account given
here is concerned with populism in contemporary democratic societies, where
there is a good deal of agreement on which political phenomena fall into this
category but less clarity about what it is that makes them populist. Clari®cation
can, I believe, be achieved if we shift our attention from the ideology and policy
content of populist movements and concentrate instead on structural considerations. Populism in modern democratic societies is best seen as an appeal to
`the people' against both the established structure of power and the dominant
ideas and values of the society. This structural feature in turn dictates populism's characteristic legitimating framework, political style and mood. Each of
these points needs some elaboration before we take up the paper's central
theme.
Populism and Power Structures
It is generally agreed that populist movements are (as Paul Taggart puts it) `of
the people but not of the system'.4 They involve some kind of revolt against the
established structure of power in the name of the people. Within democratic
systems that often means an attack on the established parties.5 But anti-system
mobilization is not enough by itself to identify populist politics, for that
description would also take in the `new social movements', generally acknowledged to be something else.6 The crucial di€erence is that while both are antisystem, populism challenges not only established power-holders but also elite
values. Populist animus is directed not just at the political and economic
establishments but also at opinion-formers in the academy and the media.
2 T. S. Di Tella, `Populism into the twenty-®rst century', Government and Opposition, 32 (1997),
187±200, p. 190.
3
For an ambitious recent attempt see D. Westlind, The Politics of Popular Identity: Understanding Recent Populist Movements in Sweden and the United States (Lund, Lund University Press,
1996). G. Ionescu and E. Gellner (eds), Populism: its Meanings and National Characteristics
(London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1969) is a classic but dated survey of the variety of so-called
`populisms'. For a phenomenological approach that sorts the cases into types rather than attempting a general theory see M. Canovan, Populism (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981); M.
Canovan, `Two strategies for the study of populism', Political Studies, 30 (1982), 544±52. In terms
of the distinction developed there between `agrarian' and `political' populisms, the phenomena
considered in the present paper fall into the `political' group.
4 P. A. Taggart, The New Populism and the New Politics: New Protest Parties in Sweden in a
Comparative Perspective (London, Macmillan, 1996), p. 32.
5 E.g. J. Haider, The Freedom I Mean (Pine Plains, Swan, 1995), pp. 104, 88.
6
Taggart argues that the `New Politics' of the Green, paci®st and feminist movements is `inclusive', whereas `New Populism' is `exclusive' of groups such as immigrants or welfare claimants. But
practitioners of `New Politics' may themselves seem exclusive of a benighted mainstream alarmed
by elite concerns, as Taggart himself admits. (The New Populism, pp. 33, 35).
# Political Studies Association, 1999
4
Trust the People!
When Jean-Marie Le Pen of the Front National claims to `say out loud what
people here are thinking inside', in de®ance of the Parisian and European elite,
his move is highly characteristic of populism as it appears within formally
democratic systems.7
Populism understood in this structural sense can have di€erent contents
depending on the establishment it is mobilizing against. Where economic policy
is concerned, for example, populists in one country with a hegemonic commitment to high taxation to fund a generous welfare state may embrace an
agenda of economic liberalism,8 while other populists elsewhere are reacting
against a free market hegemony by demanding protectionism and more state
provision. This does not in itself demonstrate (as is sometimes claimed) that
populists are either unprincipled or confused: merely that what makes them
populist is their reaction to the structure of power. The values that are populist
also vary according to context, depending upon the nature of the elite and the
dominant political discourse. Where (as in modern Western democratic
countries) elite political culture is strongly imbued with liberal values of individualism, internationalism, multiculturalism, permissiveness and belief in
progress, populism is bound to involve more or less resistance to these, and can
at times amount to a relatively coherent alternative world-view. In that sense it
may be argued that there can be such a thing as a populist ideology.9 But
attempts to de®ne populism in terms of any such ideology fail, because in
another context the anti-elitist mobilization concerned may be reacting to a
di€erent ideological environment. In his illuminating account of `the populist
persuasion' in American history, Michael Kazin observes that what he calls a
`language' of populism was for over a century an inspiration to movements that
were decidedly radical and often clearly on the Left. It was only in the 1940s that
American populist discourse `began a migration from Left to Right'10 that
pitted `the people' against a new liberal elite. In both cases, what was involved
was the mobilization of interests and opinions that were perceived by their
adherents as being neglected by those in power despite being the concerns of the
mainstream.
Appeals to `the People'
Populism is not just a reaction against power structures but an appeal to a
recognized authority. Populists claim legitimacy on the grounds that they
speak for the people: that is to say, they claim to represent the democratic
sovereign, not a sectional interest such as an economic class. Although
economic grievances are always important to populist movements, these are
7
J. Marcus, The National Front and French Politics (London, Macmillan, 1995), p. 54. For other
recent examples see P. Manning, The New Canada (Toronto, Macmillan Canada, 1992), p. 2;
`Pauline's people', The Weekend Australian, 17±18 May 1997, review section, p. 1.
8
For Scandinavian examples, see Betz, Radical Right-Wing Populism, pp. 42±47, 110±2; Taggart,
The New Populism, p. 34.
9 For versions of such an ideology see C. Lasch, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its
Critics (New York, Norton, 1991) and P. Piccone, `From the New Left to the New Populism', Telos
101 (1994), 173±208. On a foretaste of the same themes earlier this century see M. Canovan, G. K.
Chesterton: Radical Populist (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977).
10
Kazin, Populist Persuasion, p. 4. A more theoretical account of populism as a political
discourse can be found in Westlind, The Politics of Popular Identity.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
MARGARET CANOVAN
5
translated into political questions of democratic power.11 This claim to speak
for `the people' is far from straightforward, for the term is ambiguous and
populists tend to be adept at exploiting its rhetorical possibilities. For the sake
of clarity we can identify three di€erent senses that ®gure in populist discourse,
though they tend in practice to be blended together.12
One facet is an appeal to the united people, the nation or country, as against the
parties and factions that divide it. A typical example is the slogan, `United We
Stand', used by Ross Perot in campaigning for the US presidency. A vision of
`the people' as a united body implies impatience with party strife, and can
encourage support for strong leadership where a charismatic individual is
available to personify the interests of the nation. Merging with this stress on
unity, though in some ways at odds with it, is the appeal to our people, often in the
sense of our ethnic kith and kin. Where the previous appeal is integrative (at any
rate in form), this one is divisive, distinguishing our people from those who do
not belong ± alien immigrants, for example. This is an aspect of populism that
alarms liberal commentators, as when the Front National calls for `priorite aux
FrancËais' in the allocation of jobs, housing and social welfare. To suppose,
however, that populists are simply right wing is to ignore the egalitarian impulse
expressed in a third variety of appeal to the people: mobilization of what used
to be called `the common people'13 but would now be better called `ordinary
people' against the privileged, highly educated, cosmopolitan elite. Populists in
established democracies claim that they speak for the `silent majority' of
`ordinary, decent people', whose interests and opinions are (they claim) regularly
overridden by arrogant elites, corrupt politicians and strident minorities.14
Experience casts doubt upon the populists' claim to represent the mass of the
people, since their campaigns rarely get anywhere near attracting a majority of
votes. But their use of all these various forms of appeal to the people underlines
the extent to which they rely upon a framework of legitimacy provided by notions
of popular power: an idea of democracy, in other words.
The Populist Style of Politics
Populist appeals to the people are characteristically couched in a style that is
`democratic' in the sense of being aimed at ordinary people. Capitalizing on
popular distrust of politicians' evasiveness and bureaucratic jargon, they pride
themselves on simplicity and directness.15 When members of the political establishment are accused of adopting `populist' tactics, one of the relevant pieces of
evidence is their willingness and ability to communicate in this tabloid style. But
simple, direct language is not enough to mark a politician as populist unless he
or she is prepared also to o€er political analyses and proposed solutions that are
11
For an analysis of Chartism in similar terms, see G. S. Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in
English Working Class History 1832±1982 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983),
pp. 96±100.
12
Cf. M. Canovan, ` ``People'', politicians and populism', Government and Opposition, 19 (1984),
312±27.
13 Apparently this terminology survives on the Canadian prairies. Principle 14 of the `Statement
of Principles' issued by the Reform Party in 1991 states, `We believe in the common sense of the
common people'. Manning, The New Canada, p. 361.
14
On the `silent majority', see Kazin, Populist Persuasion, p. 252. For a contemporary European
analogue see Haider, The Freedom I Mean, p. 68.
15 For examples, see Manning, The New Canada, p. 123; `Pauline's people', p. 1.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
6
Trust the People!
also simple and direct. Populists love transparency and distrust mysti®cation:
they denounce backroom deals, shady compromises, complicated procedures,
secret treaties, and technicalities that only experts can understand.16 The politics
of coalition-building is evidently open to populist attack on these sorts of
grounds,17 while European Union politics is a sitting duck.18 Populists claim
that all this complexity is a self-serving racket perpetuated by professional
politicians, and that the solutions to the problems ordinary people care about
are essentially simple.
The Populist Mood
Populism's fundamental structural characteristic, popular mobilization against
the political and intellectual elites, implies not only a direct, simple, style but
also a characteristic mood. Populist politics is not ordinary, routine politics. It
has the revivalist ¯avour of a movement, powered by the enthusiasm that draws
normally unpolitical people into the political arena.19 This extra emotional
ingredient can turn politics into a campaign to save the country or to bring
about a great renewal. Associated with this mood is the tendency for heightened
emotions to be focused on a charismatic leader.20 Personalized leadership is a
natural corollary of the reaction against politics-as-usual. Rejecting ossi®ed
institutional structures, including bureaucratic layers of organization, populists
celebrate both spontaneous action at the grassroots and a close personal tie
between leader and followers.21
Observers looking back to the rise of Hitler and other fascist leaders (and
further back in history to the traditional association between mass politics,
demagogues and `Caesarism') have often associated populism with dangerous
manipulation by the leader and alarming irrationality on the part of the led.22
But while these analyses must carry weight, we should resist the temptation to
write o€ populism in general as a pathological symptom. Our focus in this paper
is on populist movements within mature, well-established democratic systems.
These movements do not propose to abolish free elections and install dictatorship, while their admiration for the Swiss system of popular initiative and
referendum is hard to construe as a dangerous symptom of tyrannical tendencies.23 In other words, we need to think seriously about the populist claim to
16
Cf. Westlind, The Politics of Popular Identity, p. 203. E. Shils, The Torment of Secrecy
(London, Heinemann, 1956), is an extended attack on this aspect of populism.
17
Cf. R. S. Katz and P. Mair, `Changing models of party organization and party democracy',
Party Politics, I (1995), 2±28, especially p. 24.
18 J. Hayward (ed.), The Crisis of Representation in Europe (London, Frank Cass, 1995).
19 Kazin, Populist Persuasion, p. 16 and passim.
20
Taggart, The New Populism, pp. 2, 37. On the populism of George Wallace see Kazin, Populist
Persuasion, pp. 221±42.
21
Westlind, The Politics of Popular Identity, pp. 106, 177.
22
Betz, Radical Right-wing Populism, p. 4. These charges are discussed in Canovan, Populism,
pp. 158±69. See also Di Tella, `Populism into the twenty-®rst century', pp. 196±7; A. Bozoki and
M. SuÈkoÈsd, `Civil society and populism in the Eastern European democratic transitions', Praxis
International, 13 (1993), 224±41.
23
Haider, The Freedom I Mean, p. 106. Swiss experience shows that such devices cannot be
simply equated with populism. Cf. K. W. Kobach, The Referendum: Direct Democracy in Switzerland (Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1993); W. Linder, Swiss Democracy: Possible Solutions to Con¯ict in
Multicultural Societies (New York, St. Martin's, 1994).
# Political Studies Association, 1999
MARGARET CANOVAN
7
democratic legitimacy.24 Unless we do so we will miss the opportunity to learn
important lessons about the nature of democracy itself.
Is Populism Democratic?
As we have seen, populists seek to mobilize the electorate against established
power-holders and opinion-formers. On the face of it, appealing to the grassroots in this way looks like a democratic thing to do; after all, the referendums
and popular initiatives favoured by populists are universally referred to within
the literature of political science as `direct democracy'.25 De®nitions of democracy are highly contentious, and contemporary theorists tend to shy away from
talk of popular sovereignty. But it can hardly be denied that notions of popular
power and popular decision are central to democracy.26 Why then, are not
populists acknowledged as the true democrats they say they are? How is it that
they can be often seen as dangerous to democracy: all the more dangerous,
indeed, in so far as they get popular support?
One answer regularly given to this question is that democracy as we know it is
liberal democracy and that populism is dangerous because it is illiberal. On this
view, what makes liberal democracy vulnerable is that the relationship between
its two aspects `is both one of mutual necessity and a source of tension or
antagonism'.27 Beetham (whose words these are) stresses that many aspects of
the liberal heritage are actually fundamental to the persistence of democracy
itself, among them freedom of expression and the rule of law. Nevertheless he
concedes that liberal principles also place restraints on democracy, and that
there is room for dispute about the precise terms of the trade-o€ between the
two. Other theorists have suggested that `populist democracy' is a version
uninhibited by these liberal constraints, and given (in particular) to a crude
majoritarianism that neglects or overrides the rights of minorities.28
A second way of relating populism to democracy is to emphasize the inevitable gap within the latter between ideal and reality, promise and performance.
This view has been developed with considerable subtlety by Sartori.29 But
24
Cf. Westlind, The Politics of Popular Identity, p. 209.
I. Budge, The New Challenge of Direct Democracy (Cambridge, Polity, 1996); T. E. Cronin,
Direct Democracy: The Politics of Initiative, Referendum and Recall (Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press, 1989).
26 B. Holden, Understanding Liberal Democracy (New York, Philip Alan, 1988), p. 5. For a
defence of the view that democracy really does mean majority rule arrived at by the most direct
means possible, see I. McLean, Democracy and the New Technology (Cambridge, Polity, 1989).
27
D. Beetham, `Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Democratization', in D. Held (ed.),
Prospects for Democracy, Political Studies, Special Issue, XL (1992), 40±53, p. 41.
28
R. A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1956),
pp. 4±6, 34; W. H. Riker, Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation between the Theory of
Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (San Francisco, Freeman, 1982), passim. The post-war
generation of political scientists were preoccupied with the danger populism posed to liberalism to
the point of elaborating what came to be called (by its critics) `the theory of democratic elitism'.
For examples, see G. Sartori, Democratic Theory (Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1962),
pp. 72±128; S. M. Lipset, Political Man (London, Heinemann, 1960), pp. 97±130; Shils, The
Torment of Secrecy, pp. 98±104; W. Kornhauser, The Politics of Mass Society (London, Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1960), pp. 227±30. The classic critiques are P. Bachrach, The Theory of Democratic
Elitism ± a Critique (Boston, Little Brown, 1967); C. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory
(Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1960).
29
G. Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (Chatham, NJ, Chatham House, 1987), Vol. I,
pp. 7±8, 12, 46, 81. See also N. Bobbio, The Future of Democracy (Cambridge, Polity, 1987), pp. 8,
26±7.
25
# Political Studies Association, 1999
8
Trust the People!
neither of these responses to populism is wholly satisfactory. The ®rst analysis,
stressing the tensions within `liberal democracy', seems to imply that however
weak populists may be as liberals, they do get full marks on the democracy
section of the paper.30 The second also seems to imply that ideal democracy
would coincide with the populist's dream, though democratic practice cannot
live up to it. In the remainder of this paper I shall present a di€erent analysis of
democracy's complexities that builds upon these insights, but that will (I believe)
shed more light on the problematic relation of populism to democracy, and
perhaps more generally upon the phenomena of modern democracy. My central
claim will be that democracy as we know it has two faces, which I shall call its
`redemptive' and its `pragmatic' faces, and that populism thrives on the tension
between the two. We will need to step aside brie¯y from the topic of democracy
in order to lay some foundations for this analysis.
Redemptive and Pragmatic Politics
In seeking to place democracy within a wider framework of thinking about
contrasting styles of politics, I shall draw on the work of Oakeshott. He is best
known for his critique of `rationalism' in politics and as a defender of the limited
style of politics that he characterized as `civil association'.31 But although his
own preference for restrained, aristocratic politics is unmistakable, his most
elaborate works of political thought rise above partisan sympathies to acknowledge that the con¯icting strands within modern politics are also complementary:
that the state as `enterprise association' could never be wholly displaced by `civil
association', nor sceptical politics by `the politics of faith'.
It is this last contrast that concerns us here. In an essay published after his
death, Oakeshott argued that for the past ®ve hundred years the politics of
Europe had been marked by a tension between two political styles, a tension
that had a€ected both the theory and the practice of government, leaving us
with a deeply ambiguous political vocabulary. These two styles he termed `the
politics of faith' and `the politics of scepticism'. Within the former, politics is
taken to be a matter of achieving perfection or salvation in this world. Salvation
may be understood in religious or in secular terms, but in either case the
assumption is that governmental action can bring it about. The politics of faith
therefore entails mobilization of popular enthusiasm behind this enterprise, a
quest for increased power to accomplish it, and con®dence that such power can
be safely entrusted to human beings. Devotees of this political style are
impatient of legalistic restrictions that may stand in the way of salvation.
The politics of scepticism, by contrast, is suspicious both of power and of
enthusiasm, and has much lower expectations of what governments can achieve.
For its supporters, politics has no overriding purpose, except to keep order and
reduce occasions for con¯ict by maintaining and amending the precious
inheritance of rights and institutions. For this style of politics, the rule of law is
crucial.32
30 Cf. Iain McLean on the Salem witch trials: `If the decision to burn witches came after
discussion and majority vote, I call it democratic'. Democracy and The New Technology, p. 36.
31
M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (London, Methuen, 1962); On Human
Conduct (Oxford, Clarendon, 1975).
32
M. Oakeshott, The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism (New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1996), pp. 21±38.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
MARGARET CANOVAN
9
No reader of the essay can be in any doubt where Oakeshott's sympathies lie.
Nevertheless he makes a point of stressing that the two styles as he presents
them are abstractions from a concrete practice that is really much more mixed.33
Furthermore, he concedes that both styles are indispensable. Unchecked by
scepticism, the politics of faith undermines itself through its totalitarian aspirations, but `without the pull exerted by faith . . . government in the sceptical style
is liable to be overtaken by a nemesis of political quietism'.34 No doubt he is
better at seeing motes in the eye of faith than beams in the eye of scepticism;
furthermore, he argues that since the mood of modern politics is biased toward
faith, anyone concerned with the balance of the ship of state must put his weight
on the sceptical side.35 Nevertheless, the central thesis of his essay is that despite
the tensions between them, the two styles are inseparable in modern politics.
This analysis can, I believe, shed light on a number of obscure areas of
political experience. In particular, I shall argue that we can gain a better
understanding of democracy as a phenomenon, and especially of its vulnerability to populist challenge, if we see it as a meeting point for two contrasting
styles of politics. Since I propose to build upon Oakeshott's distinction rather
than to adopt it as it stands, I shall rename these contrasting styles, calling
them `redemptive' and `pragmatic', and our next task will be to consider how
democracy looks when it is approached in each of these ways. Before we leave
Oakeshott, however, we should take note of a curious and signi®cant implication of his way of mapping the political spectrum. The `sceptical politics' of the
essay we have been considering has an obvious anity not only with the politics
of `civil association' depicted in On Human Conduct, but also with `attending to
arrangements' within a tradition of behaviour, as described in Rationalism in
Politics. It may be, then, that their opposites also have much in common, and
that (despite appearances), `rationalism' and `faith' are not so very far apart as
bases from which to conduct politics. I shall suggest later that there is an
important insight here, and that `redemptive' democracy is hospitable to a
romanticism that shades on the one side into populist rhetoric while on the
other sustaining rationalist utopias. Our immediate task, however, is to place
democracy within the theoretical framework we have been exploring and to
clarify the implications of doing so.
Democracy's Two Faces
Drawing on these ideas about the two styles of modern politics and the
systematic ambiguity of political concepts marked by those two styles, we can, I
believe, understand modern democracy (idea and phenomenon) as a point of
intersection between redemptive and pragmatic styles of politics. In this section
I shall argue that democracy presents two faces, one redemptive, the other
pragmatic; that although these are opposed, they are also interdependent; and
that between them lies a gap in which populism is liable to appear.
In shorthand, one could caricature democracy's pragmatic face with the
slogan, `ballots, not bullets', or (in more academic terms) as `a system of
33
34
35
Oakeshott, The Politics of Faith, pp. 21±2, 30, 38.
Oakeshott, The Politics of Faith, p. 108.
Oakeshott, The Politics of Faith, p. 128.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
10
Trust the People!
processing con¯icts without killing one another'.36 A corresponding caricature
of its redemptive face might be `vox populi vox dei'. or `government of the
people, by the people, for the people'. Note that the di€erence and tension
between the two faces does not correspond to the tension (discussed earlier)
between liberalism and democracy, for liberalism itself has both a redemptive
and a pragmatic face.37 Neither is it equivalent to the tension (noted by Sartori)
between democratic ideals and realities. Crucially, the pragmatic face of
democracy itself embodies political ideals (notably peace, stability, moderation)38 which are di€erent from the guiding ideas of redemptive democracy. In
order to make clear what the distinction does involve I will indicate three aspects
of the contrast which I will then examine in more detail.
(1) Democracy is a redemptive vision, kin to the family of modern ideologies
that promise salvation through politics. Pragmatically, however, it is a way of
coping peacefully with the con¯icts of modern societies by means of a highly
contingent collection of rules and practices.
(2) The notion of popular power lies at the heart of the redemptive vision: the
people are the only source of legitimate authority, and salvation is promised as
and when they take charge of their own lives. But from a pragmatic point of
view democracy is simply a form of government, a way of running what is
always one particular polity amongst others in a complex world.
(3) Pragmatically, democracy means institutions: institutions not just to limit
power, but also to constitute it and make it e€ective. But in redemptive
democracy (as in redemptive politics more generally) there is a strong antiinstitutional impulse: the romantic impulse to directness, spontaneity and the
overcoming of alienation.
Later I shall argue that the two faces of democracy are a pair of squabbling Siamese twins, inescapably linked, so that it is an illusion to suppose that
we can have one without the other. But the tensions between them are very
great, and it is these tensions (I shall suggest) which provide the stimulus to
the populist mobilization that follows democracy like a shadow. Let us look
now in more detail at these three speci®c tensions, and at how each of them
helps to generate populism. I shall zigzag back and forward between the
redemptive and pragmatic perspectives, partly for ease of exposition, but also
to avoid the impression that one perspective is fundamental and the other
secondary.
(1) From the pragmatic point of view, democracy is essentially a way of coping
peacefully with con¯icting interests and views under conditions of mass
mobilization and mass communication. Its great virtue is that it is an alternative
to civil war or repression. Bobbio puts this view well when he speaks of a
democratic state as `a state founded on a non-aggression pact among di€erent
political groups and on their stipulation of a set of rules permitting the peaceful
solution of any con¯ict that may arise among them'.39 It involves some local
36
A. Przeworski, Democracy and the Market (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991),
p. 95.
37 J. Gray, Post-liberalism: Studies in Political Thought (London, Routledge, 1993), p. 327.
38 Cf. Bobbio, The Future of Democracy, p. 41; D. B. Magleby, Direct Legislation: Voting on
Ballot Propositions in the United States (Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 181.
39
N. Bobbio, `Democracy and the International System', in D. Archibugi and D. Held (eds),
Cosmopolitan Democracy: An Agenda for a New World Order (Cambridge, Polity, 1995), pp. 17±41,
p. 33.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
MARGARET CANOVAN
11
variant of a highly contingent collection of institutions and practices (evolved
out of the particular traditions of representative government that grew up in
certain Western European countries and their overseas o€shoots) that have
found ways of making power relatively accountable, widening the range of
interests incorporated into the political arena and binding more of the population into the political system. From this point of view, democracy means multiparty systems, free elections, pressure groups, lobbying and the rest of the
elaborate battery of institutions and practices by which we distinguish democratic from other modern polities.
For many of those around the world who have to put up with civil war or
violent repression, pragmatic democracy may seem supremely enviable. But to
those who take its bene®ts for granted, democracy would not seem legitimate if
there were nothing more to it than this. For democracy is also a repository of the
aspirations characteristic of modern politics. Inherent in modern democracy, in
tension with its pragmatic face, is faith in secular redemption: the promise of a
better world through action by the sovereign people. This face of democracy has
a glory round it. Compared with other modern vehicles of political salvation,
democracy is relatively unarticulated. It carries with it much less by way of a
vividly imagined utopia than most forms of socialism; it is not often sustained
by the quasi-historical myths that feed nationalism, while for rationalistic
ideology it cannot compare with liberalism. Nevertheless, democracy is crowned
with a halo of sacred authority, and it is hard to see how it could function
e€ectively without this. Pragmatism without the redemptive impulse is a recipe
for corruption. Consider, as an example, the key institution of elections. At the
purely pragmatic level, a general election is a nonviolent way of distributing
political power. At the same time, however, it is also a ritual of democratic
renewal, and unless that ritual is taken seriously by a substantial proportion of
voters and politicians, democratic institutions are weakened. If it becomes clear
that those involved see in democracy nothing but horsetrading, they, and
eventually the system itself, are liable to lose their legitimacy. When too great a
gap opens up between haloed democracy and the grubby business of politics,
populists tend to move on to the vacant territory, promising in place of the dirty
world of party manoeuvring the shining ideal of democracy renewed. Even from
the point of view of pragmatic politics, the vital practices of contestation and
accountability grow weak without the energy provided by democracy's inspirational, mobilizing, redemptive side.40
(2) It can be plausibly argued, then, that at least some degree of redemptive
democracy's promise of salvation is actually necessary to lubricate the machinery of pragmatic democracy, and that if it is not present within the mainstream
political system it may well reassert itself in the form of a populist challenge. But
the indispensability of that promise itself creates the next contradiction on
which populism feeds. For the content of democracy's redemptive promise is
power to the people; we, the people, are to take charge of our lives and to decide
our own future. Unfortunately this promise is in deep and inescapable con¯ict
with democracy viewed in the cold light of pragmatism, and the gap between the
two is a fruitful breeding-ground for populist protest.
40
Cf. C. Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society (Cambridge, Polity, 1986), p. 279;
C. Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory (Cambridge, Polity, 1988), pp. 17±9.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
12
Trust the People!
This second ambiguity concerns the contradiction between the power and the
impotence of democracy. On the one hand, democracy is an ideal of popular
sovereignty. But (to quote Ralf Dahrendorf's de¯ating comments on the popular
revolutions of 1989) `democracy is a form of government, not a steambath of
popular feelings'.41 In other words, it is also a way of running a polity among
other polities in a complex world. The promise is that in a democracy we will be
able to have some signi®cant degree of control over important issues that a€ect
us. But even supposing that `we, the people' can combine our diverse interests
and opinions into a coherent collective will,42 the hard facts of political and
economic interdependence often make that an empty promise. This ambiguity
a€ects democracies regardless of their scale, and cannot be avoided either
by participatory democracy in face-to-face communities or by the global
democracy now projected in some quarters.43 At the level of nation-states it is
most conspicuous as a yawning gap between the claim that a democratic
government represents the people and its very limited ability to ensure their
economic well-being.
It is natural for voters in a democracy to suppose that if they elect a
government to represent them, that government should look after their interests.
It is equally natural for politicians to promise voters that they will do so. After
all, as we have just seen, without the sense of democratic renewal ± of a fresh
start that will really make a di€erence ± it is hard to stop elections degenerating
into unalloyed corruption. But governments cannot in fact control economic
conditions, and in bad times democratic systems are vulnerable to populist
reactions. The original American Populism of the 1890s provides a classic
example. Farmers in the American West and South were in dire economic
straights, despite the fact that they had an elected government. Not surprisingly,
they were responsive to the message that the political establishment was not
looking after their interests because it had its own agenda. To populists, the
answer was plain. Get rid of `the plutocrats, the aristocrats, and all the other
rats',44 install the people in power, and all would be well.
Since the 1890s this sort of response to the ambiguity of democratic power has
recurred again and again in hard times. If the government is the people's
government, why isn't it looking after the people? Because it is in the hands of
corrupt politicians, millionaires, Jews, tools of the IMF, politically-correct
patrons of immigrant workers, and so on: the answer is to elect a people's
government that will sack those who are feathering their own nests, send the
immigrants home, or whatever the local remedy happens to be at a particular
time. In so far as populism exploits this gap between promise and performance in
democracy, there is no end to it. For if a populist movement is so successful in
appealing past the established political forces that it actually gets into power, its
own inability to live up to its promises will be revealed, o€ering scope for further
populist appeals to the people.
Where this aspect of democracy's ambiguity is concerned, it is easy to see
why populism is often seen as a travesty of democracy, perhaps posing dangers
41 R. Dahrendorf, Re¯ections on the Revolution in Europe (London, Chatto and Windus, 1990),
p. 10.
42
On the problems involved see Riker, Liberalism Against Populism, passim.
43
Archibugi and Held, Cosmopolitan Democracy.
44 Quoted in N. Pollack, The Populist Mind (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1967), p. 337.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
MARGARET CANOVAN
13
to the whole system. As always with democracy, however, the situation is
ambiguous, and `realism' can itself be simplistic. For redemptive democracy's
promise of power is not entirely illusory: it really is the case that people who
can manage to believe in the possibility of collective action and to unite behind
it can exercise more power than if they give up and concentrate on their private
a€airs. Popular movements have often demonstrated the truth of this, while
one of the reasons for the comparative power of some states and the weakness
of others is the presence or absence of this kind of collective political will. In
many polities, potentialities for power are dissipated for lack of shared faith in
redemptive democracy. Unrealistic visions may be a condition of real achievements as well as being a recipe for disappointment. Democracy, it seems, is
obliged to face in two opposite directions at the same time.
(3) A third aspect of the tension between redemptive and pragmatic aspects of
democracy concerns democratic institutions and the alienation to which they
inevitably give rise. Clearly, in so far as democracy's promise of popular power
is made good, this can be done only through institutions that make that power
e€ective and lasting.45 But entwined with the redemptive strand of democracy is
a deep revulsion against institutions that come between the people and their
actions, and a craving for direct, unmediated expression of the people's will.
There is a strain of romanticism here, invoking the living voice of the people and
their spontaneous action.
It is important for democratic legitimation that the polity be seen as being in
some sense an expression of the people: that (whatever we may think of the
incumbent government) the state is our state, not something altogether alien to
us.46 Where this is not the case, the pragmatic ability of democracy to resolve
political disputes without violence is damaged. Most schemes for improved
versions of democracy aim to reduce alienation by bringing the polity closer,
making it something more expressive of the people. The trouble with that
agenda is that democratic government means institutions. It is hard to see what
could make Britain's Inland Revenue, Department of Social Security, or even
Parliament itself feel like the expression of popular will. Institutions like these
recall Marx's analysis of capital as the alienated labour of the worker,
experienced by him not as the expression of his free creative powers, but as an
alien object dominating him.47 Democracy can be a very powerful form of
government insofar as it does have the legitimacy of being recognised as
our government. But to work as a government, it has to take institutional
forms that are very far removed from spontaneous popular expression. As
Beetham observes, `democracy as a method of government is not whatever the
people at a given moment may happen to decide, but a set of arrangements for
securing their control over the public decision-making process on an on-going
basis'.48 No wonder, then, that there is always scope for an appeal from the
people's institutions to the people's will or to their spontaneous action.
45 S. Holmes, Passions and Constraints: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 8, 163±4, 167.
46
D. Beetham, Legitimation of Power (London, Macmillan, 1991), pp. 94, 132±4.
47
K. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (Moscow, Foreign Languages
Publishing House, 1961), p. 69.
48 Beetham, `Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Democratization', p. 42.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
14
Trust the People!
Consider for example a topic that agitates populists in many Western states,
the place of criminal justice in a democracy. In institutional terms democratic
justice means arrangements to secure to all citizens the equal protection of the
laws. In other words, the popular sense of justice must be mediated through the
rambling by-ways of due process of law. But the outcomes of legal due process
and equality before the law often con¯ict with the spontaneous popular sense of
justice. This leaves ample room for populist mobilization of the living popular
will against the dead letter of the law. Liberals who fear populism are visited by
nightmarish visions of demagogues inciting lynch mobs to direct action, or
popular tyrants sweeping aside legal formalities.
Where this aspect of redemptive democracy is concerned, there may be an
analogy with Weber's celebrated analysis of religious institutions. In Weber's
terms, a church is an institution in which religious charisma is routinized. Its
hierarchy and rituals are legitimized by divine authority, but the Vox Dei is
mediated through them. As a result it is always vulnerable to challenge by direct
appeal to divine authority. The charismatic preacher leading a grass-roots
revival hears the voices of God directly, by-passing the hierarchy and rituals of
the church ± until his message becomes routinized in its turn and the cycle starts
again.49
The place of populism in democracy is in some ways similar. Populists appeal
past the ossi®ed institutions to the living people, proclaiming the vox populi
unmediated. As we saw earlier, such movements often have more or less charismatic leaders, vivid individuals who can make politics personal and immediate
instead of being remote and bureaucratic. In this context, amateurism and lack
of political experience actually become recommendations. There is of course an
irony here: the preference for direct personal representation over elaborate
mediating institutions itself gives the leader of a populist movement a degree of
personal power that is hard to reconcile with democratic aspirations. In a sense,
therefore, this romantic populist appeal is short-sighted, for democracy cannot
in fact function without alienating institutions and professional expertise.
Nevertheless it could also be argued that (like routinized religious institutions
in Weber's analysis) democratic institutions need an occasional upsurge of
faith as a means of renewal. In cases where radical populist mobilization against
a partitocrazi leads to the formation of new parties or to a reform of the
institutional structure, democracy may indeed be regarded as a self-correcting
system in which both aspects play their part.50
Populist and Participatory Radicalisms
I have argued in this paper that re¯ections on the radical populist mobilization
that haunts even the most ®rmly established democracies can alert us to an
inescapable ambiguity in democracy between redemptive and pragmatic
aspects, and a tension between its two faces that cannot help but encourage
populism. It should be noted, however, that populism is not the only kind of
49
M. Weber, The Sociology of Religion (London, Methuen, 1965), pp. 46±79.
V. Bogdanor, `Western Europe', in D. Butler and A. Ranney (eds), Referendums Around the
World: the Growing Use of Direct Democracy (Houndmills, Macmillan, 1994), pp. 24±97, p. 69;
Budge, The New Challenge of Direct Democracy, pp. 103±4. Cf. B. Ackerman, We the People: I:
Foundations (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1991).
50
# Political Studies Association, 1999
MARGARET CANOVAN
15
radicalism that ¯ourishes in this gap. For many of the themes of populism are
eerily familiar to any contemporary political theorist. Where else have we come
across furious revulsion against pragmatic party politics and its compromises?
Where else schemes for returning democracy to the grassroots and empowering
the people? Where else calls for transparency and directness in the relation
between popular will and democratic act, for the overcoming of alienation?
Where but in the theories of participatory democracy that emerged out of the
radical movements of the 1960s and have dominated philosophical discussion of
the subject ever since?51
It may be objected that radical democratic theory and populist rhetoric have
nothing in common, and that it is outrageous to link them together. Not only do
populists specialize in action, rarely attempting deep thought, but their characteristic style is a mixture of homespun common sense and emotional appeals,
whereas radical democratic theorists put rational deliberation at the heart of
their theories. Remember, though, that (within the Oakeshottian framework)
`rationalism' is as far from pragmatic politics as is `the politics of faith', and can
be plausibly analysed as a version of the latter. There is certainly a large dose of
redemptive faith intermingled with the rationalism of most theories of
`deliberative' or `discursive' democracy: faith in the transforming power of
deliberation, and faith that if the people at the grassroots were to be exposed to
it, their opinions would be transformed in the correct (antipopulist) direction.52
Whilst most such theorists would hesitate to empower the people as they are
now (with views revealed by opinion polls and mobilized by populists),53 their
aim is to put into e€ect the wishes of the people as they will be when they have
been informed and enlightened by deliberation in face-to-face assemblies.54
This is not the place to explore the piquant anities and contrasts between
those Sartori calls `perfectionists' and `politicos',55 both of whom are happiest
gazing on democracy's redemptive face. More directly relevant, perhaps, are
attempts instead to bring into theoretical prominence the pragmatic aspect of
democracy. For a good deal of recent writing about democracy is disenchanted.
Post-Marxism and post-modernism, some democratic theorists explicitly seek to
strip democracy of all redemptive features and to emphasize its non-messianic
side. This is democracy without foundations, democracy as open-ended political
practice, democracy of which we should not expect too much.56 But the
implication of the analysis presented above is that any attempt to banish the
51
Kazin, Populist Persuasion, pp. 195±8; N. Birnbaum, `What can we learn from the movements
of 1968?', Constellations, I (1994), 144±57.
52
Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory, pp. 42±4; B. Barber, Strong Democracy:
Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1984), pp. 119,
152±4, 232, 237; J. Dryzek, Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy and Political Science (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 119±20; Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation: New
Directions for Democratic Reform (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991), p. 81.
53
Cf. Cronin, Direct Democracy, p. ix.
54
E.g. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory, pp. 42±4; Barber, Strong Democracy,
pp. 119, 152±4, 232, 237; J. Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation, p. 81.
55 Sartori claims that `the perfectionist . . . gives credibility to the demagogue'. Theory of
Democracy Revisited, I, p. 82.
56 Cf. C. Mou€e, The Return of the Political (London, Verso, 1993), pp. 4±6, 145; J. Keane,
`Democracy and the Media ± Without Foundations', in Held, Prospects for Democracy, 116±29,
pp. 123±6; M. Warren, `What should we expect from more democracy?', Political Theory, 24 (1996),
241±70; M. Saward, `Postmodernists, pragmatists and the justi®cation of democracy', Economy and
Society, 23 (1994), 201±16.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
16
Trust the People!
redemptive aspect of democracy is likely to be self-defeating. As a way of
interpreting democracy it is rather like trying to keep a church going without
faith. In politics as in religion, loss of faith tends to lead to corruption and
surrenders the ground to revivalism.57
Conclusion
I have argued that re¯ections on populism illuminate the inescapable ambiguity
of democracy. The tension between its two faces is a perpetual invitation to
populist mobilization. But attempts to escape into a purely pragmatic interpretation of democracy are illusory, for the power and legitimacy of democracy
as a pragmatic system continues to depend at least partly on its redemptive
elements. That always leaves room for the populism that accompanies democracy like a shadow.
(Accepted: 7 December 1997)
57
Cf. Oakeshott, The Politics of Faith, pp. 108±13.
# Political Studies Association, 1999
Global Society
ISSN: 1360-0826 (Print) 1469-798X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cgsj20
Justice as Peace? Liberal Peacebuilding and
Strategies of Transitional Justice
Chandra Lekha Sriram
To cite this article: Chandra Lekha Sriram (2007) Justice as Peace? Liberal
Peacebuilding and Strategies of Transitional Justice, Global Society, 21:4, 579-591, DOI:
10.1080/13600820701562843
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13600820701562843
Published online: 08 Oct 2007.
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Global Society, Vol. 21, No. 4, October, 2007
Justice as Peace? Liberal Peacebuilding and Strategies of
Transitional Justice
CHANDRA LEKHA SRIRAM
A forceful criticism of liberal peacebuilding has developed in recent years, challenging its
twin emphases on democratisation and marketisation and the presumption that democratisation and market liberalisation are themselves sources of peace, when evidence
demonstrates that each is more often destabilising and may even provoke a return to conflict. This literature has not, however, offered such an analysis of transitional justice,
which is central to contemporary peacebuilding efforts. Transitional justice strategies
are increasingly part of broader peacebuilding strategies, and share a faith that other
key goods—democracy, “justice”—can essentially stand in for, and necessarily create,
peace. This is not so obviously the case. Rather, transitional justice processes and mechanisms may, like liberal peacebuilding, destabilise post-conflict and post-atrocity
countries, and may also be externally imposed and inappropriate for the political and
legal cultures in which they are placed. This article examines the phenomenon of transitional justice through the lens of liberal peacebuilding, arguing that it shares with liberal
peacebuilding a number of under-examined assumptions and unintended consequences.
Introduction
In recent years, a forceful critique of the so-called liberal peacebuilding consensus
has emerged. That critique has focused largely upon the presumption that marketisation and democratisation are themselves sources of peace, when evidence
demonstrates that each is more often destabilising and may even provoke a
return to conflict. This literature has not, however, offered a critique of transitional
justice, which is central to contemporary peacebuilding efforts. Transitional justice
strategies are not simply contemporaneous with peacebuilding: they share key
assumptions about preferable institutional arrangements, and a faith that other
key goods—democracy, free markets, “justice”—can essentially stand in for, and
necessarily create, peace. This is not so obviously the case. Rather, transitional
justice processes and mechanisms may, like liberal peacebuilding, destabilise
post-conflict and post-atrocity countries, and may also be externally imposed
and inappropriate for the political and legal cultures in which they are set up.
This article examines the phenomenon of transitional justice through the lens of
the liberal peacebuilding approach, arguing that it shares with liberal peacebuilding a number of under-examined assumptions and unintended consequences. It
begins with a brief outline of the approach, and then turns to the practice of
ISSN 1360-0826 print/ISSN 1469-798X online/07/040579– 13 # 2007 University of Kent
DOI: 10.1080/13600820701562843
580
C. L. Sriram
transitional justice itself. After offering an analysis of transitional justice, a number
of empirical examples are given to illustrate the challenges in practice and there is
a further elaboration of the potential for transitional justice to be externally
imposed and culturally inappropriate. While this argument does not eliminate
the need for some response to the very real demands for justice that emerge
after mass atrocity, it does demonstrate that simply presuming that justice generates or equates to peace is potentially quite problematic.
The Liberal Peacebuilding Argument
Even as the practice and analysis of peace negotiation and implementation has
expanded, so too have the critiques of the dominant paradigms. In particular, concerns have been raised that peacebuilding theory and practice reflect a particular
liberal internationalist paradigm, one that relies excessively on two strategies—
developing market economies and developing certain features of liberal democratic domestic politics—as pathways to peace. However, the critique points out
that many states emerging from conflict have little or no experience with
market economies or democracy, and that an emphasis on these may be both inappropriate and destabilising.1 Democratisation more generally has been argued to
be highly destabilising, as the competition it entails may necessarily enhance
existing cleavages that helped to engender conflict.2 Post-conflict, any party will
be extremely suspicious of any attempt by any other party to consolidate power
or strengthen its influence, however innocuous. This may lead to attempts to
undermine other parties, even through resort to violence. Hence, a security
dilemma has been said to exist.3 It has also been argued that support for democratisation and good governance may experience some success while international
actors are present, but subsequently the incentives for predatory behaviour by
local elites are sufficiently great that reforms to governance seldom endure.4
It will noted here in passing, and explored in further detail below, that the particular tools of transitional justice may frequently, although perhaps not always,
suffer from the part of the same critique as liberal peacebuilding, particularly
that of an excessive emphasis on the building of democratic institutions. Transitional justice strategies may not be as prone to the second critique, namely that
related to marketisation strategies. However, some tools of transitional justice
are explicitly linked to democratic processes; peacebuilding tools such as judicial
1. Roland Paris, “Peacebuilding and the Limits of Liberal Internationalism”, International Security,
Vol. 22, No. 2 (Fall 1997), pp. 54–89; idem, At War’s End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004).
2. Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York:
W.W. Norton, 2000); Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, “Democratization and the Danger of War”,
International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1995), pp. 5–38. See generally Mahmood Monshipouri, Democratization, Liberalization, and Human Rights in the Third World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995).
3. Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, “Civil War and the Security Dilemma”, in Barbara F. Walter and
Jack Snyder (eds.), Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999),
pp. 15–37; Barry R. Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”, Survival, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Spring
1993), pp. 27–47.
4. Stephen D. Krasner, “Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States”,
International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2004), pp. 85–120, proposes that neo-trusteeship arrangements
or sovereignty sharing may be necessary in some instances, although his focus is ostensibly not upon
countries concluding peace agreements, but failing and failed states.
Justice as Peace?
581
reform, reform of the security forces and the inclusion of former rebels and
“vetted” former members of security forces are also often explicitly tied to processes of transitional justice.5 As such, some tools of transitional justice will be
more vulnerable to the critique of liberal peacebuilding than others.
The liberal peacebuilding critique is relatively straightforward: peacebuilding
by most international agencies appears to be driven by a single paradigm, that
of liberal internationalism. According to Roland Paris, “[t]he central tenet of
this paradigm is the assumption that the surest foundation for peace, both
within and between states, is market democracy, that is, a liberal democratic
polity and a market-oriented economy”.6 This paradigm is underpinned in part
by the “democratic peace” thesis, which holds that democracies are less likely
to go to war with each other, and which is often argued to result in more accommodating or rule-obeying behaviour by states.7 The dominant critique of this
paradigm does not question its virtues in a general fashion, but rather suggests
that it is a particularly poor model for states emerging from armed conflict, and
that it is paradoxically, given that it is meant to be a tool of peacebuilding,
more likely to promote destabilisation. As Ted Gurr argues, “[t]he most dubious
expectation of all is that authoritarian states such as Sudan, Iraq, and Burma
might be able to defuse ethnopolitical wars by moving toward democracy”.8
Often economic distribution and acute inequalities were key sources of conflict,
and one or more parties promised a more equitable distribution of resources, as
in El Salvador. However, simply embedding market forces without dealing with
past grievances and inequities may entrench old grievances or create new
ones.9 It is for this reason that land reform and other programmes are often in
demand after conflict, even though they may operate at cross-purposes with
marketisation.10
The critique of liberal peacebuilding is not, as already indicated, limited to a critique of the emphasis upon creation of open markets. It continues by arguing that
the focus upon creating functioning electoral democracies may also generate
rather than alleviate conflict. It is the latter element of the critique that is most relevant to the current examination. Uneven access to political power is often a
source of conflict, but simply allowing elections to go forward may not rectify
5. These “strategies of transition” are discussed at length in Chandra Lekha Sriram, Confronting
Past Human Rights Violations (London: Frank Cass, 2004), pp. 206– 207 and passim.
6. Paris, “Peacebuilding”, op. cit., p. 56.
7. See generally Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics”, American Political Science Review,
Vol. 80, No. 4 (December 1986), pp. 1151–1169; Anne-Marie Slaughter, “International Law in a World of
Liberal States”, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 6 (1995), pp. 53–81; cf. José E. Alvarez, “Do
Liberal States Behave Better? A Critique of Slaughter’s Liberal Theory”, European Journal of International
Law, Vol. 12 (2001), pp. 183 –246.
8. Ted Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press, 1993), p. 138.
9. Roland Paris, At War’s End (pp. 112–134), discusses this issue in peacebuilding operations in
Central America. I have noted elsewhere that these peacebuilding missions may not only have
failed to address the underlying sources of conflict but in many instances have also failed to cope
with continuing political and social conflict, treating it as mere “criminality”. Chandra Lekha
Sriram, “Dynamics of Conflict in Central America”, in Chandra Lekha Sriram and Zoe Nielsen, Exploring Subregional Conflict: Opportunities for Conflict Prevention (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2004), pp. 131 –167.
10. See, for example, Frances Stewart, “Policies towards Horizontal Inequalities in Post-conflict
Reconstruction”
(n.d.),
available:
,http://www.hicn.org/papers/Stewart_philadelphia.pdf.
(accessed 3 June 2006).
582
C. L. Sriram
inequalities in access to power due to differential resources, power bases, and
experiences, and may reinforce old lines of cleavage or create new ones.11 Thus,
while established liberal democracies may be less prone to violent domestic conflict, the transformation of illiberal and conflict-prone states to such democracies is
perilous.12 In such instances, then, the liberal internationalist approach to peacebuilding may be said to be flawed. Liberal institutions may be conflict enhancing,
and broader liberalisation such as a free media may promote conflict through hate
speech, as in Rwanda. Roland Paris thus argues that in Rwanda the internationally
promoted power-sharing arrangements, as well as the vibrant but irresponsible
media, helped to precipitate the 1994 genocide.13 It is for this reason that he advocates a strategy that he terms institutionalisation before liberalisation (IBL), which
would prioritise embedding institutions and regulations rather than seeking early
elections as a sign of democracy, as the international community so often does.14
Transitional Justice
Although the tools of transitional justice have been central to contemporary peacebuilding projects, the critique of liberal peacebuilding has yet to address them or
their flaws. Rather, the critique has tended to focus on the two major pillars—marketisation and democratisation—without considering some of the unexamined
assumptions and potential unintended consequences that transitional justice
shares with peacebuilding. Because transitional justice can and has been
defined quite narrowly or quite broadly, the scope of what is treated as “transitional justice” is now set out and the way in which it is intertwined with peacebuilding is examined.
There is a vast literature on transitional justice, and thus this is but a brief
overview.15 First and foremost, the literature about transitional justice is really a
11. For a critique of the push for rapid elections, see Simon Chesterman, You, The People: The United
Nations, Transitional Administration, and State-building (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 204–
235.
12. Paris, At War’s End, op. cit., pp. 44–46, elaborates upon this point, developed previously by
Snyder and Mansfield and discussed above.
13. Paris, At War’s End, op. cit., pp. 75–76.
14. Ibid., pp. 179–211.
15. Key sources, from which this discussion is drawn, include Priscilla Hayner, Unspeakable Truths:
Confronting State Terror and Atrocity (London: Routledge, 2001); Carla Hesse and Robert Post (eds.),
Human Rights in Political Transitions: Gettysburg to Bosnia (New York: Zone Books, 1999); Jaime
Malamud-Goti, Game without End: State Terror and the Politics of Justice (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996); Martha Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide
and Mass Violence (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998); Aryeh Neier, War Crimes: Brutality, Genocide, Terror,
and the Struggle for Justice (New York: Times Books, 1998); Mark Osiel, Mass Atrocity, Collective
Memory, and the Law (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1997); Rama Mani, Beyond Retribution:
Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002); Naomi Roht-Arriaza (ed.), Impunity
and Human Rights in International Law and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); Robert
I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson (eds.), Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000); Chandra Lekha Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations,
op. cit.; Paul R. Williams and Michael P. Scharf, Peace with Justice? War Crimes and Accountability in
the Former Yugoslavia (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002); Neil J. Kritz (ed.), Transitional
Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, 3 Vols. (Washington, DC: US Institute
of Peace Press, 1995). I have considered the development of transitional justice literature and
debates over the past few decades in Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Transitional Justice Comes of Age:
Enduring Lessons and Challenges”, Berkeley Journal of International Law, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2005), pp.
506–523.
Justice as Peace?
583
literature about a political, moral, and legal dilemma. Countries that have
experienced authoritarian rule, internal armed conflict or transboundary conflict,
or some combination of the three, will generally also have suffered significant
human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law. Violations
may include torture, extrajudicial execution, disappearances, torture, war
crimes, crimes against humanity, forced labour or enslavement and genocide.
They may have been committed by state security forces, rebel groups, militias,
and private individuals, many of whom may retain significant military, political
or economic power. Victims, members of civil society, and transnational and international actors are also likely to call for some form of “justice”, juridical or otherwise. The dilemma emerges because calls for justice are likely to generate tensions
and exacerbate conflicts that have the potential to undermine peacebuilding.
There has thus developed a vast literature about how to respond to past abuses.
Arguments about appropriate approaches to past abuses have taken several
forms. These have been, variously, normative, empirical but case specific, and
empirical and overarching. Much of the normative work in transitional justice
considers claims about what is good for societies, victims, or simply what is
“right”.16 This is an important foundation for developing policy, but may well
be too narrow. In particular, such approaches only occasionally offer insights
into the prerequisites for peacebuilding.17 This may be in part because considerations of stability are perceived to be at odds with justice, rather than necessary
for and complementary to it. Empirical single case work also abounds, considering the experience of a country that experienced this choice, or of the role of international peacekeepers and peacebuilders that sought to assist them in countries
such as El Salvador or Argentina.18 Other literature has drawn upon multiple
cases and developed general propositions about what is feasible or appropriate with regard to accountability. For example, many scholars have made the
case for the crucial role of the truth commission in mediating at least in part the
peace/justice divide, or have argued that some form of public discussion is
necessary, whether through truth commission or trial.19
Transitional justice is, however, more than an academic literature. It is also an
active domain of policy, practised by the United Nations, and supported by regional
organisations, International Financial Institutions, bilateral donors, and specialised
NGOs such as the International Center for Transitional Justice, based in New York.20
While such organisations engage in the practice of transitional justice, they may
differ significantly as to its appropriate scope, and may be as divided as the
academic work discussed as to the necessity of legal accountability. Yet a brief
16. Neier, War Crimes, op. cit.; Osiel, Mass Atrocity, op. cit.; Minow, Between Vengeance and Forgiveness,
op. cit.
17. See Elizabeth M. Cousens and Chetan Kumar, with Karin Wermester (eds.), Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001); John Paul Lederach, Building
Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press,
1997); cf. a critique of the traditional assumptions of peacebuilding in Paris, “Peacebuilding and the
Limits of Liberal Internationalism”, op. cit.
18. Ian Johnstone, Rights and Reconciliation: UN Strategies in El Salvador (Boulder: Lynne Rienner,
1995); Malamud-Goti, Game without End, op. cit.
19. Hayner, Unspeakable Truths, op. cit.; Rotberg and Thompson (eds.), Truth v. Justice, op. cit.; Osiel,
Mass Atrocity, op. cit.
20. Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies. Report of the SecretaryGeneral, UN Doc. S/2004/616 (23 August 2004); see also ,www.ictj.org. (accessed 28 August 2007).
584
C. L. Sriram
consideration of recent transitions and peace accords, as well as international peacebuilding efforts, suggests that a debate about accountability, and usually some
efforts to prosecute, almost inevitably accompanies such transitions—these
include the creation of the Iraqi Special Tribunal, the referral of crimes committed
in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the International Criminal
Court, the creation of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the continuing trials
at the ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.21
Some will argue that legal accountability is absolutely necessary so that democracy and the rule of law can be rebuilt, and future crimes prevented, while others
will argue that for the sake of stability, accountability ought to be eschewed.22
Further, the option is seldom either peace or justice: rather, there is a range of tools
that may be utilised such as trials (in the formal or informal justice sectors), truth
commissions, lustration or vetting, reparations, and amnesty and pardon, selective
or otherwise.23 Transitional justice, at its core, involves a range of tools and processes, and choices among them. Regimes emerging from violent conflict or state
repression, often with the support of the United Nations, regional organisations,
or bilateral donors, must make choices about whether, and if so, how, to address
the crimes of the recent past. However, transitional justice involves more than
these specific choices, which constitute traditional transitional justice. In contemporary practice transitional justice also involves broader strategies to address the
sources of past and potential future violence. Specifically, it must be acknowledged
that transitional strategies are now closely linked to a range of reforms and processes which are not in the first instance about accountability for past abuses,
including reform of the justice sector, and reform of the security sector, including
both the police and the military. This may entail a range of activities that are not
obviously about justice for past crimes, but are more or less essential to it. These
may include institutional reform of judiciaries, training of judges, reformulation
of military and other security doctrines, and reformation of security institutions
themselves, which are indistinguishable from peacebuilding efforts. Further, they
are necessarily connected with activities essential to peacebuilding but not at first
blush at all related to justice such as inclusion of former rebels in new security
structures, and disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of excombatants.24 Attempts at justice can have direct effects upon activities such as
DDR. For example, there was early evidence that fighters in Liberia were afraid
21. Chandra Lekha Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities: A Revolution in Accountability
(London: Routledge, 2005), ch. 6 and conclusion; Mahnoush H. Arsanjani and W. Michael Reisman,
“The Law in Action of the International Criminal Court”, American Journal of International Law, Vol.
99 (April 2005), pp. 385–403; Daryl A. Mundis, “Closing an International Criminal Tribunal While
Maintaining International Human Rights Standards and Excluding Impunity”, American Journal of
International Law, Vol. 99 (January 2005), pp. 142–158. Cf. Christian Eckart, “Saddam Hussein’s Trial
in Iraq: Legitimacy and Alternatives, a Legal Analysis”, Cornell Law School Paper Series, Ithaca, NY
(2006), available: ,http://lsr.nellco.org/cornell/lps/papers/13. (accessed 28 August 2007). Clearly
these responses have been taken by very different sets of actors and have differing degrees of legitimacy, which for reasons of space I do not address here.
22. These are not the full range of reasons offered: others such as the needs of victims may be
adduced for accountability, and the need to entrench a nascent democracy may also be offered as a
reason to abandon accountability. See Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations, op. cit., introduction and ch. 2, for a discussion of these and illustrations from a myriad of cases.
23. In many instances, countries choose several of these options simultaneously, or serially. See
Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations, op. cit., ch. 2.
24. Ibid., ch. 1 and conclusion, discusses these strategies.
Justice as Peace?
585
to demobilise due to rumours that their ID benefits cards would be used to allow the
Special Court for Sierra Leone to reach them.25 Thus, transitional justice is a broader
set of activities that includes those specific measures that pertain to victims and perpetrators, involving accountability or the decision not to pursue it, but also spills
over into what have traditionally been “peacebuilding” activities that address restoration of the rule of law and security.26
Transitional Justice as an Integral Element of Liberal Peacebuilding
Increasingly, then, responses to recent mass atrocities or human rights abuses are
now an integral part of peacebuilding by bilateral donors, regional organisations,
and international institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank.
Thus in the autumn of 2004 the UN Secretary-General issued the first report of its
kind for the organisation—Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies.27 Perhaps most important to note about the report is that it treats the
rebuilding of the rule of law, and specific mechanisms of transitional justice, as both
intertwined with each other and as central to post-conflict peacebuilding. Work that
might previously have been treated as purely legal is now viewed as part of the
work of numerous departments, funds and agencies across the organisation. For
example, the United Nations Development Programme’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, the focal point of the United Nations’ development arm for postconflict peacebuilding, created a section for justice and security-sector reform.28 The
programmatic work treats judicial reform and reconstruction, along with corrections and police reform, as integral, and linked to efforts at post-conflict justice.
While the primary focus of World Bank programming in post-conflict reconstruction and conflict prevention remains reconstruction and development activities
generally, work on capacity building may encompass development of the rule of
law and judicial reform.29 The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office treats
human rights as integral to democracy building in unstable places, and the
reform of justice generally as integral to post-conflict development.30 In short, concerns for post-conflict reconstruction have become integrally linked with a wide
range of rule-of-law programming—in the judiciary, in criminal justice, in policing—and tied to efforts at post-conflict justice.31
25. Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities, op. cit., ch. 6, discusses this in more detail.
26. On the restoration of the rule of law and conflict prevention and peacebuilding policies, see
Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Discourses of Prevention and Rule of Law: Rhetoric and Reality”, in Agnes
Hurwitz with Reyko Huang (eds.), Rule of Law Programming in Conflict Management (Boulder: Lynne
Rienner, forthcoming 2007).
27. Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-conflict Societies, op. cit.
28. See descriptive page at ,http://www.undp.org/bcpr/jssr/index.htm. (accessed 28 August
2007).
29. For example, a recent in-house summary of work in conflict prevention and reconstruction primarily included work in development, reconstruction and mine clearance, but it also included work on
the rule of law. See World Bank, Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction (CPR) Unit, “CPR and Related
Publications on Conflict and Development”, available: ,http://siteresources.worldbank.org/
INTCPR/Publications/20812069/CatalogSep7.05.pdf. (accessed 28 August 2007).
30. See descriptive page at: ,http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename¼OpenMarket/
Xcelerate/ShowPage&c¼Page&cid¼1007029393564. (accessed 28 August 2007).
31. See generally Reyko Huang, Securing the Rule of Law: Assessing Strategies for Post-conflict Criminal
Justice, Policy Report (New York: International Peace Academy, November 2005), available: ,http://
www.ipacademy.org/Programs/Programs.htm. (accessed 28 August 2007).
586
C. L. Sriram
The Liberal Peacebuilding Argument and Transitional Justice
The field known as transitional justice, once potentially separate from the field
known as peacebuilding, is thus now tightly linked to it. This is certainly appropriate and necessary: it would be a mistake to seek to “do justice” in a political
vacuum, or to seek to build peace without addressing the horrors of the recent
past. However, the subsumption of transitional justice by the liberal peacebuilding apparatus potentially subjects transitional justice to some of the same flaws
and critiques of the peacebuilding agenda.
Why might this be the case? The critique of liberal peacebuilding is that it
emphasises the development of free markets excessively, and that it demands a
democratisation that may occur too early and be inherently destabilising. The
first strand of the critique is obviously less relevant here, although the costs
entailed in transitional justice processes are not nominal, and may place greater
strain upon developing economies that are struggling to rebuild, post-conflict,
and to liberalise markets.32 However, the primary issue is that transitional
justice processes are often linked explicitly to democratisation and that, like democratisation, they may destabilise post-conflict countries. Of course, a more optimistic interpretation is possible—that broad processes of transitional justice,
which incorporate rule-of-law programming, may satisfy at least some of the
demands of Paris’ IBL strategy. However, transitional justice is both subject to
the same critique as liberal peacebuilding strategies have been, and may also be
subject to the flaws that exist in the IBL strategy.
Transitional Justice as Destabilising
The first criticism that might be put is that transitional justice, like democratisation, is inherently destabilising. Post-conflict societies are inherently unstable:
the original sources of conflict have seldom been resolved by the mere signing
of a peace accord or imposition of an international observer or peacekeeping
force. Further, beyond the original causes of conflict, the course of the conflict,
including violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, will have generated new grievances that may not have been fully
addressed by any peace accord.33 The types of violations and mass atrocities
32. This may particularly be the case if reparations are part of the transitional justice process. See
discussion of the project on reparations at the International Center for Transitional Justice, available:
,http://www.ictj.org/en/tj/782.html. (accessed 28 August 2007).
33. See generally, on the causes of conflict, and human rights violations in conflict and peacebuilding processes, Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester (eds), From Promise to Practice: Strengthening
UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), ch. 2; Michelle Parlevliet, “Bridging the Divide. Exploring the Relationship between Human Rights and Conflict Management”, Track Two, Vol. 11, No. 1 (March 2002), Centre for Conflict Resolution, Cape Town, available:
,http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/two/11_1/bridging.html. (accessed 28 August 2007); Ellen
Lutz, Eileen F. Babbitt and Hurst Hannum, “Human Rights and Conflict Resolution from the Practitioners’ Perspectives”, Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2003), available:
,http://fletcher.tufts.edu/chrcr/pdf/Lutz4.pdf. (accessed 28 August 2007); Hurst Hannum,
“Human Rights and Conflict Resolution: The Role of the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights in UN Peacemaking and Peacebuilding”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 1
(2006), pp. 1–85; Tanya Putnam, “Human Rights and Sustainable Peace”, in Stephen J. Stedman,
Donald Rothchild and Elizabeth Cousens (eds.), Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 237–273; Christine Bell, Peace Agreements and Human
Justice as Peace?
587
that often occur during conflict tend to be particularly divisive: they are often
heinous, invasive, and quite personal, in addition to taking place on a mass
scale.34 These tend to create and reify categories of people in a society—victim
and victimiser, collaborator—and yet there is unlikely to be a true consensus as
to who belongs in which category. Slobodan Milosevic maintained to his death,
and his followers continue to maintain, that the wars in the former Yugoslavia
were not about ethnic cleansing and destroying Muslims or Croats, but about
defending a Serbia under attack.35 Similarly, the followers of Chief Samuel
Hinga Norman viewed the trial of him and other key figures of the Civil
Defence Forces by the Special Court for Sierra Leone as unfair victimisation of
national heroes, and fears that they might cause unrest arose repeatedly, although
Hinga Norman’s death in early 2007 mitigated these concerns.36 Efforts at transitional justice, particularly those that involve juridical solutions, such as domestic,
international or hybrid trials, may provoke instability directly, as those accused of
crimes, or their supporters, seek to prevent trials. They may threaten or successfully stage coups, or return to armed conflict. New and weak post-conflict governance structures are ill-prepared to manage such unrest. However, even in the
absence of specific violence or threats of unrest, pursuit of legal accountability
may serve to hamper reconciliation, and help to reify divides in society. As
Jaime Malamud-Goti, the human rights adviser to President Raul Alfonsı́n in
post-Dirty War Argentina and the architect of trials of junta members there subsequently argued, trials can perpetuate the old habits of blaming and scapegoating, of categorising people as us or them.37 Transitional justice, and particularly
trials, while frequently part of peacebuilding strategies, may serve to undermine
peace. It is, of course, worth recognising that this does not mean that transitional
justice ought not to be pursued for other reasons such as for retribution, deterrence, for the sake of the victims or for a host of other reasons.38 A strong case
can, of course, be made that transitional justice is absolutely necessary for longterm peacebuilding and re-institution of the rule of law.39 The suggestion here
is only that as an integral component of liberal peacebuilding projects does it
suffer from some of their flaws.
Transitional Justice and IBL: A Further Critique
Strategies of transitional justice are said to be vital to the re-installation of the rule
of law and are often linked to institutional reform strategies: of the judiciary, of
Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Human Rights Watch, Human Rights and Armed
Conflict (2004), available: ,http://hrw.org/wr2k4/. (accessed 28 August 2007).
34. See generally Eric Stover and Harvey Weinstein (eds.), My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
35. Roger Cohen, “To his Death in Jail, Milosevic Exalted Image of Serb Suffering”, New York Times
(12 March 2006), p. A1; Gabriel Partos, “Serb Nationalists Still a Force” (14 March 2006), available:
,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4804510.stm. (accessed 28 August 2007).
36. Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Wrong-sizing International Justice? The Hybrid Tribunal in Sierra
Leone”, Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2006), pp. 472 –506.
37. Jaime Malamud-Goti, Game without End, op. cit.
38. See Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities, op. cit., ch. 3.
39. On the link between transitional justice and the development of long-term rule of law and
democracy, see Ruti Teitel, Transitional Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
588
C. L. Sriram
constitutions, of security forces, and corrections, to name the most prominent. As
such, these comprehensive strategies of rebuilding the rule of law might appear to
satisfy the demands of Paris’ IBL strategy. However, far from avoiding the destabilising effects of a liberal peacebuilding that emphasises democratisation, the IBL
strategy may merely re-locate conflict from the realm of politics to the realm of
institutions of governance. That is to say, attempts to stabilise through creating
new institutional arrangements or reforming old ones will be seen by all
parties, post-conflict, as embedding future power arrangements, potentially permanently.40 They will thus compete avidly to control the shape of these arrangements, and ensure their own participation in key institutions, just as avidly, and
potentially violently, as they would seek political power directly through electoral
competition. Levels of trust will be extremely low in the aftermath of internal conflict, and thus each party will seek a maximalist agenda in power, and view
attempts by others to do the same with great suspicion. In short, the security
dilemma that makes resolution of internal conflict so difficult may simply be institutionalised or embedded through processes of institutional reform.41 If this is the
case generally with institutional reform, it will be true of judicial and other
reforms linked to transitional justice processes. Competition and the potential
for conflict may emerge surrounding the re-writing of constitutions, particularly
with reference to provisions that may address past atrocities or amnesties, the
training, vetting, and appointment of judges, the re-drafting of national legislation
and the like. This will particularly be the case where reform of legal institutions is
clearly linked to transitional justice, and to the potential for contemporaneous or
future trials. Conflict may simply be moved, then, from the electoral process to the
process of reforming institutions.42 This does not mean, of course, that such institutional reforms are not necessary, nor does it mean that transitional justice should
be eschewed. Rather, the emphasis is on some of the risks attendant with building
transitional justice into peacebuilding strategies.
Transitional Justice: Externally Imposed or Culturally Inappropriate?
Underpinning the critique of liberal peacebuilding is a recognition that peacebuilding activities, imposed or otherwise, are largely imported to post-conflict
societies by the “international community” of international and regional organisations, bilateral donors, and international NGOs. The result is often a set of peacebuilding activities that reflect Western forms of governance and institutions.43 The
40. On the weakness of power sharing or decentralisation as an interim stabilisation solution, see
the contributions to Philip G. Roeder and Donald Rothchild (eds.), Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). While the former is clearly linked to
democratisation, power-sharing arrangements are often really meant to be institutionalised protections
against the destabilising effects of democratisation and, particularly, ethnic outbidding.
41. Snyder and Jervis, “Civil War and the Security Dilemma”, op. cit.; Posen, “The Security
Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict”, op. cit.
42. The contentious nature of the debate over a revised Iraqi Constitution is one salient example.
See, for example, Bernard Finel, “Iraqis Prepare for Vote on Constitution”, transcript of comments,
Washington Post (13 October 2005), available: ,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2005/10/12/AR2005101201450.html. (accessed 28 August 2007).
43. On the political nature of peacebuilding and challenges for Western peacebuilders in unfamiliar
political cultures, see Elizabeth Cousens, “Introduction”, in Cousens and Kumar, with Wermester
(eds.), Peacebuilding as Politics, op. cit.
Justice as Peace?
589
same might be said of transitional justice activities. While an indigenous demand
for accountability is undeniably significant in most, if not all, countries that have
experienced conflict or mass atrocity and repression, the repertoires for accountability are formulated largely by external actors, as illustrated in the discussion of
the policies of the World Bank, United Nations and UK Department for International Development. The preferences of Western governments, and the institutions that they or their technical experts may dominate, will be for precisely
the type of legalised accountability familiar to Western court systems. The preferences of international NGOs may be similar, based as they are in the West. Policy
statements of both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have consistently stated that after mass atrocity or conflict, accountability—preferably legalised accountability—is necessary.44 NGOs that support transitional regimes,
such as the International Center for Transitional Justice, take a somewhat wider
view, advocating legal accountability where possible, but also supporting other
processes such as vetting or lustration, reparations and commissions of inquiry.
However, for all of these external actors there is a preference for legal accountability. The emphasis on legal accountability may result in transitional justice programmes that do not function well in the political and legal cultures in which
they are deployed. This may be the case for a number of reasons.
Firstly, in many of the countries affected by significant conflict or atrocities, legal
systems may have collapsed as a result of that conflict or atrocities. In Sierra Leone
at the end of its conflict, for example, legal opinions had not been published since
the 1970s, and a portion of the Supreme Court building had burned down. Local
courts were clearly ill-suited to take up cases dealing with complex international
crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, and indeed most people
had access not to formal common law courts but to customary law practices.45
Furthermore, in many instances, judges and lawyers seeking to enforce the rule
of law in the face of arbitrary violence by the state and others will have become
targets of violence themselves, and may have been killed or gone into exile.
Thus demands for legalised justice may be extremely difficult to satisfy.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, an emphasis on legalised justice may
be inappropriate because the formal justice sector was never an important part of
the lives of the people of the country. Thus, again in Sierra Leone, it has been estimated that some 85% of the population does not have access to formal justice and
relies upon traditional justice.46 At issue here is not merely that people may not
have access, but that they either prefer traditional justice, or have simply
known no other type of justice.47 In such instances, Western-style trials may not
fit the political culture well.
44. See, for example, Human Rights Watch’s page on International Justice, emphasising the necessity of justice generally, and promoting the option of international justice where justice is not feasible
domestically: ,http://hrw.org/justice/about.htm. (accessed 28 August 2007); the Amnesty International site makes similar points: ,http://web.amnesty.org/pages/jus-index-eng. (accessed 28
August 2007).
45. Owen Alterman, Aneta Binienda, Sophie Rodella and Kimyia Varzi, “The Law People See: The
Status of Dispute Resolution in the Provinces of Sierra Leone in 2002”, National Forum for Human
Rights, Freetown (2002), available: ,http://www.sierra-leone.org/lawpeoplesee.pdf. (accessed 28
August 2007).
46. Sriram, “Wrong-sizing International Justice?”, op. cit.
47. Alterman et al., “The Law People See”, op. cit.; Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities, op.
cit., ch. 6.
590
C. L. Sriram
Thirdly, and related to the second point, the emphasis upon individual rights,
obligations, and accountability derives from a Western liberal vision of individual
rights that may not be appropriate to cultures that emphasise group or community
identity, the family. Visions of rights and justice that are communally based may
not view individual trials as justice. Indeed, it may have significant problems
where countless numbers perpetrated crimes but only a few are singled out as
“criminals”. Societies that engage in communally-based treatments of wrongdoers
may prefer reparations, exhumation and proper burial of victims, and a communal
discussion of the reintegration of a perpetrator over individual accountability.
Finally, sometimes transitional justice is truly an external imposition, in that
states or other actors in the international community pursue trials over the
strong objections of states or individuals. Thus, for example, we have seen
strong objections by states to the exercise of universal jurisdiction, or the functioning of the International Criminal Court, arguing that they are external impositions
that may disrupt delicate domestic peace and reconciliation processes. Similar
objections have been raised to the ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, even though the Special
Court was created at the request of the government of Sierra Leone. Tribal leaders
of the peoples most affected by the predations of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
in Uganda, the Acholi, have raised concerns that ICC indictments will only
increase LRA atrocities and kidnapping of children, upset local amnesties, and
undermine the current mediation process or traditional justice processes.48
One potential solution to these objections is to allow traditional justice mechanisms to deal with some, or even all, perpetrators of atrocities. In fact, traditional
mechanisms have been used in East Timor and Rwanda, to name just two.49
However, in each of these instances traditional justice was brought in not
because it was seen as virtuous or culturally appropriate in itself but because
the formal justice sector was struggling to address large numbers of perpetrators.50 It was only after traditional justice was utilised that arguments could be
heard for its ostensible merits as community based, or culturally appropriate.
However, there is a distinct problem since traditional justice was frequently
designed to handle ordinary crimes or property disputes, and may not be well
suited to addressing serious international crimes. Certainly in Rwanda there
have been concerns that communities were intimidated into accepting confessed
perpetrators of genocide and other atrocities by the large presence of their family
members at gacaca sessions. In other instances some of the “judges” have been
found to be perpetrators of genocide themselves. These problems have led the
Rwandan government to pass legislation creating greater administrative control
over these processes, in essence partially formalising the informal sector.51
48. Because of these concerns, the Prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno Ocampo, invited a delegation
of Acholi leaders to discuss these topics and reassure them that local amnesties and traditional justice
processes would not be affected. “Statement by ICC Chief Prosecutor and the Visiting Delegation of
Acholi Leaders from Northern Uganda” (18 March 2005), available: ,http://www.icc-cpi.int/
pressrelease_details&id¼96&l¼en.html. (accessed 28 August 2007).
49. Sriram, Globalizing Justice for Mass Atrocities, op. cit., ch. 5.
50. Robert Walker, “Rwanda Still Searching for Justice” (30 March 2004), available: ,http://news.
bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3557753.stm. (accessed 28 August 2007).
51. See the discussion of problems with gacaca courts by Human Rights Watch at ,http://
www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/rwanda12286.htm. (accessed 28 August 2007).
Justice as Peace?
591
The objection that transitional justice mechanisms are externally imposed or
culturally inappropriate should not, however, be overstated. In many instances,
governments themselves request such mechanisms—support for domestic trials,
or international or hybrid courts. Further, domestic NGOs often actively push
for accountability, suggesting that people are not simply being told by Amnesty
International that they should have trials. It may be the case, nonetheless, that
the limited repertoires offered by international advisers dealing with transitional
justice effectively narrow the range of options for countries engaging in it.
Transitional justice, and in particular trials, are frequently imported from the
outside and occasionally externally imposed. In this they are like the liberal peacebuilding of which they are a part. Derived from Western models, they may thus be
in part inappropriate in other political and legal cultures. However, there is a
dilemma: whether or not the model of transitional justice is Western, there is
often a real indigenous demand for accountability. Presumably, it should not be
denied on the grounds that it is a Western demand. Thus we are likely to continue
to see Western models of legalised justice used after conflict or mass atrocity,
although perhaps linked to traditional justice processes as well.
Conclusion
The argument, then, is that transitional justice is increasingly integrated in strategies
of peacebuilding, and that this subjects it to some of the same criticisms that may be
directed at the so-called liberal peacebuilding consensus. In particular, the focus of
transitional justice strategies upon legal accountability and public reckoning may
be destabilising, rather than peacebuilding, however valuable they may be for
other reasons, much like democratisation. Further, transitional justice strategies
must not be understood merely as legal accountability or truth commissions but
rather as a package of activities not only to address past abuses but also to
prevent future ones. These include longer-term institutional reforms of the judiciary,
security forces and the like. These might in principle be presumed to satisfy the
demands of Paris’ IBL strategy, by focusing on longer term institutional restructuring rather than shorter term and contentious political activities. However, as part of
the critique of the IBL solution to the liberal peacebuilding argument, institutional
reforms such as these may simply generate competition and conflict over ownership
of and participation in the reform processes themselves. Finally, in some instances,
although not all, strategies of international justice may be not only externally generated but imposed, or that they may be inappropriate to the legal and political cultures in which they are placed. These criticisms are not meant to question the
importance or necessity of such reforms, or of transitional justice, but rather to highlight the risks inherent in them. Further, there may not be an ideal solution to such
problems. Demands for transitional justice after conflict are often so strong that they
must be dealt with immediately, and thus trials and other processes may be unavoidably linked to peacebuilding processes. Similarly, reform of institutions of justice is
usually necessary after conflict, as they may have been destroyed or perverted by the
conflict, and decisions about reforming such institutions necessarily compels discussion about dealing with past abuses. It may be, then, that there is no satisfactory solution to the dilemma, but this does not render it any less important to recognise the
risks inherent in embedding strategies of transitional justice in liberal peacebuilding
processes.
S/2004/616*
United Nations
Security Council
Distr.: General
23 August 2004
Original: English
The rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and
post-conflict societies
Report of the Secretary-General
Summary
Recent years have seen an increased focus by the United Nations on questions
of transitional justice and the rule of law in conflict and post-conflict societies,
yielding important lessons for our future activities. Success will depend on a number
of critical factors, among them the need to ensure a common basis in international
norms and standards and to mobilize the necessary resources for a sustainable
investment in justice. We must learn as well to eschew one-size-fits-all formulas and
the importation of foreign models, and, instead, base our support on national
assessments, national participation and national needs and aspirations. Effective
strategies will seek to support both technical capacity for reform and political will for
reform. The United Nations must therefore support domestic reform constituencies,
help build the capacity of national justice sector institutions, facilitate national
consultations on justice reform and transitional justice and help fill the rule of law
vacuum evident in so many post-conflict societies.
Justice, peace and democracy are not mutually exclusive objectives, but rather
mutually reinforcing imperatives. Advancing all three in fragile post-conflict settings
requires strategic planning, careful integration and sensible sequencing of activities.
Approaches focusing only on one or another institution, or ignoring civil society or
victims, will not be effective. Our approach to the justice sector must be
comprehensive in its attention to all of its interdependent institutions, sensitive to the
needs of key groups and mindful of the need for complementarity between
transitional justice mechanisms. Our main role is not to build international
substitutes for national structures, but to help build domestic justice capacities.
In some cases, international or mixed tribunals have been established to address
past crimes in war-torn societies. These tribunals have helped bring justice and hope
to victims, combat the impunity of perpetrators and enrich the jurisprudence of
international criminal law. They have, however, been expensive and have contributed
* Reissued for technical reasons.
04-39529* (E) 230804
*0439529*
S/2004/616
little to sustainable national capacities for justice administration. The International
Criminal Court offers new hope for a permanent reduction in the phenomenon of
impunity and the further ratification of its statute is thus to be encouraged.
But while tribunals are important, our experience with truth commissions also
shows them to be a potentially valuable complementary tool in the quest for justice
and reconciliation, taking as they do a victim-centred approach and helping to
establish a historical record and recommend remedial action. Similarly, our support
for vetting processes has shown them to be a vital element of transitional justice and,
where they respect the rights of both victims and the accused, key to restoring public
trust in national institutions of governance. Victims also benefit from well-conceived
reparations programmes, which themselves help ensure that justice focuses not only
on perpetrators, but also on those who have suffered at their hands. Strengthening
United Nations support in all these areas will require efforts to enhance coordination
among all actors, develop our expert rosters and technical tools and more
systematically record, analyse and apply these lessons in Security Council mandates,
peace processes and the operations of United Nations peace missions.
Contents
2
Paragraphs
Page
I.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
3
II.
Strengthening the rule of law and transitional justice in the wake of conflict . . . . .
2–4
3
III.
Articulating a common language of justice for the United Nations . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5–8
4
IV.
Basing assistance on international norms and standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9–10
5
V.
Identifying the role of United Nations peace operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
11–13
5
VI.
Assessing national needs and capacities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
14–16
6
VII.
Supporting domestic reform constituencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
17–18
7
VIII.
Recognizing the political context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
19–22
8
IX.
Embracing integrated and complementary approaches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
23–26
9
X.
Filling a rule of law vacuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
27–33
10
XI.
Developing national justice systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34–37
12
XII.
Learning lessons from the ad hoc criminal tribunals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
38–48
13
XIII.
Supporting the role of the International Criminal Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
49
16
XIV.
Facilitating truth telling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
50–51
17
XV.
Vetting the public service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
52–53
17
XVI.
Delivering reparations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
54–55
18
XVII.
Coordinating our efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
56–59
19
XVIII.
Building our roster of experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
60–63
20
XIX.
Moving forward: conclusions and recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
64–65
21
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I. Introduction
1.
On 24 September 2003, the Security Council met at the ministerial level to
discuss the United Nations role in establishing justice and the rule of law in postconflict societies.1 In an open meeting on 30 September 2003, Member States were
invited to contribute to this process.2 In a statement issued at the conclusion of the
24 September meeting,3 the President, on behalf of the Security Council, noted the
wealth of relevant expertise and experience within the United Nations system and
highlighted the need to harness and direct this expertise and experience so that the
lessons and experience of the past could be learned and built upon. The Council
welcomed my offer to provide a report that could inform the Security Council’s
further consideration of these matters. At its 26 January 2004 meeting on “Postconflict national reconciliation: the role of the United Nations”, the Security Council
invited me to give, in the present report, consideration to the views expressed in that
debate.4 The present report is submitted in compliance with those requests.
II. Strengthening the rule of law and transitional justice
in the wake of conflict
2.
The objective of the present report is to highlight key issues and lessons
learned from the Organization’s experiences in the promotion of justice and the rule
of law in conflict and post-conflict societies.5 Our experience in the past decade has
demonstrated clearly that the consolidation of peace in the immediate post-conflict
period, as well as the maintenance of peace in the long term, cannot be achieved
unless the population is confident that redress for grievances can be obtained
through legitimate structures for the peaceful settlement of disputes and the fair
administration of justice. At the same time, the heightened vulnerability of
minorities, women, children, prisoners and detainees, displaced persons, refugees
and others, which is evident in all conflict and post-conflict situations, brings an
element of urgency to the imperative of restoration of the rule of law.
3.
And yet, helping war-torn societies re-establish the rule of law and come to
terms with large-scale past abuses, all within a context marked by devastated
institutions, exhausted resources, diminished security and a traumatized and divided
population, is a daunting, often overwhelming, task. It requires attention to myriad
deficits, among which are a lack of political will for reform, a lack of institutional
independence within the justice sector, a lack of domestic technical capacity, a lack
of material and financial resources, a lack of public confidence in Government, a
lack of official respect for human rights and, more generally, a lack of peace and
security. Over the years, the United Nations has accumulated significant expertise in
addressing each of these key deficits. Departments, agencies, programmes and funds
and specialists across the system have been deployed to numerous transitional, wartorn and post-conflict countries to assist in the complex but vital work of rule of law
reform and development.
4.
Of course, in matters of justice and the rule of law, an ounce of prevention is
worth significantly more than a pound of cure. While United Nations efforts have
been tailored so that they are palpable to the population to meet the immediacy of
their security needs and to address the grave injustices of war, the root causes of
conflict have often been left unaddressed. Yet, it is in addressing the causes of
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conflict, through legitimate and just ways, that the international community can help
prevent a return to conflict in the future. Peace and stability can only prevail if the
population perceives that politically charged issues, such as ethnic discrimination,
unequal distribution of wealth and social services, abuse of power, denial of the
right to property or citizenship and territorial disputes between States, can be
addressed in a legitimate and fair manner. Viewed this way, prevention is the first
imperative of justice.
III. Articulating a common language of justice for the
United Nations
5.
Concepts such as “justice”, “the rule of law” and “transitional justice” are
essential to understanding the international community’s efforts to enhance human
rights, protect persons from fear and want, address property disputes, encourage
economic development, promote accountable governance and peacefully resolve
conflict. They serve both to define our goals and to determine our methods. Yet,
there is a multiplicity of definitions and understandings of such concepts, even
among our closest partners in the field. At an operational level, there is, for some, a
fair amount of overlap with other related concepts, such as security sector reform,
judicial sector reform and governance reform. To work together effectively in this
field, a common understanding of key concepts is essential.
6.
The “rule of law” is a concept at the very heart of the Organization’s mission.
It refers to a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities,
public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are
publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which
are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires, as
well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality
before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law,
separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of
arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency.
7.
For the United Nations, “justice” is an ideal of accountability and fairness in
the protection and vindication of rights and the prevention and punishment of
wrongs. Justice implies regard for the rights of the accused, for the interests of
victims and for the well-being of society at large. It is a concept rooted in all
national cultures and traditions and, while its administration usually implies formal
judicial mechanisms, traditional dispute resolution mechanisms are equally relevant.
The international community has worked to articulate collectively the substantive
and procedural requirements for the administration of justice for more than half a
century.
8.
The notion of “transitional justice” discussed in the present report comprises
the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempts to
come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure
accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both
judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international
involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking,
institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof.
4
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IV. Basing assistance on international norms and standards
9.
The normative foundation for our work in advancing the rule of law is the
Charter of the United Nations itself, together with the four pillars of the modern
international legal system: international human rights law;6 international
humanitarian law; international criminal law; and international refugee law. This
includes the wealth of United Nations human rights and criminal justice standards
developed in the last half-century.7 These represent universally applicable standards
adopted under the auspices of the United Nations and must therefore serve as the
normative basis for all United Nations activities in support of justice and the rule of
law.
10. United Nations norms and standards have been developed and adopted by
countries across the globe and have been accommodated by the full range of legal
systems of Member States, whether based in common law, civil law, Islamic law, or
other legal traditions. As such, these norms and standards bring a legitimacy that
cannot be said to attach to exported national models which, all too often, reflect
more the individual interests or experience of donors and assistance providers than
they do the best interests or legal development needs of host countries. These
standards also set the normative boundaries of United Nations engagement, such
that, for example, United Nations tribunals can never allow for capital punishment,
United Nations-endorsed peace agreements can never promise amnesties for
genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or gross violations of human rights,
and, where we are mandated to undertake executive or judicial functions, United
Nations-operated facilities must scrupulously comply with international standards
for human rights in the administration of justice.
V. Identifying the role of United Nations peace operations
11. Not all peace operations are mandated to address transitional justice and rule
of law activities. Transitional administrations in Kosovo (United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo) and Timor-Leste (United Nations Transitional
Administration in East Timor/United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor),
however, have had direct responsibility for the administration of judiciaries, police
and prison services. Others, including those in El Salvador (United Nations
Observer Mission in El Salvador) and Guatemala (United Nations Verification
Mission in Guatemala), as well as more recent operations in Côte d’Ivoire (United
Nations Mission in Côte d’Ivoire/United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire),
Liberia (United Nations Mission in Liberia) and Haiti (United Nations Stabilization
Mission in Haiti), have had important rule of law and justice components,
illustrating the increased attention given by the United Nations to these questions.
12. At the Headquarters level, support for rule of law and transitional justice
aspects of peace operations includes needs assessment, mission planning, selection
and deployment of specialized staff and provision of guidance and support to rule of
law components of missions. On the ground, our operations have worked, inter alia,
to strengthen domestic law enforcement and justice institutions, facilitate national
consultations on justice reform, coordinate international rule of law assistance,
monitor and report on court proceedings, train national justice sector officials,
support local judicial reform bodies and advise host country rule of law institutions.
Our operations have helped national actors vet and select national police, judges and
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prosecutors, draft new constitutions, revise legislation, inform and educate the
public, develop ombudsman institutions and human rights commissions, strengthen
associations of criminal defence lawyers, establish legal aid, set up legal-training
institutes and build the capacity of civil society to monitor the justice sector. Peace
missions have also helped host countries to address past human rights abuses by
establishing tribunals, truth and reconciliation mechanisms and victim reparation
programmes.
13. This range of activities would be demanding in any circumstances. The
challenge is compounded by the fact that the United Nations is frequently called
upon to plan the rule of law components of peace operations on extremely short
notice, based on short assessment visits to the host country and with minimal human
and financial resources. With limited staff devoted to rule of law and transitional
justice issues, the United Nations has been stretched to address rule of law planning
needs for new missions, while simultaneously providing support to rule of law
activities in existing operations. Matching sufficient resources in the headquarters of
relevant departments with the growing demands for rule of law support to peace
operations is an issue that will require early and considered attention by the
Secretariat. I intend to instruct the Executive Committee on Peace and Security to
review these questions, with a mind to making proposals to Member States for the
strengthening of these resources.
VI. Assessing national needs and capacities
14. In formulating recommendations for the Security Council, planning mission
mandates and structures, and conceiving assistance programmes, it is imperative that
both the Security Council and the United Nations system carefully consider the
particular rule of law and justice needs in each host country. Accordingly, we must
assess myriad factors, such as the nature of the underlying conflict, the will of the
parties, any history of widespread abuse, the identification of vulnerable groups,
such as minorities and displaced persons, the situation and role of women, the
situation of children, rule of law implications of peace agreements and the condition
and nature of the country’s legal system, traditions and institutions.
15. Unfortunately, the international community has not always provided rule of
law assistance that is appropriate to the country context. Too often, the emphasis has
been on foreign experts, foreign models and foreign-conceived solutions to the
detriment of durable improvements and sustainable capacity. Both national and
international experts have a vital role to play, to be sure. But we have learned that
effective and sustainable approaches begin with a thorough analysis of national
needs and capacities, mobilizing to the extent possible expertise resident in the
country. Increasingly, the United Nations is looking to nationally led strategies of
assessment and consultation carried out with the active and meaningful participation
of national stakeholders, including justice sector officials, civil society, professional
associations, traditional leaders and key groups, such as women, minorities,
displaced persons and refugees. In such cases, national bodies are taking the lead in
carrying out diagnostics of the justice sector by mobilizing national legal
professionals and are leading national consultations and assessments relating to
transitional justice. In these processes, the United Nations can help facilitate
meetings, provide legal and technical advice, promote the participation of women
and traditionally excluded groups, support capacity-building and help mobilize
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financial and material resources, while leaving process leadership and decisionmaking to the national stakeholders.
16. Similarly, the most successful transitional justice experiences owe a large part
of their success to the quantity and quality of public and victim consultation carried
out. Local consultation enables a better understanding of the dynamics of past
conflict, patterns of discrimination and types of victims. Although the international
community has, at times, imposed external transitional justice solutions, a more
open and consultative trend is emerging, visible in places such as Sierra Leone and
Afghanistan. Although the lessons of past transitional justice efforts help inform the
design of future ones, the past can only serve as a guideline. Pre-packaged solutions
are ill-advised. Instead, experiences from other places should simply be used as a
starting point for local debates and decisions.
VII. Supporting domestic reform constituencies
17. Ultimately, no rule of law reform, justice reconstruction, or transitional justice
initiative imposed from the outside can hope to be successful or sustainable. The
role of the United Nations and the international community should be solidarity, not
substitution. As discussed above, it is essential that these efforts be based upon
meaningful public participation involving national legal professionals, Government,
women, minorities, affected groups and civil society. Countless pre-designed or
imported projects, however meticulously well-reasoned and elegantly packaged,
have failed the test of justice sector reform. Without public awareness and education
campaigns, and public consultation initiatives, public understanding of and support
for national reform efforts will not be secured. Civil society organizations, national
legal associations, human rights groups and advocates of victims and the vulnerable
must all be given a voice in these processes. Most importantly, our programmes
must identify, support and empower domestic reform constituencies. Thus, peace
operations must better assist national stakeholders to develop their own reform
vision, their own agenda, their own approaches to transitional justice and their own
national plans and projects. The most important role we can play is to facilitate the
processes through which various stakeholders debate and outline the elements of
their country’s plan to address the injustices of the past and to secure sustainable
justice for the future, in accordance with international standards, domestic legal
traditions and national aspirations. In doing so, we must learn better how to respect
and support local ownership, local leadership and a local constituency for reform,
while at the same time remaining faithful to United Nations norms and standards.
18. Support for reform must be cultivated among all groups in society, including
elites, ex-combatants and (non-criminal) elements of former regimes, all of whom
must be reassured that they will be protected from unlawful or unfair retribution and
offered a real chance at reintegration into their society. Finally, in post-conflict
situations and where transitional justice processes are under consideration, a
particularly important constituency is the country’s victims. The United Nations
must assess and respect the interests of victims in the design and operation of
transitional justice measures. Victims and the organizations that advocate on their
behalf deserve the greatest attention from the international community.
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VIII. Recognizing the political context
19. While effective rule of law strategies necessarily focus on legal and
institutional requirements, due attention must be paid to political elements as well.
Re-establishing justice systems, planning rule of law reforms and agreeing on
transitional justice processes are activities of the highest public interest. They are
therefore necessary subjects of serious public consultation and debate and, thus, as
much political questions as technical ones. Institutions receiving international
assistance cannot reasonably be evaluated in terms of their enhanced efficiency
alone, without regard to their commitment to human rights or the responsibility of
their public discourse. In some cases, State authorities have been more concerned
with consolidation of power than with strengthening the rule of law, with the latter
often perceived as a threat to the former. As such, my senior representatives in the
field must give dedicated attention to supporting the political aspects of justice and
rule of law reforms. Their good offices can be crucial to securing political space for
reformers, insulating law enforcement from political abuse and mobilizing resources
for the strengthening of the justice sector.
20. And yet, the international community has frequently underestimated the extent
of political will necessary to support effective rule of law reform in post-conflict
States and invested inadequately in public consultations on reform questions. As a
result, justice strategies and assistance programmes have sometimes neglected to
facilitate consensus among important stakeholders on the nature and pace of reforms
and new institutions. Here too the United Nations has a role. Just as we have
supported national consultations in the form of elections and referendums, so must
we support and facilitate national consultations aimed at determining the national
course for transitional justice or rule of law reform.
21. Equally important is the fact that rule of law reforms and transitional justice
activities often occur simultaneously with post-conflict elections, as well as with the
unfolding of fragile peace processes. Careful sequencing of such processes is vital to
their success and legitimacy. Justice and peace are not contradictory forces. Rather,
properly pursued, they promote and sustain one another. The question, then, can
never be whether to pursue justice and accountability, but rather when and how. This
means recognizing that United Nations peace operations, with some notable
exceptions, are planned as short-term interventions, while accounting for the past,
building the rule of law and fostering democracy are long-term processes. As such,
strategic planning should, from the beginning, take account of the need for phasing
and for post-mission international support in these areas, including long-term
development assistance.
22. A related question is the timing of electoral processes. Recent experience has
demonstrated that holding elections without adequate political and security
preparation and disengaging too soon can undermine, rather than facilitate, the
process of building the rule of law. Yet, the international community still sometimes
encourages early elections in post-conflict States in an attempt to lend legitimacy to
political leaders, processes and institutions. But premature elections can bring about
only cosmetic electoral democracies, at best. In many cases, elections held in nonpermissive security conditions exclude the meaningful participation of key groups,
while exposing people to undue personal risk. In others, candidates and parties from
the old political order, lacking a commitment to democratic principles and human
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rights, use premature elections to consolidate their power. At worst, they can
radicalize political discourse and even lead to renewed conflict.
IX. Embracing integrated and complementary approaches
23. Our experience confirms that a piecemeal approach to the rule of law and
transitional justice will not bring satisfactory results in a war-torn or atrocity-scarred
nation. Effective rule of law and justice strategies must be comprehensive, engaging
all institutions of the justice sector, both official and non-governmental, in the
development and implementation of a single nationally owned and led strategic plan
for the sector. Such strategies must include attention to the standards of justice, the
laws that codify them, the institutions that implement them, the mechanisms that
monitor them and the people that must have access to them.
24. These are hard-learned lessons, drawn from decades of United Nations
experience on the ground. For example, international efforts have sometimes
focused on re-establishing police services, while paying scant attention to other
justice sector components, such as legislative work, crime prevention, judicial
development, legal education, prison reform, prosecutorial capacity, victim
protection and support, civil society support, citizenship and identification
regulation, and property dispute resolution. Yet all of these are essential to the rule
of law and all are interdependent. Neglect of one inevitably leads to the weakening
of the others.
25. In other cases, the international community has rushed to prescribe a particular
formula for transitional justice, emphasizing either criminal prosecutions or truthtelling, without first affording victims and national constituencies the opportunity to
consider and decide on the proper balance. The international community must see
transitional justice in a way that extends well beyond courts and tribunals. The
challenges of post-conflict environments necessitate an approach that balances a
variety of goals, including the pursuit of accountability, truth and reparation, the
preservation of peace and the building of democracy and the rule of law. A
comprehensive strategy should also pay special attention to abuses committed
against groups most affected by conflict, such as minorities, the elderly, children,
women, prisoners, displaced persons and refugees, and establish particular measures
for their protection and redress in judicial and reconciliation processes. For example,
protection measures for children can include provisions for hearings in camera, prerecorded testimonies, videoconferencing and the use of pseudonyms to protect the
identity of child witnesses.
26. Where transitional justice is required, strategies must be holistic, incorporating
integrated attention to individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking,
institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or an appropriately conceived
combination thereof. The United Nations must consider through advance planning
and consultation how different transitional justice mechanisms will interact to
ensure that they do not conflict with one another. It is now generally recognized, for
example, that truth commissions can positively complement criminal tribunals, as
the examples of Argentina, Peru, Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone suggest. And in
Timor-Leste, the Serious Crimes Unit worked in close conjunction with the
Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as provided for in Regulation
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No. 2001/10 of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, which
established the Commission’s terms of reference.
X. Filling a rule of law vacuum
27. In post-conflict settings, legislative frameworks often show the accumulated
signs of neglect and political distortion, contain discriminatory elements and rarely
reflect the requirements of international human rights and criminal law standards.
Emergency laws and executive decrees are often the order of the day. Where
adequate laws are on the books, they may be unknown to the general public and
official actors may have neither the capacity nor the tools to implement them.
National judicial, police and corrections systems have typically been stripped of the
human, financial and material resources necessary for their proper functioning. They
also often lack legitimacy, having been transformed by conflict and abuse into
instruments of repression. Such situations are invariably marked by an abundance of
arms, rampant gender and sexually based violence, the exploitation of children, the
persecution of minorities and vulnerable groups, organized crime, smuggling,
trafficking in human beings and other criminal activities. In such situations,
organized criminal groups are often better resourced than local government and
better armed than local law enforcement. Restoring the capacity and legitimacy of
national institutions is a long-term undertaking. However, urgent action to restore
human security, human rights and the rule of law cannot be deferred. Thus, United
Nations peace operations are often called upon to help fill this rule of law vacuum.
28. Indeed, in some cases, we have faced the difficulties of conducting peace
operations where there are no functioning criminal justice mechanisms at all. In
such situations, peacekeepers have encountered wrongdoers in the midst of
committing serious criminal acts of a direct threat to civilians and to the operation
itself. Military components typically lack the training, skills and resources to
address such situations. At the same time, civilian components of peace operations,
including police, are often too slowly deployed and are seldom mandated to
undertake executive functions, such as arrest. Yet such lawlessness can seriously
undermine the efforts of an entire peace operation. Given these realities, we must,
together with Member Sates, rethink our current strategies for addressing the rule of
law vacuum into which we are often deployed, including the role, capacities and
obligations of military and civilian police components.
29. In some situations, where this problem has been most acute, civilian police in
peace missions have been mandated to undertake executive functions, including
powers of arrest and detention. While, in most cases, United Nations civilian police
provide operational support and advice and are not empowered to carry out
executive functions, their responsibilities have grown ever more complex. In every
case, their role is central to the restoration of the rule of law and worthy of better
support and more resources. The simple presence of law enforcement officials on
the streets after a conflict can substantially reduce looting, harassment, rape, robbery
and murder. After some 20 years of United Nations experience, this is an area that
would benefit from a serious review, in order that we might consider ways to bolster
our efforts.
30. But, as discussed above, while policing interventions in post-conflict
environments are a crucial component of the rule of law continuum, they must be
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linked to parallel support to the other institutions and functions of the justice
system. Enhancing the capacity of police (or United Nations Civilian Police) to
make arrests cannot be seen as a contribution to the rule of law if there are no
modern laws to be applied, no humane and properly resourced and supervised
detention facilities in which to hold those arrested, no functioning judiciary to try
them lawfully and expeditiously, and no defence lawyers to represent them. Progress
has been made in recent years to address such lacunae, including a number of
dedicated projects to develop transitional codes, guidelines and rule of law policy
tools, as recommended in the report of the Panel on United Nations Peace
Operations.8 In the coming months, many of these new tools will be finalized.
31. The establishment of independent national human rights commissions is one
complementary strategy that has shown promise for helping to restore the rule of
law, peaceful dispute resolution and protection of vulnerable groups where the
justice system is not yet fully functioning. Many have been established in conflict
and post-conflict societies with mandates including quasi-judicial functions,
conflict-resolution and protection programmes. Recent examples include the
national human rights institutions of Afghanistan, Rwanda, Colombia, Indonesia,
Nepal, Sri Lanka and Uganda, each of which is now playing an important role in this
regard. Exceptional fact-finding mechanisms have also been mobilized by the
United Nations with increasing frequency, such as the ad hoc international
commissions of inquiry established to look into war crimes committed in places
such as the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Burundi and Timor-Leste.
32. Additionally, strategies for expediting a return to the rule of law must be
integrated with plans to reintegrate both displaced civilians and former fighters.
Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes are one of the keys to a
transition out of conflict and back to normalcy. For populations traumatized by war,
those processes are among the most visible signs of the gradual return of peace and
security. Similarly, displaced persons must be the subject of dedicated programmes
to facilitate return. Carefully crafted amnesties can help in the return and
reintegration of both groups and should be encouraged, although, as noted above,
these can never be permitted to excuse genocide, war crimes, crimes against
humanity or gross violations of human rights.
33. Finally, better safeguards must be established to ensure that the very
interventions designed to protect vulnerable and victimized groups, including
women and children, do not result in their further victimization. In such situations,
women often suffer from domestic violence in the home and targeted violence in the
public sphere. Addressing the all too common sexual abuse, exploitation and
traumatization of these groups in conflict and post-conflict settings requires special
skills, resources and mechanisms to ensure that law enforcement personnel,
peacekeepers and others who interact with them do not unintentionally contribute to
or exacerbate their suffering. And it is critically important that those who seek to
abuse or exploit them are held accountable. Indeed, if the rule of law means
anything at all, it means that no one, including peacekeepers, is above the law. For
this reason, I have issued a bulletin on special measures for protection from sexual
exploitation and sexual abuse (ST/SGB/2003/13), setting out minimum standards of
behaviour expected of all United Nations personnel, as well as measures necessary
to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse.
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XI. Developing national justice systems
34. While the international community is obliged to act directly for the protection
of human rights and human security where conflict has eroded or frustrated the
domestic rule of law, in the long term, no ad hoc, temporary or external measures
can ever replace a functioning national justice system. Thus, for decades, a number
of United Nations entities have been engaged in helping countries to strengthen
national systems for the administration of justice in accordance with international
standards.
35. Effective strategies for building domestic justice systems will give due
attention to laws, processes (both formal and informal) and institutions (both official
and non-official). Legislation that is in conformity with international human rights
law and that responds to the country’s current needs and realities is fundamental. At
the institutional core of systems based on the rule of law is a strong judiciary, which
is independent and adequately empowered, financed, equipped and trained to uphold
human rights in the administration of justice. Equally important are the other
institutions of the justice sector, including lawful police services, humane prison
services, fair prosecutions and capable associations of criminal defence lawyers (oftforgotten but vital institutions). Beyond the criminal law realm, such strategies must
also ensure effective legal mechanisms for redressing civil claims and disputes,
including property disputes, administrative law challenges, nationality and
citizenship claims and other key legal issues arising in post-conflict settings.
Juvenile justice systems must be put in place to ensure that children in conflict with
the law are treated appropriately and in line with recognized international standards
for juvenile justice. Justice sector institutions must be gender sensitive and women
must be included and empowered by the reform of the sector. Legal education and
training and support for the organization of the legal community, including through
bar associations, are important catalysts for sustained legal development.
36. Our programmes must also support access to justice, to overcome common
cultural, linguistic, economic, logistical or gender-specific impediments. Legal aid
and public representation programmes are essential in this regard. Additionally,
while focusing on the building of a formal justice system that functions effectively
and in accordance with international standards, it is also crucial to assess means for
ensuring the functioning of complementary and less formal mechanisms, particularly
in the immediate term. Independent national human rights commissions can play a
vital role in affording accountability, redress, dispute resolution and protection
during transitional periods. Similarly, due regard must be given to indigenous and
informal traditions for administering justice or settling disputes, to help them to
continue their often vital role and to do so in conformity with both international
standards and local tradition. Where these are ignored or overridden, the result can
be the exclusion of large sectors of society from accessible justice. Particularly in
post-conflict settings, vulnerable, excluded, victimized and marginalized groups
must also be engaged in the development of the sector and benefit from its emerging
institutions. Measures to ensure the gender sensitivity of justice sector institutions is
vital in such circumstances. With respect to children, it is also important that support
be given to nascent institutions of child protection and juvenile justice, including for
the development of alternatives to detention, and for the enhancement of the child
protection capacities of justice sector institutions.
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37. Recent national experience suggests that achieving these complex objectives is
best served by the definition of a national process, guided by a national justice plan
and shepherded by specially appointed independent national institutions, such as
judicial or law commissions. Our support for such processes and bodies can help
ensure that development of this sector is adequately resourced, coordinated,
consistent with international standards and nationally owned and directed. Where
this is complemented with meaningful support for capacity-building within the
justice sector, the interventions of our operations have the greatest hope for
contributing to sustainable improvements for justice and the rule of law.
XII. Learning lessons from the ad hoc criminal tribunals
38. In the past decade, the United Nations has established or contributed to the
establishment of a wide range of special criminal tribunals. In doing so, it has
sought to advance a number of objectives, among which are bringing to justice those
responsible for serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law, putting an
end to such violations and preventing their recurrence, securing justice and dignity
for victims, establishing a record of past events, promoting national reconciliation,
re-establishing the rule of law and contributing to the restoration of peace. To these
ends, a variety of institutional models has emerged. These have included ad hoc
international criminal tribunals established by the Security Council as subsidiary
organs of the United Nations for the former Yugoslavia (International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) and Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda); a mixed tribunal for Sierra Leone, established as a treaty-based court;
a mixed tribunal for Cambodia, proposed under a national law specially promulgated
in accordance with a treaty; a mixed tribunal (structured as a “court within a court”)
in the form of a Special Chamber in the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina; a
Panel with Exclusive Jurisdiction over Serious Criminal Offences in Timor-Leste,
established by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor; the use
of international judges and prosecutors in the courts of Kosovo, pursuant to
regulations of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo; and a
Commission for the Investigation of Illegal Groups and Clandestine Security
Organizations in Guatemala, to be established by agreement between the United
Nations and Guatemala, as an international investigative/prosecutional unit
operating under the national law of Guatemala. The details of the agreement are
currently under discussion.
39. Criminal trials can play an important role in transitional contexts. They
express public denunciation of criminal behaviour. They can provide a direct form
of accountability for perpetrators and ensure a measure of justice for victims by
giving them the chance to see their former tormentors made to answer for their
crimes. Insofar as relevant procedural rules enable them to present their views and
concerns at trial, they can also help victims to reclaim their dignity. Criminal trials
can also contribute to greater public confidence in the State’s ability and willingness
to enforce the law. They can also help societies to emerge from periods of conflict
by establishing detailed and well-substantiated records of particular incidents and
events. They can help to de-legitimize extremist elements, ensure their removal from
the national political process and contribute to the restoration of civility and peace
and to deterrence. Yet achieving and balancing the various objectives of criminal
justice is less straightforward and there are a host of constraints in transitional
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contexts that limit the reach of criminal justice, whether related to resources,
caseload or the balance of political power.
40. Of course, domestic justice systems should be the first resort in pursuit of
accountability. But where domestic authorities are unwilling or unable to prosecute
violators at home, the role of the international community becomes crucial. The
establishment and operation of the international and hybrid criminal tribunals of the
last decade provide a forceful illustration of this point. These tribunals represent
historic achievements in establishing accountability for serious violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law by civilian and military leaders.
They have proved that it is possible to deliver justice and conduct fair trials
effectively at the international level, in the wake of the breakdown of national
judicial systems. More significantly still, they reflect a growing shift in the
international community, away from a tolerance for impunity and amnesty and
towards the creation of an international rule of law. Despite their limitations and
imperfections, international and hybrid criminal tribunals have changed the
character of international justice and enhanced the global character of the rule of
law.
41. The first modern international criminal tribunals, the International Criminal
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda, have played a crucial role in advancing the cause of justice in the former
Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. Indeed, in the absence of these tribunals, there would
have been a massive justice deficit in the countries they served, as well as in the
countries subject to the hybrid tribunals that must be recognized as progeny of the
original tribunals. They have also made a global contribution by developing a rich
jurisprudence in the area of international criminal law, thereby expanding and
reinvigorating this key pillar of the international legal regime. As a result of their
deliberations, legal efforts to hold violators to account will now benefit from greater
clarity on questions of rape as a war crime and a crime against humanity, the
elements of genocide, the definition of torture, the nature of individual criminal
responsibility, the doctrine of command responsibility and appropriate sentencing.
What is more, they have informed the development of hybrid tribunals elsewhere.
42. Of course, these gains have come with significant costs. The two ad hoc
tribunals have grown into large institutions, with more than 2,000 posts between
them and a combined annual budget exceeding a quarter of a billion dollars —
equivalent to more than 15 per cent of the Organization’s total regular budget.
Although trying complex legal cases of this nature would be expensive for any legal
system and the tribunals’ impact and performance cannot be measured in financial
numbers alone, the stark differential between cost and number of cases processed
does raise important questions. Concerns regarding costs and efficiency have also
emerged in cases being tried before the hybrid Tribunals. In addressing these costrelated issues, high priority should be given to consideration of the need to provide
for an effective system for delivery of justice.
43. Partly in reaction to the high costs of the original tribunals, the financial
mechanisms of the mixed tribunals for Sierra Leone and for Cambodia have been
based entirely on voluntary contributions. While for the Extraordinary Chambers the
viability of this mechanism is yet to be tested, in the case of the Special Court for
Sierra Leone, my doubts about the sustainability and security of the court’s
operations being financed through voluntary contributions have been borne out. Less
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than two years into its operation, and at the very moment when trials were about to
begin, the Court has confronted a serious financial crisis.9 As such, any future
financial mechanism must provide the assured and continuous source of funding that
is needed to appoint officials and staff, contract services, purchase equipment and
support investigations, prosecutions and trials and do so expeditiously. Resort,
therefore, to assessed contributions remains necessary in these cases. The operation
of judicial bodies cannot be left entirely to the vagaries of voluntary financing.
44. The location of the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals outside the countries
where the crimes were committed has allowed them to benefit from more adequate
operational facilities and has helped protect their security and independence.
However, if security and independence are adequately maintained, there are a
number of important benefits to locating tribunals inside the countries concerned,
including easier interaction with the local population, closer proximity to the
evidence and witnesses and being more accessible to victims. Such accessibility
allows victims and their families to witness the processes in which their former
tormentors are brought to account. National location also enhances the national
capacity-building contribution of the ad hoc tribunals, allowing them to bequeath
their physical infrastructure (including buildings, equipment and furniture) to
national justice systems, and to build the skills of national justice personnel. In the
nationally located tribunals, international personnel work side by side with their
national counterparts and on-the-job training can be provided to national lawyers,
officials and staff. Such benefits, where combined with specially tailored measures
for keeping the public informed and effective techniques for capacity-building, can
help ensure a lasting legacy in the countries concerned.
45. Lessons have been learned about the timeliness of trials, as well. Many
suspects before the two ad hoc tribunals have had to spend lengthy periods in
detention waiting for their trials to start. With regard to the ad hoc international
tribunals, many of those trials have taken a very long time to complete, due in part
to the complexities of prosecuting international crimes. The rules of procedure of
the two ad hoc international tribunals have undergone revisions aimed at reducing
delays. It was the recommendation of my Expert Group, when it reviewed the two
ad hoc tribunals in 1999, that measures be taken to reduce the length of trials and
expedite their completion, and that judges should take an active role and exercise a
substantial degree of control over proceedings. It is highly desirable, then, that those
nominated, elected or appointed to serve as judges in international and hybrid
tribunals possess extensive criminal trial experience, preferably as a judge. To
facilitate this, States should put in place career structures that make it easier to
release serving members of their national judiciaries for service in international
courts or tribunals and that give full credit for periods of service with such
institutions. Moreover, adjudicating in international criminal proceedings is an
arduous and stressful task, as the high number of casual vacancies that have arisen at
the two ad hoc tribunals shows. It is accordingly essential that only those who are in
good health be nominated, elected or appointed to serve as judges in international or
hybrid tribunals. Consideration might also usefully be given in this connection to
imposing an age limit on judicial service, as is done in many national jurisdictions.
46. In the end, in post-conflict countries, the vast majority of perpetrators of
serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law will never be
tried, whether internationally or domestically. As such, prosecutorial policy must be
strategic, based on clear criteria, and take account of the social context. Public
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expectations must be informed through an effective communications strategy.
Programmes must be in place to protect and support victims of gender and sexually
based violence and to protect witnesses. And it is essential that, from the moment
any future international or hybrid tribunal is established, consideration be given, as a
priority, to the ultimate exit strategy and intended legacy in the country concerned.
47. Moreover, other transitional justice mechanisms, such as those discussed
elsewhere in the present report, may need to be put in place in order to overcome the
inherent limitations of criminal justice processes ― to do the things that courts do
not do or do not do well ― in particular to help satisfy the natural need of victims’
relatives to trace their loved ones and clarify their fate; to ensure that victims and
their relatives are able to obtain redress for the harm they have suffered; to meet the
need for a full, comprehensive historical record of what happened during the period
of conflict and why; to promote national reconciliation and encourage the
emergence of moderate forces; and to ensure the removal from the justice and
security sectors of those who may have connived in the violation of human rights or
aided and abetted repression.
48. Finally, efforts to hold violators to legal account for past abuses have not been
limited to the courts of countries in which violations take place or international
tribunals alone. Recent years have seen an unprecedented number of cases brought
in the national courts of third-party States, under the universality principle, a
previously little used element of international law that holds that some crimes are so
grave that all countries have an interest in prosecuting them. Such universal
jurisdiction has been invoked in cases relating to past abuses committed in all
regions, with varying levels of success. To be sure, this exceptional form of
jurisdiction is rightly reserved for the prosecution of only the most serious crimes
and only in cases where the justice system of the country that was home to the
violations is unable or unwilling to do so. What is more, its use raises complex
legal, political and diplomatic questions. Nevertheless, it is a principle rooted in
international law and codified in United Nations instruments and stands as a
potentially important reserve tool in the international community’s struggle against
impunity. As such, the last decade’s experiments with universal jurisdiction are
worthy of careful review and consideration, in order that we might find ways to
strengthen and preserve this important principle of justice and accountability.
XIII. Supporting the role of the International Criminal Court
49. Undoubtedly, the most significant recent development in the international
community’s long struggle to advance the cause of justice and rule of law was the
establishment of the International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute entered into
force only on 1 July 2002, yet the Court is already having an important impact by
putting would-be violators on notice that impunity is not assured and serving as a
catalyst for enacting national laws against the gravest international crimes. Already,
some 94 countries have ratified the Rome Statute. It is now crucial that the
international community ensures that this nascent institution has the resources,
capacities, information and support it needs to investigate, prosecute and bring to
trial those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes against
humanity and genocide, in situations where national authorities are unable or
unwilling to do so. The Security Council has a particular role to play in this regard,
empowered as it is to refer situations to the International Criminal Court, even in
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cases where the countries concerned are not States parties to the Statute of the
Court. At the same time, I remain convinced that all States Members of the United
Nations that have not yet done so should move towards the ratification of the Rome
Statute at the earliest possible opportunity.
XIV. Facilitating truth telling
50. Another important mechanism for addressing past human rights abuses is the
truth commission. Truth commissions are official, temporary, non-judicial factfinding bodies that investigate a pattern of abuses of human rights or humanitarian
law committed over a number of years. These bodies take a victim-centred approach
and conclude their work with a final report of findings of fact and recommendations.
More than 30 such truth commissions have already been established, including those
of Argentina, Chile, South Africa, Peru, Ghana, Morocco, El Salvador, Guatemala,
Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone. The Commissions of El Salvador, Guatemala, TimorLeste and Sierra Leone have seen significant United Nations involvement and
support and United Nations missions in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo are now engaged in supporting consultative processes for truth commissions
in those countries. Truth commissions have the potential to be of great benefit in
helping post-conflict societies establish the facts about past human rights violations,
foster accountability, preserve evidence, identify perpetrators and recommend
reparations and institutional reforms. They can also provide a public platform for
victims to address the nation directly with their personal stories and can facilitate
public debate about how to come to terms with the past.
51. Factors that can limit these potential benefits include a weak civil society,
political instability, victim and witness fears about testifying, a weak or corrupt
justice system, insufficient time to carry out investigations, lack of public support
and inadequate funding. Truth commissions are invariably compromised if
appointed through a rushed or politicized process. They are best formed through
consultative processes that incorporate public views on their mandates and on
commissioner selection. To be successful, they must enjoy meaningful independence
and have credible commissioner selection criteria and processes. Strong public
information and communication strategies are essential to manage public and victim
expectations and to advance credibility and transparency. Their gender sensitivity
and responsiveness to victims and to victims of discrimination must be assured.
Finally, many such commissions will require strong international support to
function, as well as respect by international partners for their operational
independence.
XV. Vetting the public service
52. Vetting the public service to screen out individuals associated with past abuses
is another important component of transitional justice for which the assistance of the
United Nations has frequently been sought. Vetting processes help to facilitate a
stable rule of law in post-conflict countries. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo,
Timor-Leste, Liberia and now in Haiti, our operations have been called upon to
support vetting processes in various ways. We have helped, variously, to develop
professional standards, set up oversight mechanisms and identify objective and
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lawful criteria. Vetting usually entails a formal process for the identification and
removal of individuals responsible for abuses, especially from police, prison
services, the army and the judiciary. Parties under investigation are notified of the
allegations against them and given an opportunity to respond before a body
administering the vetting process. Those charged are usually entitled to reasonable
notice of the case against them, the right to contest the case and the right to appeal
an adverse decision to a court or other independent body. The inclusion of such due
process elements distinguishes formal vetting processes from the wholesale purges
practiced in some countries, involving wide-scale dismissal and disqualification
based not on individual records, but rather on party affiliation, political opinion, or
association with a prior State institution.
53. We have learned many lessons through our work in these areas. First, whether
established as administrative or quasi-judicial bodies, legitimate vetting mechanisms
should function in a manner respectful both of the sensitivities of victims and of the
human rights of those suspected of abuses. Secondly, civil society should be
consulted early and the public must be kept informed. Thirdly, vetting processes
should include attention to the technical skills, objective qualifications and integrity
of candidates. Fourthly, procedural protections should be afforded to all those
subject to vetting processes, whether current employees or new applicants. Finally,
where such mechanisms exist and are seen to function fairly, effectively and in
accordance with international human rights standards, they can play an important
role in enhancing the legitimacy of official structures, restoring the confidence of
the public and building the rule of law. They are therefore worthy of international
technical and financial support, where required.
XVI. Delivering reparations
54. The United Nations has also been seized of the question of reparations for
victims. In the wake of the first Gulf War, the United Nations Compensation
Commission processed more than 2.5 million claims, paying out more than $18
billion to victims of Iraq’s unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait. In the
Commission on Human Rights, a process is under way to develop “basic principles
and guidelines on the right to a remedy and reparation for victims of international
human rights and humanitarian law”. And in peace operations across the globe,
United Nations personnel are helping States to develop reparations programmes for
common post-conflict challenges, such as the loss of property by displaced persons
and refugees. Indeed, in the face of widespread human rights violations, States have
the obligation to act not only against perpetrators, but also on behalf of victims —
including through the provision of reparations. Programmes to provide reparations
to victims for harm suffered can be effective and expeditious complements to the
contributions of tribunals and truth commissions, by providing concrete remedies,
promoting reconciliation and restoring victims’ confidence in the State. Reparations
sometimes include non-monetary elements, such as the restitution of victims’ legal
rights, programmes of rehabilitation for victims and symbolic measures, such as
official apologies, monuments and commemorative ceremonies. The restoration of
property rights, or just compensation where this cannot be done, is another common
aspect of reparations in post-conflict countries. Material forms of reparation present
perhaps the greatest challenges, especially when administered through mass
government programmes. Difficult questions include who is included among the
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victims to be compensated, how much compensation is to be rewarded, what kinds
of harm are to be covered, how harm is to be quantified, how different kinds of harm
are to be compared and compensated and how compensation is to be distributed.
55. No single form of reparation is likely to be satisfactory to victims. Instead,
appropriately conceived combinations of reparation measures will usually be
required, as a complement to the proceedings of criminal tribunals and truth
commissions. Whatever mode of transitional justice is adopted and however
reparations programmes are conceived to accompany them, both the demands of
justice and the dictates of peace require that something be done to compensate
victims. Indeed, the judges of the tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda have
themselves recognized this and have suggested that the United Nations consider
creating a special mechanism for reparations that would function alongside the
tribunals.10
XVII. Coordinating our efforts
56. Transitional justice and the rule of law represent broad substantive areas that
have been the focus of attention by the United Nations for decades.11 Outside the
United Nations, an even greater number of actors are engaged in this work. In such
circumstances, effective coordination is especially important.
57. Thus, in 2002, the United Nations Executive Committee on Peace and Security
approved the final report of a system-wide, ad hoc Task Force to consider the
Organization’s approaches to justice and the rule of law in peace operations.12 The
Task Force identified a significant range and depth of rule of law resources and
expertise available within the United Nations system,13 as well as some gaps.14 It
provided recommendations on how we could best draw upon these resources and the
resources of outside entities to better address rule of law issues through our peace
operations. The report of the Task Force is a useful catalogue of resources available
within the system and is already proving valuable for the coordination of our efforts.
As a follow-up, a Rule of Law Focal Point Network has been established at
Headquarters, comprised of specialists representing 11 departments and agencies, to
facilitate coordination on rule of law issues and to strengthen our support to rule of
law aspects of peace operations. Much more remains to be done. We need additional
tools and mechanisms to promote gender justice. There is still no common database
of the instruments, tools, experiences and best practices accumulated by the system
and no web-based means to access them from the field. Developing such capacities
will be a focus of our activities for the future. This year, we will issue a number of
new rule of law policy tools and will convene technical meetings to collect and
analyse relevant experiences, including a technical workshop on transitional justice
experiences this fall. Preparation is under way for tools relating to justice sector
mapping, transitional criminal codes, basic policy approaches to hybrid and
domestic prosecution for serious violations, guidance on approaches to the creation
of truth commissions, legal system monitoring methodologies, a review of
reconciliation approaches and guidance on public sector vetting. Finally, planning
has begun for the creation of a transitional justice web resource.
58. While our peace missions are sometimes called upon to play this role,
coordination within the broader international community, including among bilateral
and multilateral donors, aid agencies, non-governmental organizations, private
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foundations and the United Nations is equally vital, yet remains a largely unresolved
challenge. Inadequate coordination in this sector leads to duplication, waste, gaps in
assistance and conflicting aid and programme objectives. Worse yet, the
uncoordinated intervention of the international community can have the effect of
distorting domestic justice agendas, wastefully diverting the valuable time of
domestic justice sector actors and consuming precious development resources.
59. To remedy these problems, it is crucial that donors, peace missions and the
United Nations system commit themselves to working jointly with each other in a
collective effort led by key actors of the civil society and Government concerned.
Mere information sharing is not enough. Rather, all partners should work through a
common national assessment of needs, capacities and aspirations and a common
national programme of transitional justice, justice reform and rule of law
development.
XVIII. Building our roster of experts
60. Through the years, specialized United Nations staff have acquired significant
expertise and experience in assisting post-conflict countries to establish transitional
justice processes, restore shattered justice systems and rebuild the rule of law. Given
the large (and growing) demand in this area, however, their numbers are not
adequate for the task at hand. As such, we are increasingly drawing on external
expertise to supplement the work of our expert staff. However, finding and
deploying such personnel expeditiously presents a number of difficulties.
61. The first challenge is the lack of experts who combine the complementary
skills required to do this work on behalf of the United Nations. Nor are there
adequate cadres of civilian police, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, prison officials and
so on. To be sure, there are plenty of persons who are expert in the workings of their
own legal system, their own legislation and their own language. Such expertise is,
however, of limited value to our activities. What is required is a mix of expertise
that includes knowledge of United Nations norms and standards for the
administration of justice, experience in post-conflict settings, an understanding of
the host country’s legal system (inter alia, common law, civil law, Islamic law),
familiarity with the host-country culture, an approach that is inclusive of local
counterparts, an ability to work in the language of the host country and familiarity
with a variety of legal areas.
62. There is thus a clear need to develop a reliable international roster of
individuals and institutions (including outside partners) reflecting the requirements
and criteria above, in order to facilitate both efficient identification, screening,
recruitment, pre-deployment training and deployment of high-quality personnel, as
well as the agreement of effective institutional partnerships for our work in these
fields. In doing so, we could draw from the various rosters developed and
maintained by many of our partners, while maintaining our own screening and
selection processes.
63. Once qualified personnel are identified, the next step is to ensure that they
benefit from serious and systematic pre-deployment training, with core subjects
ranging from the systems and traditions of the host country to the operations of the
mission, to the norms and standards to be applied and to the standard of conduct
expected of them. The United Nations has developed a number of training
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programmes and materials for rule of law experts in various fields. Other
international organizations and institutions in a number of Member States have done
the same. More systematically coordinated efforts in this area would greatly assist
our ability to identify, train and rapidly deploy qualified personnel to support justice
and the rule of law in post-conflict countries.
XIX. Moving forward: conclusions and recommendations
A.
Considerations for negotiations, peace agreements and
Security Council mandates
64.
Ensure that peace agreements and Security Council resolutions and mandates:
(a) Give priority attention to the restoration of and respect for the rule of
law, explicitly mandating support for the rule of law and for transitional justice,
particularly where United Nations support for judicial and prosecutorial processes is
required;
(b) Respect, incorporate by reference and apply international standards for
fairness, due process and human rights in the administration of justice;
(c) Reject any endorsement of amnesty for genocide, war crimes, or crimes
against humanity, including those relating to ethnic, gender and sexually based
international crimes, ensure that no such amnesty previously granted is a bar to
prosecution before any United Nations-created or assisted court;
(d) Ensure that the United Nations does not establish or directly participate
in any tribunal for which capital punishment is included among possible sanctions;
(e) Require that all judicial processes, courts and prosecutions be credible,
fair, consistent with established international standards for the independence and
impartiality of the judiciary, the effectiveness, impartiality and fairness of
prosecutors and the integrity of the judicial process;
(f) Recognize and respect the rights of both victims and accused persons, in
accordance with international standards, with particular attention to groups most
affected by conflict and a breakdown of the rule of law, among them children,
women, minorities, prisoners and displaced persons, and ensure that proceedings for
the redress of grievances include specific measures for their participation and
protection;
(g) Recognize the differential impact of conflict and rule of law deficits on
women and children and the need to ensure gender sensitivity in restoration of rule
of law and transitional justice, as well as the need to ensure the full participation of
women;
(h) Avoid the imposition of externally imposed models and mandate and
fund national needs assessment and national consultation processes, with the
meaningful participation of Government, civil society and key national
constituencies to determine the course of transitional justice and restoration of the
rule of law;
(i) Where mixed tribunals are envisaged for divided societies and in the
absence of clear guarantees regarding the real and perceived objectivity, impartiality
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and fairness of the national judiciary, consider mandating a majority of international
judges, taking account of the views of various national groups, in order to enhance
the credibility and perceived fairness of such tribunals among all groups in society;
(j) Insist upon full governmental cooperation with international and mixed
tribunals, including in the surrender of accused persons upon request;
(k) Adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to the rule of law and
transitional justice, including proper sequencing and timing for implementation of
peace processes, transitional justice processes, electoral processes and other
transitional processes;
(l) Ensure the provision of adequate resources for the restoration of the rule
of law and the establishment of transitional justice, including a viable and
sustainable funding mechanism. Where United Nations-sponsored tribunals are to be
established, this should include at least partial funding through assessed
contributions;
(m) Consider the establishment of national human rights commissions as part
of transitional arrangements.
B.
Considerations for the United Nations system
65. I intend to instruct the Executive Committee on Peace and Security, building
on the earlier work of its task forces, to propose concrete action on the matters
discussed in the present report, for the purpose of strengthening United Nations
support for transitional justice and the rule of law in conflict and post-conflict
countries and to give consideration, inter alia, to:
(a) Making proposals for enhancing United Nations-system arrangements for
supporting the rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict
societies;
(b) Ensuring that rule of law and transitional justice considerations are
integrated into our strategic and operational planning of peace operations;
(c) Updating the current list of United Nations guidelines, manuals and tools
on rule of law topics and supplementing those materials as needed;
(d) Proposing new or enhanced United Nations system mechanisms,
including common databases and common web-based resources, for the collection
and development of best practices, documentation, manuals, handbooks, guidelines
and other tools for transitional justice and for justice sector development;
(e) Reviewing best practices and developing proposals for workable
national-level rule of law coordination mechanisms involving justice sector
institutions, civil society, donors and the United Nations system;
(f) Developing approaches for ensuring that all programmes and policies
supporting constitutional, judicial and legislative reform promote gender equality;
(g) Convening technical-level workshops on the rule of law and on
transitional justice experiences from around the world;
(h) Establishing arrangements for creating and maintaining an up-to-date
roster/database of justice and transitional justice experts, based upon explicit
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criteria, reflecting geographic, linguistic, gender and technical diversity, and
organized according to particular areas of expertise;
(i) Organizing interdepartmental staff-training programmes on the rule of
law and on transitional justice;
(j) Ensuring systematic debriefing of personnel involved in rule of law and
transitional justice operations.
Notes
1
S/PV.4833.
2
S/PV.4835.
3
S/PRST/2003/15.
4
S/PRST/2004/2.
5
In response to a request from the Chairman of the Committee of 34, the Under-SecretaryGeneral for Peacekeeping Operations sent a letter to all Member States on 25 November 2002,
in which information was provided on both the available United Nations expertise and resources
available as well as the gaps in this field.
6
Already in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed that recognition of
inherent dignity and of equal and inalienable rights is the foundation of freedom, justice and
peace. Similarly, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by 151 States,
requires that, even during a state of emergency, the principles of legality and the rule of law
must be upheld. In the administration of justice, the Covenant requires equality before the law,
fair and public hearings, the presumption of innocence and certain minimum procedural
guarantees. Countless United Nations treaties, declarations, guidelines and bodies of principles
have been adopted by the Organization to define with particularity the international
communities’ obligations with regard to justice and the rule of law.
7
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, for example, obliges its States parties
to “respect and to ensure … the rights recognized” in the Covenant and to “take the necessary
steps … to give effect to the rights …”, including by ensuring an effective remedy for violations
and by providing for determination of claims by competent judicial, administrative or legislative
authorities, and to enforce such remedies when granted (art. 2). The rule of law loathes
arbitrariness in the exercise of authority. The Covenant thus explicitly prohibits arbitrariness in
the deprivation of life (art. 6), arrest and detention (art. 9), exclusion from one’s own country
(art. 12) and interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence (art. 17). The Covenant
further guarantees fair and lawful process for arrest and detention (art. 9), imprisonment (art.
10), deportation (art. 13) and fair trial (art. 14). Importantly, article 26 recognizes all persons as
equal before the law and entitles them to equal protection of the law without discrimination.
Similarly, in ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
States parties have undertaken to “take steps … with a view to achieving progressively the full
realization of the rights recognized … by all appropriate means …” (art. 2). To be sure, the rule
of law is as vital to the protection of economic and social rights as it is to civil and political
rights. For a legal system to ensure justice and the protection of the rule of law to all, it must
incorporate these fundamental norms and standards.
8
See A/55/305-S/2000/809.
9
My request for a subvention to the Special Court was approved in the amount of $16.7 million,
on the understanding that any regular budget funds appropriated for the Court would be
refunded to the United Nations at the time of liquidation of the Court, should sufficient
voluntary contributions be received.
10
See S/2000/1063 and S/2000/1198.
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24
11
The matter has been on the agenda of the General Assembly since 1993 under the agenda item
“Strengthening the rule of law”. In the United Nations Millennium Declaration, heads of State
and Government recognized a collective responsibility to spare no effort to strengthen the rule
of law, as well as respect for all internationally recognized human rights and fundamental
freedoms.
12
See “Final Report of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security Task Force for
Development of Comprehensive Rule of Law Strategies for Peace Operations” of 15 August
2002, approved by the Executive Committee on 30 September 2002. In response to a request
from the Chairman of the Committee of 34, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping
Operations provided a copy of the report to all Member States on 25 November 2002.
13
Ibid., annex B.
14
Ibid., annex C.
How Artificial Intelligence Will
Reshape the Global Order
The Coming Competition Between Digital
Authoritarianism and Liberal Democracy
By Nicholas Wright
The debate over the effects of artificial intelligence has been dominated by two themes. One
is the fear of a singularity, an event in which an AI exceeds human intelligence and escapes
human control, with possibly disastrous consequences. The other is the worry that a new
industrial revolution will allow machines to disrupt and replace humans in every—or almost
every—area of society, from transport to the military to healthcare.
There is also a third way in which AI promises to reshape the world. By allowing
governments to monitor, understand, and control their citizens far more closely than ever
before, AI will offer authoritarian countries a plausible alternative to liberal democracy, the
first since the end of the Cold War. That will spark renewed international competition
between social systems.
For decades, most political theorists have believed that liberal democracy offers the only
path to sustained economic success. Either governments could repress their people and
remain poor or liberate them and reap the economic benefits. Some repressive countries
managed to grow their economies for a time, but in the long run authoritarianism always
meant stagnation. AI promises to upend that dichotomy. It offers a plausible way for big,
economically advanced countries to make their citizens rich while maintaining control over
them.
Some countries are already moving in this direction. China has begun to construct a digital
authoritarian state by using surveillance and machine learning tools to control restive
populations, and by creating what it calls a “social credit system.” Several like-minded
countries have begun to buy or emulate Chinese systems. Just as competition between liberal
democratic, fascist, and communist social systems defined much of the twentieth century, so
the struggle between liberal democracy and digital authoritarianism is set to define the
twenty-first.
DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM
New technologies will enable high levels of social control at a reasonable cost. Governments
will be able selectively censor topics and behaviors to allow information for economically
productive activities to flow freely, while curbing political discussions that might damage the
regime. China’s so-called Great Firewall provides an early demonstration of this kind of
selective censorship.
As well as retroactively censoring speech, AI and big data will allow predictive control of
potential dissenters. This will resemble Amazon or Google’s consumer targeting but will be
much more effective, as authoritarian governments will be able to draw on data in ways that
are not allowed in liberal democracies. Amazon and Google have access only to data from
some accounts and devices; an AI designed for social control will draw data from the
multiplicity of devices someone interacts with during their daily life. And even more
important, authoritarian regimes will have no compunction about combining such data with
information from tax returns, medical records, criminal records, sexual-health clinics, bank
statements, genetic screenings, physical information (such as location, biometrics, and CCTV
monitoring using facial recognition software), and information gleaned from family and
friends. AI is as good as the data it has access to. Unfortunately, the quantity and quality of
data available to governments on every citizen will prove excellent for training AI systems.
Even the mere existence of this kind of predictive control will help authoritarians. Selfcensorship was perhaps the East German Stasi’s most important disciplinary mechanism. AI
will make the tactic dramatically more effective. People will know that the omnipresent
monitoring of their physical and digital activities will be used to predict undesired behavior,
even actions they are merely contemplating. From a technical perspective, such predictions
are no different from using AI health-care systems to predict diseases in seemingly healthy
people before their symptoms show.
In order to prevent the system from making negative predictions, many people will begin to
mimic the behaviors of a “responsible” member of society. These may be as subtle as how
long one’s eyes look at different elements on a phone screen. This will improve social control
not only by forcing people to act in certain ways, but also by changing the way they think. A
central finding in the cognitive science of influence is that making people perform behaviors
can change their attitudes and lead to self-reinforcing habits. Making people expound a
position makes them more likely to support it, a technique used by the Chinese on U.S.
prisoners of war during the Korean War. Salespeople know that getting a potential customer
to perform small behaviors can change attitudes to later, bigger requests. More than 60 years
of laboratory and fieldwork have shown humans’ remarkable capacity to rationalize their
behaviors.
As well as more effective control, AI also promises better central economic planning. As Jack
Ma, the founder of the Chinese tech titan Alibaba, argues, with enough information, central
authorities can direct the economy by planning and predicting market forces. Rather than
slow, inflexible, one-size-fits-all plans, AI promises rapid and detailed responses to
customers’ needs.
There’s no guarantee that this kind of digital authoritarianism will work in the long run, but
it may not need to, as long as it is a plausible model for which some countries can aim. That
will be enough to spark a new ideological competition. If governments start to see digital
authoritarianism as a viable alternative to liberal democracy, they will feel no pressure to
liberalize. Even if the model fails in the end, attempts to implement it could last for a long
time. Communist and fascist models collapsed only after thorough attempts to implement
them failed in the real world.
CREATING AND EXPORTING AN ALL-SEEING STATE
No matter how useful a system of social control might prove to a regime, building one would
not be easy. Big IT projects are notoriously hard to pull off. They require high levels of
coordination, generous funding, and plenty of expertise. For a sense of whether such a
system is feasible, it’s worth looking to China, the most important non-Western country that
might build one.
China has proved that it can deliver huge, society-spanning IT projects, such as the Great
Firewall. It also has the funding to build major new systems. Last year, the country’s internal
security budget was at least $196 billion, a 12 percent increase from 2016. Much of the jump
was probably driven by the need for new big data platforms. China also has expertise in
AI. Chinese companies are global leaders in AI research and Chinese software engineers
often beat their American counterparts in international competitions. Finally, technologies,
such as smartphones, that are already widespread can form the backbone of a personal
monitoring system. Smartphone ownership rates in China are nearing those in the West and
in some areas, such as mobile payments, China is the world leader.
China is already building the core components of a digital authoritarian system. The Great
Firewall is sophisticated and well established, and it has tightened over the past year.
Freedom House, a think tank, rates China the world’s worst abuser of Internet freedom.
China is implementing extensive surveillance in the physical world, as well. In 2014, it
announced a social credit scheme, which will compute an integrated grade that reflects the
quality of every citizen’s conduct, as understood by the government. The development of
China’s surveillance state has gone furthest in Xinjiang Province, where it is being used to
monitor and control the Muslim Uighur population. Those whom the system deems unsafe
are shut out of everyday life; many are even sent to reeducation centers. If Beijing wants, it
could roll out the system nationwide.
To be sure, ability is not the same as intention. But China seems to be moving toward
authoritarianism and away from any suggestion of liberalization. The government clearly
believes that AI and big data will do much to enable this new direction. China’s 2017 AI
Development Plan describes how the ability to predict and “grasp group
cognition” means “AI brings new opportunities for social construction.”
Digital authoritarianism is not confined to China. Beijing is exporting its model.The Great
Firewall approach to the Internet has spread to Thailand and Vietnam. According to news
reports, Chinese experts have provided support for government censors in Sri Lanka and
supplied surveillance or censorship equipment to Ethiopia, Iran,
Russia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Earlier this year, the Chinese AI firm Yitu sold “wearable
cameras with artificial intelligence-powered facial-recognition technology” to Malaysian law
enforcement.
More broadly, China and Russia have pushed back against the U.S. conception of a free,
borderless, and global Internet. China uses its diplomatic and market power to influence
global technical standards and normalize the idea that domestic governments should control
the Internet in ways that sharply limit individual freedom. After reportedly heated
competition for influence over a new forum that will set international standards for AI, the
United States secured the secretariat, which helps guide the group’s decisions, while Beijing
hosted its first meeting, this April, and Wael Diab, a senior director at Huawei, secured the
chairmanship of the committee. To the governments that employ them, these measures may
seem defensive—necessary to ensure domestic control—but other governments may perceive
them as tantamount to attacks on their way of life.
THE DEMOCRATIC RESPONSE
The rise of an authoritarian technological model of governance could, perhaps
counterintuitively, rejuvenate liberal democracies.How liberal democracies respond to AI’s
challenges and opportunities depends partly on how they deal with them internally and
partly on how they deal with the authoritarian alternative externally. In both cases, grounds
exist for guarded optimism.
Internally, although established democracies will need to make concerted efforts to manage
the rise of new technologies, the challenges aren’t obviously greater than those democracies
have overcome before. One big reason for optimism is path dependence. Countries with
strong traditions of individual liberty will likely go in one direction with new technology;
those without them will likely go another. Strong forces within U.S. society have long pushed
back against domestic government mass surveillance programs, albeit with variable success.
In the early years of this century, for example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency began to construct “Total Information Awareness” domestic surveillance systems to
bring together medical, financial, physical and other data. Opposition from media and civil
liberties groups led Congress to defund the program, although it left some workarounds
hidden from the public at the time. Most citizens in liberal democracies acknowledge the
need for espionage abroad and domestic counterterrorism surveillance, but powerful checks
and balances constrain the state’s security apparatus. Those checks and balances are under
attack today and need fortification, but this will be more a repeat of past efforts than a
fundamentally new challenge.
In the West, governments are not the only ones to pose a threat to individual freedoms.
Oligopolistic technology companies are concentrating power by gobbling up competitors and
lobbying governments to enact favorable regulations. Yet societies have overcome this
challenge before, after past technological revolutions. Think of U.S. President Theodore
Roosevelt’s trust-busting, AT&T’s breakup in the 1980s, and the limits that regulators put on
Microsoft during the Internet’s rise in the 1990s.
Digital giants are also hurting media diversity and support for public interest content as well
as creating a Wild West in political advertising. But previously radical new technologies, such
as radio and television posed similar problems and societies rose to the challenge. In the end,
regulation will likely catch up with the new definitions of “media” and “publisher” created by
the Internet. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg resisted labeling political
advertising in the same way as is required on television, until political pressure forced his
hand last year.
Liberal democracies are unlikely to be won over to digital authoritarianism. Recent polling
suggests that a declining proportion in Western societies view democracy as “essential,” but
this is a long way from a genuine weakening of Western democracy.
The external challenge of a new authoritarian competitor may perhaps strengthen liberal
democracies. The human tendency to frame competition in us versus them terms may lead
Western countries to define their attitudes to censorship and surveillance at least partly in
opposition to the new competition. Most people find the nitty-gritty of data policy boring and
pay little attention to the risks of surveillance. But when these issues underpin a dystopian
regime in the real world they will prove neither boring nor abstract. Governments and
technology firms in liberal democracies will have to explain how they are different.
LESSONS FOR THE WEST
The West can do very little to change the trajectory of a country as capable and confident as
China. Digital authoritarian states will likely be around for a while. To compete with them,
liberal democracies will need clear strategies. First, governments and societies should
rigorously limit domestic surveillance and manipulation. Technology giants should be
broken up and regulated. Governments need to ensure a diverse, healthy media
environment, for instance by ensuring that overmighty gatekeepers such as Facebook do not
reduce media plurality; funding public service broadcasting; and updating the regulations
covering political advertising to fit the online world. They should enact laws preventing
technology firms from exploiting other sources of personal data, such as medical records, on
their customers and should radically curtail data collection from across the multiplicity of
platforms with which people come into contact. Even governments should be banned from
using such data except in a few circumstances, such as counterterrorism operations.
Second, Western countries should work to influence how states that are neither solidly
democratic nor solidly authoritarian implement AI and big data systems. They should
provide aid to develop states’ physical and regulatory infrastructure and use the access
provided by that aid to prevent governments from using joined-up data. They should
promote international norms that respect individual privacy as well as state sovereignty. And
they should demarcate the use of AI and metadata for legitimate national security purposes
from its use in suppressing human rights.
Finally, Western countries must prepare to push back against the digital authoritarian
heartland. Vast AI systems will prove vulnerable to disruption, although as regimes come to
rely ever more on them for security, governments will have to take care that tit-for-tat cycles
of retribution don’t spiral out of control. Systems that selectively censor communications will
enable economic creativity but will also inevitably reveal the outside world. Winning the
contest with digital authoritarian governments will not be impossible—as long as liberal
democracies can summon the necessary political will to join the struggle.
Published in “Foreign Affairs”
4
Twenty-​First-​Century Virtue
Shannon Vallor
Introduction
In May 2014, cosmologist Stephen Hawking, computer scientist Stuart Russell,
and physicists Max Tegmark and Frank Wilczek published an open letter in
the UK news outlet The Independent, sounding the alarm about the grave risks
to humanity posed by emerging technologies of artificial intelligence. They
invited readers to imagine these technologies “outsmarting financial markets,
out-​inventing human researchers, out-​manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand” (Hawking et al. 2014). The authors
asserted that while the successful creation of artificial intelligence (AI) has the
potential to bring “huge benefits” to our world and would undoubtedly be “the
biggest event in human history,” “it might also be the last.” Hawking echoed the
warning later that year, telling the BBC that unrestricted AI development “could
spell the end of the human race” (Cellan-​Jones 2014).
While some high-​profile inventors such as Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Bill
Gates, and others remain concerned about AI’s potential to pose an existential
threat to meaningful human existence, many leading AI experts dismiss these
warnings as baseless fear-​mongering. Yet even as overhyped fears about the rise
of “robot overlords” and machine forms of “superintelligence” finally begin to
cool amid evidence of a far more prosaic path for AI development, the ethical
challenge to humanity posed by AI and other emerging twenty-​first-​century
technologies continues to grow. The first wave of commercial AI applications,
from facial recognition tools to predictive policing algorithms and new medical
diagnostics, has sparked international moral and political debate about how to
ensure respect for privacy, social justice, and human rights in societies increasingly shaped by automated algorithmic decision-​making. The chorus of voices
calling for wiser and more effective human oversight of these new technologies
grows louder every day. How worried should we be? More importantly: what
should we do?
Shannon Vallor, Twenty-​First-​Century Virtue In: Science, Technology, and Virtues. Edited by: Emanuele Ratti and Thomas
A. Stapleford, Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190081713.003.0005
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Living Well with Emerging Technologies*
78
Virtues and Technology
Ethics as Technomoral Practice
In reality, human social practices, including our moral practices, have always
been intertwined with our technologies.1 Technological practices—​everything
from agriculture and masonry to markets and writing—​have shaped the social, political, economic, and educational histories of human beings. Today,
we depend upon global systems of electronic communication, digital computation, transportation, mass manufacturing, banking, agricultural production,
and healthcare so heavily that most of us barely notice the extent to which our
daily lives are technologically conditioned. Yet even our earliest ancestors used
technology, from handaxes and spears to hammers and needles, and their tools
shaped how they dealt with one another—​how they divided their labor, shared
their resources and living space, and managed their conflicts. Among our primate cousins, female chimpanzees have been observed to stop fights among
males through technological disarmament—​repeatedly confiscating stones from
an aggressor’s hand (de Waal 2007, 23).
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AI is only one of many emerging developments—​from genome editing and
climate geoengineering to the globally networked Internet of Things—​shaping
a future unparalleled in human history in its technological promise and its peril.
Are we up to the challenge this future presents? If not, how can we get there?
How can humans hope to live well in a world made increasingly more complex
and unpredictable by emerging technologies? As I have argued in more detail
elsewhere (Vallor 2016), in essence my answer is this: we need to cultivate in
ourselves, collectively, a special kind of moral character, one that expresses what
I will call the technomoral virtues.
What do I mean by technomoral virtue? To explain this concept will require
introducing some ideas in moral philosophy, the study of ethics. At its most
basic, ethics is about what the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates called the
“good life”: the kind of life that is most worthy of a human being, the kind of life
worth choosing from among all the different ways we might live. While there are
many kinds of lives worth choosing, most of us would agree that there are also
some kinds of lives not worth choosing, since we have better alternatives. For
example, a life filled mostly with willful ignorance, cruelty, fear, pain, selfishness,
and hatred might still have some value, but it would not be a kind of life worth
choosing for ourselves or our loved ones, since there are far better options available to us—​better and more virtuous ways that one can live, for ourselves and
everyone around us. But what does ethics or moral philosophy have to do with
technology?
Twenty-First-Century Virtue
79
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Ethics and technology are connected because technologies invite or afford
specific patterns of thought, behavior, and valuing; they open up new possibilities for human action and foreclose or obscure others. For example, the invention
of the bow and arrow afforded us the possibility of killing an animal from a safe
distance—​or doing the same to an otherwise stronger human rival, something
that changed the social and moral landscape. Today’s technologies open their
own new social and moral possibilities for action. Indeed, human technological
activity now reshapes the very planetary conditions that make life possible. In the
midst of a sixth mass extinction and accelerating climate instability driven by unchecked human industrial activity, we turn to new technologies—​for carbon capture, for renewable energy production, for ocean plastic removal—​to preserve a
future for ourselves and other species. Thus twenty-​first-​century decisions about
how to live well—​that is, about ethics—​are not simply moral choices. They are
technomoral choices, for they depend on the evolving affordances of the technological systems that we rely upon to support and mediate our lives in ways and to
degrees never before witnessed.
While ethics has always been embedded in technological contexts, humans
have, until very recently, been the primary authors of their moral choices, and
the consequences of those choices were usually restricted to impacts on individual or local group welfare. Today, however, our aggregated moral choices in
technological contexts routinely impact the well-​being of people on the other
side of the planet, a staggering number of other species, and whole generations
not yet born. Meanwhile, it is increasingly less clear how much of the future
moral labor of our species will be performed by human individuals. Driverless
cars are already being programmed to make responsible driving decisions on our
behalf (even as other cars roll out of the factory programmed to cheat on their
innocent owners’ emissions tests).2 High-​frequency trading algorithms now direct the global flow of vital goods and wealth at speeds and scales no human
analyst can match. Artificially intelligent life coach apps are here to “nudge” us
when we need to lower our voices, call our mothers, or write nicer emails to our
employees. Advanced algorithms inscrutable to our inspection increasingly do
the work of labeling us as combatant or civilian, good loan risk or future deadbeat, likely or unlikely criminal, hireable or unhireable.
For these reasons, a contemporary theory of ethics—​that is, a theory of what
counts as a good life for human beings—​must include an explicit conception of
how to live well with technologies, especially those that are still emerging and
have yet to become settled, seamlessly embedded features of the human environment. Robotics and artificial intelligence, new social media and communications
technologies, digital surveillance, and biomedical enhancement technologies
are among the emerging innovations that will radically change the kinds of lives
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The Problem of Technosocial Opacity
This question involves the future, but what it really asks about is our readiness
to make choices in the present. The twenty-​first century is entering its adolescence, a time of great excitement, confusion, and intense anxiety. As with many
adolescents, our era is also deeply self-​absorbed. In popular and scholarly media,
we find both historical consciousness and the “long view” of humanity giving
way to an obsessive quest to define the distinctive identity of the present age,
an identity almost always framed in technological terms. Whether we call it the
Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Age of Information, the Mobile Era, the New
Media Age, or the Robot Age, we seem to think that defining the technological
essence of our era will allow us to better fathom the course of its future—​our
future.
Yet in one of those cruel paradoxes of adolescence, all our ruminations and
fevered speculations about the mature shape of life in this century seem only to
make the picture more opaque and unsettled, like a stream bottom kicked up by
shuffling feet. Among all the contingencies pondered by philosophers, scientists,
novelists, and armchair futurists, the possibilities presented by emerging technology have proved to be the most enticing to the imagination—​and the most
difficult to successfully predict. Of course, early visions of a postindustrial technological society were strikingly prescient in many respects. Debates about
today’s emerging technologies echo many of the utopian and dystopian motifs
of twentieth-​century science fiction: fears and hopes of a “brave new world” of
bioengineered humans constructed by exquisite design rather than evolutionary
chance; of humans working side by side with intelligent robotic caregivers, surgeons, and soldiers; of digitally enabled “Big Brothers” recording and analyzing
our every act; and of the rise of a globally networked hive mind in the “cloud”
that radically transforms the nature of human communication, productivity, creativity, and sociality.
Still, we cannot help but smile wistfully at the lacunae of even our most farseeing science fiction visionaries. In the classic Ray Bradbury tale “The Veldt”
(1950), we encounter the existential and moral dilemma of the Hadley family,
whose complete surrender to the technological comforts of the “Happy-​life
Home” has stripped their lives of labor, but also of joy, purpose, and filial love.
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from which humans are able to choose in the twenty-​first century and beyond.
How can we choose wisely from the apparently endless options that emerging
technologies offer? The choices we make will shape the future for our children,
our societies, our species, and others who share our planet, in ways never before
possible. Are we prepared to choose well?
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In a present marked by the increasingly sophisticated design of “smart homes,”
Bradbury’s story resonates still. It may have taken a few decades longer than he
expected, but affluent modern families can now, just like the Hadleys, enjoy a
home that anticipates their every personal preference for lighting, room temperature, music, and a perfectly brewed cup of coffee—​and the “smart homes”
of the future will even more closely approximate Bradbury’s vision. We also
recognize all too well the Hadleys’ parental anxiety and regret when their children, irretrievably spoiled by the virtual world of their interactive playroom, fly
into an incandescent rage at the thought of having their electronic amusements
removed.
Yet today we can only laugh or cry when Lydia, the children’s mother,
complains that her surrender to domestic technology has left her without
“enough to do” and too much “time to think.” No technologically savvy twenty-​
first-​century parent can identify with Lydia Hadley’s existential plight.3 Rather,
the promised land of unlimited technological leisure gave way to a reality of electronic overstimulation and hypersaturation, a twenty-​four-​hour news cycle, and
smartphones on which your boss texts you from the eighteenth hole in Dubai
while you sit at the dinner table wolfing down takeout, supervising your child’s
web research on whale sharks, feverishly trying to get caught up on your email
as well as your Facebook invitations and your Twitter DMs, and updating the
spreadsheet figures your colleagues need for their afternoon presentation in
Seoul. For many, the dramatic rise of technology-​enabled remote working
during the COVID-​19 pandemic only amplified digital labor’s assimilation of
our experience of domestic and personal time. Leisure is one thing our age does
not afford most modern technology consumers, who struggle each night to ignore the incoming status updates on their bedside devices so that they may grab
a few precious hours of sleep before rejoining that electronic day that knows neither dusk nor dawn.
Indeed, the contemporary human situation is far more complicated, dynamic,
and unstable than any of the worlds depicted in our first imaginings of a high-​
tech future. Today, exponential leaps in technological prowess and productivity
are coeval with widespread economic stagnation and inequality, terrestrial resource depletion, global pandemics, and rising ecological instability. A global information society enabled by a massive electronic communications network of
unprecedented bandwidth and computing power has indeed emerged; but, far
from enabling a “new world order” of a utopian or dystopian sort, the information age heralds an increasingly disordered geopolitics and widening fractures
in the public commons. The rapid amplification of consumerism by converging
innovations and ever-​shorter product marketing cycles continues apace; yet,
far from ensuring the oft-​predicted rise of technocratic states ruled by scientific experts, the relationship between science, governance, and public trust is
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increasingly contentious and unsettled, with disinformation spreading like wildfire even as new modes of discovery and truth-​seeking are created.4
Paradoxically, such tensions appear to be greatest where scientific and technical power has been most successfully consolidated and embedded into our way
of life. Consider that the nation that gave birth to Apple, Microsoft, Google, Intel,
Amazon, and other tech behemoths has slashed federal funding for basic science
research, struggled with declining scientific literacy and technical competence
among its population, and adopted increasingly ambivalent, shortsighted, and
politicized science and technology policy. Nowhere have the consequences been
more devastating than in the realm of public health. In the United States and
the United Kingdom, resistance by key government leaders and misinformed
citizens to scientific advice, paired with unfounded skepticism about technologies from vaccines to masks, has cost countless lives. Contradicting the initial
rhetoric that “we are all in this together,” a disproportionate share of those losses
has been borne by already marginalized populations—​ethnic minorities, elderly
and disabled persons, those with underlying health conditions, and the working
poor. This despite the prior existence of detailed “playbooks” designed by leading
public health experts to equip government leaders with every available scientific
and technological advantage to effectively control a pandemic. No one expected
that the playbooks would simply be ignored.
Such complexities remind us that predicting the general shape of tomorrow’s
innovations is not, in fact, our biggest challenge: far harder, and more significant,
is the job of figuring out what we will do with these technologies once we have
them, and what they will do with us. This cannot be done without attending to a
host of interrelated political, cultural, economic, environmental, and historical
factors that co-​direct human innovation and practice. Indeed, a futurist’s true
aim is to envision not the technological future but our technosocial future—​a
future defined not by which gadgets we invent but by how our evolving technological powers become embedded in co-​evolving social practices, values, and
institutions. Yet by this standard, our present condition seems not only to defy
confident predictions about where we are heading but even to defy the construction of a coherent narrative about where exactly we are. Has the short history
of digital culture been one of overall human progress or decline? On a developmental curve, are we approaching the next dizzying explosion of technosocial
innovation, as some believe, or teetering on a precipice awaiting a calamitous
fall, as others would have it?5
Should it matter whether our future can be envisioned with any degree of
confidence? Of course, we might want to know where we are and where we are
heading, but humans characteristically want a lot of things, and not all of these
are necessary or even objectively worthwhile. Could it be that our understandable adolescent curiosity about what awaits us in our century’s adulthood is, in
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the grand scheme of things, unimportant to satisfy? Let us imagine for the sake
of argument that given certain efforts, we could better predict the future shape
of life in this century. Other than idle curiosity, what reason would we have to
make such efforts? Why not just take the future as it comes? Why strain to see
any better through the fog of technosocial contingencies presently obscuring our
view? There is a simple answer. Our growing technosocial blindness, a condition that I will call acute technosocial opacity, makes it increasingly difficult to
identify, seek, and secure the ultimate goal of ethics—​a life worth choosing, a life
lived well. Let me explain why.
Ethics, defined broadly as reflective inquiry into the good life, is among the
oldest, most universal, and most culturally significant intellectual preoccupations of human beings. Few would deny that humans have always and generally preferred to live well rather than badly, and have sought useful guidance in
meeting this desire. Yet the phenomenon of acute technosocial opacity is a serious problem for ethics—​and a relatively new one.6 The founders of the most
enduring classical traditions of ethics—​Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Confucius, the
Buddha—​had the luxury of assuming that the practical conditions under which
they and their cohorts lived would be, if not wholly static, at least relatively stable.
While they knew that unprecedented political developments or natural calamities might at any time redefine the ethical landscape, the safest bet for a moral
sage of premodern times would be that he, his fellows, and their children would
confront essentially similar moral opportunities and challenges over the course
of their lives.
Without this modest degree of foresight, ethical norms would seem to have
little if any power to guide our actions. For even a timeless and universally
binding ethical principle presupposes that we can imagine how adopting that
principle today is likely to sustain or enrich the quality of our lives tomorrow.
Few are moved by an ethical norm or ideal until we have been able to envision
its concrete expression in a future form of life that is possible for us, one that we
recognize as relevantly similar to, but qualitatively better than, our current one.
When our future is opaque, it is harder to envision the specific conditions of life
we will face tomorrow that can be improved by following an ethical principle or
rule today, and such ideals may fail to motivate us.
While philosophical ethics first emerged in Greece and Asia in the sixth
through fourth centuries BCE, the need for ethical guidance as we face our future applies equally to modern systems of ethics. Yet modern ethical frameworks
often provide fewer resources for mitigating the difficulty posed by an uncertain future than do classical traditions. For example, the ethical framework of
eighteenth-​
century German philosopher Immanuel Kant supplied a single
moral principle, known as the categorical imperative, which is supposed to be
able to resolve any ethical dilemma. It simply asks a person to consider whether
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she could will the principle upon which she is about to act in her particular case
to be universally obeyed by all other persons in relevantly similar cases (Kant
[1785] 1997). If she can’t will her own “subjective” principle of action to function as a universal rule for everyone to follow, then her act is morally wrong.
So if I cannot will a world in which everyone lies whenever it would spare them
trouble, then it cannot be right for me to lie.
Though it can be applied to any situation, the rule itself is highly abstract and
general. It tells us nothing specific about the shape of moral life in eighteenth-​
century Europe, nor that of any other time or place. At first, we might think this
makes the principle more useful to us today, since it is so broad that it can apply
to any future scenario we might imagine. Yet this intuition is mistaken. Consider
the dutiful Kantian today, who must ask herself whether she can will a future in
which all our actions are recorded by pervasive surveillance tools, or a future
where we all share our lives with social robots, or a future in which all humans
use biomedical technology to radically transform their genes, minds, and bodies.
How can any of these possible worlds be envisioned with enough clarity to inform a person’s will? To envision a world of pervasive and constant surveillance,
you need to know what will be done with the recordings, who might control
them, and how they would be accessed or shared. To know whether to will a
future full of social robots, you would first need to know what roles such robots
would play in our lives and how they might transform human interactions. To
will a world where all humans enhance their own bodies with technology, won’t
you first need to know which parts of ourselves we would enhance, in what ways,
and what those changes would do to us in the long run—​for example, whether
we would end up improving or degrading our own ability to reason ethically?
Once even a fraction of the possible paths of technosocial development are
considered, the practical uncertainties will swamp the cognitive powers of any
Kantian agent, paralyzing her attempt to choose in a rational and universally
consistent manner. Kant’s categorical imperative has another well-​known formulation, which forbids treating rational beings as mere means to our own ends.
Though more helpful in certain cases, this too fails to address the technomoral
complexities of a world in which, for example, an intelligent, autonomous robot
or software agent challenges our concept of a “rational being.”
Modern utilitarian ethics of the sort promoted by nineteenth-​century British
philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill fares little better by telling
us that we may secure the good life simply by choosing from among the available courses of action the one that promises the greatest happiness for all those
affected. The problem of discerning which course of action promises the greatest
overall happiness or the least harm, among all the novel paths of biomedical, mechanical, and computational development open to us, is simply incalculable. The
technological potentials are too opaque, and too numerous, to assign reliable
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probabilities of specific outcomes. Moreover, technology often involves effects
on humanity created by the aggregate choices of many groups and individuals,
not just one person. When we factor in the interaction effects between converging technologies, social practices, and institutions, the difficulty becomes
intractable.
In their book Unfit for the Future, philosophers Ingmar Persson and Julian
Savulescu note that the technological and scientific advances of the twentieth
century have further destabilized the traditional moral calculus by granting
humans an unprecedented power to bring about “Ultimate Harm”—​namely,
“making worthwhile life forever impossible on this planet” (Persson and
Savulescu 2012, 46). We might destroy ourselves with a bioengineered virus for
which we have no natural defenses. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and phosphorus
from large-​scale industry and agriculture may acidify our oceans and poison our
waterways beyond repair. Or we might unleash a global nuclear holocaust, a risk
that experts warn is once again on the rise (Lewis et al. 2014). How can existential
risks such as this, scenarios that would ruin any future possibility for happiness,
possibly be factored into the calculation?
Moreover, emerging technologies such as nanomedicine and geoengineering
in theory have the potential to forestall “Ultimate Harm” to humanity or to cause
it, and not enough is known to reliably calculate the odds of either scenario. Add
to this the fact that engineers and scientists are constantly envisioning new and
untested avenues of technological development, and the insolubility of the moral
calculus becomes even more obvious. Even John Stuart Mill noted that the practicality of utilitarian ethics relies heavily upon our collective inheritance of centuries of accumulated moral wisdom about how to maximize utility in the known
human environment (Mill [1861] 2001, 23–​25). Even on the timescale of our
own lives, this environment is increasingly unstable and unpredictable, and it is
not clear how much of our accumulated wisdom still applies.
This leads us to ask: given this unprecedented degree of technosocial opacity,
how can humans continue to do ethics in any serious and useful way? The question compels an answer; to abandon the philosophical project of ethics in the
face of these conditions would not only amplify the risk of “Ultimate Harm” but
violate a deep-​seated human impulse. Consider once again Ray Bradbury, whose
stories are still among the most widely read and appreciated in the tradition of
science fiction. What drives the imagination of a storyteller such as Bradbury,
and what makes his stories resonate with so many? Reading his most lauded
works, Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and the collection The Illustrated
Man (which leads with “The Veldt”), one notices how closely Bradbury’s vision tracked human beings of a future Earth, or human descendants of Earth.
Why this anthropological fidelity in a writer hardly wanting for imaginative
horsepower?
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Even the Martians in Bradbury’s stories serve as literary foils who expose
and reflect upon the distinctive powers, obsessions, and weaknesses of human
beings. And why is the human future usually envisioned on a timescale of fifty
years, or a hundred and fifty? Why not a thousand years, or ten thousand? Why
do so many of Bradbury’s tales have a patently ethical arc, driven less by saintly
heroes and diabolical villains than by ordinary, flawed humans working out for
themselves how well or how poorly their lives have gone in an era defined by
rockets, robots, and “televisors”? Here is one plausible answer: Bradbury seemed
compelled to imagine how human beings more or less like himself, and those he
cared about, would fare in the not so distant technological future—​to envision
the possibilities for us living well with emerging technologies, and more often the
possibilities for our failing to live well.
All of this is meant to suggest that the ethical dilemmas we face as twenty-​
first-​century humans are not “business as usual,” and require a novel approach.
Now, it is a common habit of many academics to roll their eyes at the first hint of
a suggestion that the human situation has entered some radically new phase. As a
prophylactic against overwrought claims of this kind, these sober-​minded individuals keep on hand an emergency intellectual toolkit (which perhaps should
be labeled “Break Glass in Case of Moral Panic”) from which they can readily
draw a litany of examples of any given assertion of transformative social change
being trumpeted just as loudly a century ago, or five, or ten. This impulse is often
well motivated: libraries worldwide are stocked with dusty treatises by those
who, from either a lack of historical perspective or an intemperate desire to sell
books, falsely asserted some massive seismic shift in human history that supposedly warranted great cultural alarm.
Yet sometimes things really do change in ways that we would be remiss to
ignore, and which demand that we loosen up our scripted cultural patterns of
response. At risk of inviting the scorn of the keepers of academic dispassion,
I suggest that this is one of those times. The technologies that have emerged
in the last half century have led to the unprecedented economic and physical
interdependence of nations and peoples and an equally unprecedented transmissibility of information, norms, ideas, and values. A great many intellectual
and cultural scripts are being rewritten as a result—​scripts about modern state
power, socioeconomic development, labor and human progress, and our relationship with our environment, to offer just a few examples. It follows that the
conventional scripts of philosophical ethics must be rewritten as well. While
an irreducible plurality of ethical narratives is both inevitable and desirable in
a world as culturally diverse as ours, we need a common framework in which
these narratives can be situated if humans are going to be able to address these
emerging problems of collective technosocial action wisely and well. This
framework must facilitate not only a shared moral dialogue but also a global
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commitment to the cultivation of the specific technomoral habits and virtues
required to meet this challenge.
Fortunately for us, a tradition already exists in philosophy that can provide such a
framework. That tradition is virtue ethics, a way of thinking about the good life as
achievable through specific moral traits and capacities that humans can actively
cultivate in themselves.7 The rich conceptual resources of the classical virtue
traditions of Aristotelian, Confucian, and Buddhist ethics, among others, can
help us to construct a contemporary framework of technomoral virtues explicitly designed to foster human capacities for flourishing with new technologies.
Such a framework can be applied to multiple domains of emerging technology,
from AI and robotics to biomedical enhancement technology, that are likely to
reshape human existence in the next hundred years, assuming that we are fortunate and prudent enough to make it to the twenty-​second century.
No ethical framework can cut through the general constraints of technosocial
opacity. The contingencies that obscure a clear vision of even the next few
decades of technological and scientific development are simply far too numerous
to resolve—​in fact, given accelerating changes in our present physical, geopolitical, and cultural environment, these contingencies and their obscuring effects
are likely to multiply rather than diminish. What this approach offers is not an
ethical solution to technosocial opacity but an ethical strategy for cultivating the
type of moral character that can aid us in coping, and even flourishing, under
such challenging conditions.
Virtue ethics offers such a strategy in its fundamental orientation to cultivating practical wisdom, a form of moral intelligence that enables the skillful,
creative, and adaptive modulation of moral judgment and habit to novel or
rapidly changing contexts and circumstances. Practical wisdom is the kind of
excellence we find in moral experts, persons whose moral lives are guided by
appropriate feeling and intelligence, rather than by mindless habit or rote compulsion to follow fixed moral scripts provided by religious, political, or cultural
institutions. As noted by the moral philosopher Kongzi (commonly known by
his Latinized name, Confucius), the acts of a virtuous person are made noble
not simply by their correct content—​though that will typically respect important moral conventions—​but by the singular and authentic moral style in which
that person chooses to express their virtue. It is this aesthetic mode of personally expressing a moral convention, rule, or script that embodies and presents
one’s virtue. The person who enacts fixed moral rules rigidly, without style,
feeling, thought, or flexibility, is, on this view, a shallow parody of virtue, what
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The Technomoral Virtues
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the Confucian tradition refers to derisively as the “village honest man” (Yearley
2002, 256).
Even reliably pro-​social habits such as truth-​telling and law-​following fail to
guarantee virtue. For while the virtuous person will certainly have such habits,
moral intelligence is required to ensure that these habits do not produce acts that
violate the moral sense of the situation—​for example, mindless obedience to a
lawful but profoundly immoral and indefensible order. Actions issuing from the
moral habits of a virtuous person—​that is, a person with practical wisdom—​are
properly attuned to the unique and changing demands of each concrete moral
situation. In contrast, a person who is prone to thoughtless and unmodulated
action is likely to go wrong as often as not; the rookie police officer who runs directly into a hostage situation is foolish and reckless, not courageous, and may
well endanger others in the process. Thus moral virtue presupposes knowledge
or understanding. Yet unlike theoretical knowledge, the kind of knowledge required for moral virtue is not satisfied by a grasp of universal principles; instead,
it requires recognition of the relevant and operative practical conditions. There
are imaginable, if rare, circumstances where running into a hostage situation
would be the wisest and most courageous option for the rookie, even if most of
the time such circumstances demand restraint.
Moral expertise thus entails a kind of knowledge extending well beyond a
cognitive grasp of rules and principles to include emotional intelligence; keen
awareness of the motivations, feelings, beliefs, and desires of others; a sensitivity
to the morally salient features of particular situations; and a creative knack for
devising appropriate practical responses to those situations, especially where
they involve novel or dynamically unstable circumstances. For example, the famous “doctrine of the mean” embedded in classical virtue theories entails that
the morally wise agent has a quasi-​perceptual ability to see how an emergent
moral situation requires a spontaneous and often unprecedented realignment
of conventional moral behaviors. Even if it is, as a rule, morally wrong to touch
naked strangers without their consent, I had better not hesitate to drag my
neighbor’s naked, unconscious body out of a burning bedroom when I can do
so safely. There is simply no way to capture the full content of all such tacit and
embodied moral knowledge in propositional statements or explicit and fixed
decision procedures (Nussbaum 1990, 73–​74). As Aristotle took pains to note
in the Nicomachean Ethics, matters of practical ethics by nature “exhibit much
variety and fluctuation,” requiring a distinctive kind of reasoning that displays
an understanding of changing particulars as well as fixed universals (1984,
1094b16). On Aristotle’s view, while it is true that rational principles are part of
ethics, it is the virtue of practical wisdom that establishes the correct moral rule
or principle in any case, rather than wisdom being defined by its correspondence with a prior principle.8
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Now we are in a position to understand why, if our aim is to learn how to live
well with emerging technologies, a virtue ethics approach will generally be more
useful than one that relies upon fixed consequentialist or deontological principles. If the practical conditions of ethical life in the fourth century BCE already
displayed too much variety and flux for us to rely upon a principle-​based ethics,
requiring instead an account that articulates the specific virtues of persons who
judge wisely and well under dynamic conditions, then the practical uncertainties
and cultural instabilities produced by emerging technologies of the twenty-​first
century would seem to make the contemporary case for virtue ethics that much
stronger.9
A key phenomenon accelerating the acute technosocial opacity that defines
our age is that of technological convergence: discrete technologies merging synergistically in ways that greatly magnify their scope and power to alter lives
and institutions, while also amplifying the complexity and unpredictability of
technosocial change. The technologies most commonly identified as convergent
are the fields of applied technoscience referred to as NBIC technologies: nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science.10
Consider just briefly the impact of their convergence on the emerging markets
for brain implants, cybernetic prosthetics, replacement organs, lab-​
grown
meat, “smart” drugs, “lie-​detecting” or “mind-​reading” brain scanners, and
artificially intelligent robots—​and the panoply of new ethical dilemmas already being generated by these innovations. Now ask which practical strategy
is more likely to serve humans best in dealing with these unprecedented moral
questions: a stronger commitment to adhere strictly to fixed rules and moral
principles (whether Kantian or utilitarian)? Or stronger and more widely cultivated habits of moral virtue, guided by excellence in practical and context-​
adaptive moral reasoning? I hope I have given the reader cause to entertain the
latter conclusion.
We can already enhance the plausibility of this claim by noticing an emerging asymmetry between the moral dilemmas presented by today’s converging
technologies and the topics that still dominate most applied ethics courses and
their textbooks. These textbooks have sections devoted to weighing the ethics
of abortion, capital punishment, torture, eating meat, and so on. In each case,
it seems reasonable to frame the relevant moral question as “Is x [where x is
an act or practice from the preceding list] right or wrong?” Of course, these
questions may or may not have definitive answers, and to get an answer one
may need to specify the conditions under which the act is being considered—​
for example, whether alternative sources of nutrition are available to the
meat-​eater. Still, such questions make sense, and we can see how applying various moral principles might lead a person to concrete answers. Compare this
with the question “Is Twitter right or wrong?” or “Is social robotics right or
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wrong?” There is something plainly odd and ill-​formed about such questions,
and it is not clear how traditional moral principles could be of any help in answering them.
At this point, the reader will likely object that we are asking about the rightness or wrongness of technologies rather than of acts, and that this is the primary source of our confusion. But notice that it does not actually help things
to reform our questions in action terms, such as “Is tweeting wrong?” or “Is it
wrong to develop a social robot?” The asymmetry is of a different nature. It is
not even that one set of problems involves technology and another does not;
after all, technology is heavily implicated in modern practices of abortion and
capital punishment. The problem is that emerging technologies such as social
networking software, social robotics, global surveillance networks, and biomedical human enhancement are not yet sufficiently developed to be assignable to
specific practices with clear consequences for definite stakeholders. They present open developmental possibilities for human culture as a whole, rather than
fixed options from which to choose. The kind of deliberation they require, then,
is entirely different from the kind of deliberation involved in the former set of
problems.
Of course, the line is not a bright one, as emerging technologies also impact
long-​standing practices where fixed moral principles retain considerable normative force, such as data privacy and copyright protection. Yet it remains the case
that very often, the answers for which questions about emerging technology beg
are simply not of the yes/​no or right/​wrong sort. Instead, they are questions of this
sort: “How might interacting with social robots help, hurt, or change us?”; “What
can tweeting do to, or for, our capacities to enjoy and benefit from information
and discourse?”; “What would count as a ‘better,’ ‘enhanced’ human being?” It
should be clear to the reader by now that these questions invite answers that address the nature of human flourishing, character, and excellence—​precisely the
subject matter of virtue ethics.
What this approach requires, then, is a fuller profile of the technomoral
virtues called for in twenty-​first-​century life.11 These will not be radically new
traits of character, for they must be consistent with the basic moral psychology of
our species. Rather, the technomoral virtues are new alignments of our existing
moral capacities for justice, courage, honesty, and self-​control, along with other
virtues adapted to a rapidly changing environment that increasingly calls for
collective moral wisdom on a global scale. In these challenging circumstances,
the technomoral virtues offer the philosophical equivalent of a blind man’s cane.
While we face a future that remains cloaked in a technosocial fog, this need not
mean that we go into it unprepared or ill-​equipped, especially when it comes to
matters of ethical life. The technomoral virtues, cultivated through the enduring
practices and habits of moral self-​cultivation that we can relearn and adapt from
Twenty-First-Century Virtue
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the classical virtue traditions, are humanity’s best chance to cope and even thrive
in the midst of the great uncertainties and vicissitudes of technosocial life that
lie ahead.12 This hope will only be realized, however, if these virtues are more
consciously cultivated in our families, schools, and communities, supported and
actively encouraged by our local and global institutions, and exercised not only
individually but together, in acts of collective human wisdom. This is a tall order,
but it is not beyond our capabilities.
There is, however, what philosophers call a “bootstrapping problem.” Our
hope of flourishing in this and coming centuries—​or even of securing our continued existence in the face of species-​level threats created by our present lack of
technomoral wisdom—​requires us to act very soon to commit significant educational and cultural resources to the local and global cultivation of such wisdom.
The approach proposed here, which seeks to draw strength from a diverse cultural pool of historical sources of moral wisdom, can help us accomplish just
that. Yet our existing technomoral vices, along with the normal human range of
cognitive biases, impede many of us from grasping the depth, scope, or immediacy of the threats to human flourishing now confronting us. Even among those
who recognize the dangers, many fail to grasp that the solution must be an ethical
one. We cannot lift ourselves out of the hole we are in simply by creating more
and newer technologies, so long as these continue to be designed, marketed, distributed, and used by humans every bit as deficient in technomoral wisdom as
the generations that used their vast new technological powers to dig the hole in
the first place!
While the first step out of the hole requires reallocating individual, local,
and global resources to technomoral education and practice, we can and must
make wise and creative use of technology to aid in the effort. Each of the emerging technologies discussed in this chapter has the potential to be designed and
used in ways that reinforce, rather than impede, our efforts to become wiser and
more virtuous technological citizens. Thus our way out of the hole is a recursive
procedure, in which traditional philosophical and educational techniques for
cultivating virtue are used to generate the motivation to design and adopt new
technological practices that shape our moral habits in more constructive ways.
These in turn can reinforce our efforts of moral self-​cultivation, forming a virtuous circle that makes us even more ethically discerning in technical contexts
as a result of increasing moral practice in those domains. This growing moral expertise in technosocial contexts can enable the development of still better, more
ethical, and more sustainable technologies. Used as alternating and mutually
reinforcing handholds, this interweaving of moral and technological expertise
is a practical and powerful strategy for cultivating technomoral selves: human
beings with the virtues needed to flourish together in the twenty-​first century
and beyond.
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Virtues and Technology
Motivations of the Approach
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My path to thinking about the ethical challenge of emerging technologies in
terms of technomoral virtues was steered by a growing unease with unusually
rapid changes I observed in my own moral and intellectual habits of attention
and self-​control, changes that began in the early 2000s as I immersed myself in
the then-​new digital environments of social media and the mobile app economy.
When I first voiced these concerns in 2006 to a class I was teaching on science,
technology, and society, my students surprised me with their response. Far from
dismissing my worries as silly technophobia, my students responded with overwhelming gratitude, even desperation, for a chance to talk openly about how
their own happiness, health, security, and moral character were being shaped by
their new technological habits in ways that often bypassed their understanding
or conscious choice.
These concerns will be familiar to readers of popular writing on digital culture. Nicholas Carr, Evgeny Morozov, and Jaron Lanier are just a few of the
prominent cultural critics who first expressed alarm at the possibility, even likelihood, that our mediatized digital culture could undermine core human values,
capacities, and virtues. Carr’s The Shallows (2010) alerted us to growing evidence
of the deleterious cognitive and moral effects that our new digital consumption
habits may be having on our brains. Morozov’s The Net Delusion (2011) and To
Save Everything, Click Here (2013) powerfully challenged our unreflective faith
in technocratic “solutionism.” From Lanier, a computer scientist and pioneering
innovator of virtual reality technology, came the widely read humanistic manifesto You Are Not a Gadget (2010), which lamented the domination of contemporary technosocial life by the increasingly libertarian and anti-​humanistic
values celebrated by many Silicon Valley technologists: free-​market capitalism,
consumerism, and reductive efficiency.
Though my views do not align with theirs in every respect, my approach
shares with these critics a deeply humanistic and explicitly moralized conception of value. It assumes that the “good life,” by which we mean a human
future worth seeking, choosing, building, and enjoying, must be a life lived
by and with persons who have cultivated some degree of ethical character. It
assumes that this is the only kind of human life that is truly worth choosing,
despite the perpetual challenges we encounter in building and sustaining such
lives. It also holds that a good and choiceworthy life has never been attained in
any great measure by isolated individuals, but only by persons who were fortunate enough to enjoy some degree of care, cooperation, and support from
other humans, and who were highly motivated to give the same. My approach
is therefore fundamentally inconsistent with anti-​humanistic and libertarian
philosophies, and—​if Lanier is right—​inconsistent with the philosophy of
Twenty-First-Century Virtue
93
Notes
* This chapter has been adapted from the introduction and c­ hapter 1 of Technology and
the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting (Vallor 2016). I am deeply
grateful to the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and to
the Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Foundation, who provided financial support for early
phases of this work, and to Lucy Randall at Oxford University Press for her invaluable editorial assistance. Though I should thank many more, I am deeply indebted to
Charles Ess, Don Howard, Patrick Lin, Evan Selinger, John Sullins, and P. J. Ivanhoe for
their contributions to my thinking for this project.
1. Much contemporary philosophy of technology reflects this view; see Verbeek 2011
for one influential account of how technologies and human social practices are co-​
constitutive. In this chapter the adjectives technosocial and technomoral reflect this
perspective.
2. The reference here is to the widespread emissions software fraud by Volkswagen publicly exposed in September 2015.
3. The ubiquity of the opposite complaint is highlighted by Turkle (2011, 167).
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many of those driving the emerging technological developments it proposes
to examine.
Yet my approach carries a resolute hope for the future of human flourishing with, not without or in spite of, the technosocial innovations that will
continue to shape and enrich our lives for as long as human culture endures.
As a scholar who chose out of all possible specialties the philosophy of science
and technology, who as a young girl wrote adventure games in BASIC for her
Commodore PET and eschewed the Barbie Dream’Vette in favor of Star Wars
AT-​AT and X-​Wing toys, it is simply impossible for me to be anti-​technology,
personally or philosophically. Indeed, to be anti-​technology is in some sense
to be anti-​human, for we are what we do, and humans have always engineered
our worlds as mirrors of our distinctive needs, desires, values, and beliefs. Of
course, we are not alone—​increasingly, researchers find other intelligent animals
such as birds, elephants, and cephalopods reshaping their environments and
practices in familiar ways. Perhaps to be anti-​technology is also to be anti-​life,
or anti-​sentience. But however widely we share this part of ourselves with other
creatures, humanity without technology is not a desirable proposition—​it is not
even a meaningful one. The only meaningful questions are: which technologies
shall we create, with what knowledge and designs, affording what, with whom,
for whose benefit, and to what greater ends? These are the larger questions that
drive my work. Yet humans lacking the technomoral habits and virtues I seek to
describe in my writings could, I think, never hope to answer them. Let us not
surrender that hope.
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Virtues and Technology
References
Allenby, Brad, and Daniel Sarewitz. 2011. The Techno-​Human Condition. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
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4. Postindustrial visions of a technocratic future are found in the works of Henri Saint-​
Simon, Auguste Comte, Thorstein Veblen, and John Dewey, to name just a few.
5. Ray Kurzweil (2005) is the radical standard-​bearer for the former, techno-​optimist
camp of futurists; Bill Joy (2000) is often cited as the contemporary voice of techno-​
pessimism. Garreau (2005) gives a thorough account of these competing visions,
along with several alternatives.
6. See Allenby and Sarewitz 2011 for a related claim.
7. Though I reject Martha Nussbaum’s view that the label of “virtue ethics” is so broad
as to be vacuous, I take her advice that we who wish to make use of the rich practical
resources of virtue traditions not get wrapped up in the art of defining our unique
kind, and get on with the business of “figuring out what we ourselves want to say”
(1999, 163).
8. See Aristotle 1984 (bk. VI, chap. 13, esp. 1144b20–​30). See also MacIntyre 1984,
150–​52. This commitment to the dependent status of rational principles of ethics
distinguishes Aristotle’s view from those who grant the virtues an essential place in
ethics, but regard their practical content as derivable from fixed ethical principles;
see, for example, O’Neill 1996.
9. Indeed, in their book The Techno-​Human Condition, Braden Allenby and Daniel
Sarewitz (2011) argue that consequentialist and deontological ethics are crippled
by the unprecedented and irremediable ignorance of the future that marks this
condition—​what I have termed acute technosocial opacity. Despite their correct diagnosis, Allenby and Sarewitz fail to explicitly acknowledge that the solution they call
for is, in fact, not a “re-​invented Enlightenment” ethic (187) but a technosocial virtue
ethic heavily indebted to classical conceptions of practical wisdom.
10. See Bainbridge and Roco 2006; Khushf 2007; Nordmann 2005.
11. Mine, then, is an explicitly pluralistic account—​one that willingly sacrifices some theoretical unity in exchange for practical cash value in addressing collective problems of
technomoral wisdom. It is also a human-​centered account, insofar as I take humans
to be the only agents presently capable of deliberating together about the good life;
yet an ability to attend and respond to all forms of moral worth, including that of
nonhumans and the environment, is explicitly identified with the technomoral
virtues of empathy, care, and perspective.
12. These virtues do not function exclusively for this purpose; individually, they each
serve other ethical functions in the various cultural traditions for which they are
meaningful. Yet when cultivated together they may also serve a global function in
helping us to address a global human problem of twenty-​first-​century life—​namely,
how to flourish in a condition of acute technosocial opacity and increasing existential risk.
Twenty-First-Century Virtue
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Aristotle. 1984. Nicomachean Ethics. In The Complete Works of Aristotle: Revised
Oxford Translation, edited by Jonathan Barnes, 2:1729–​867. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Bainbridge, William Sims, and Mihail C. Roco, eds. 2006. Managing Nano-​Bio-​Info-​
Cogno Innovations: Converging Technologies in Society. Dordrecht: Springer.
Bradbury, Ray. 1951. “The Veldt.” In The Illustrated Man, 9–​27. New York: Simon and
Schuster.
Carr, Nicolas. 2010. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W.
Norton.
Cellan-​
Jones, Rory. 2014. “Stephen Hawking Warns Artificial Intelligence Could
End Mankind.” BBC, December 2 2014, https://​www.bbc.co.uk/​news/​technology-​
30290540. Accessed April 11, 2021.
de Waal, Frans. 2007. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Garreau, Joel. 2005. Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds,
Our Bodies—​and What It Means to Be Human. New York: Doubleday.
Hawking, Stephen, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark, and Frank Wilczek. 2014.
“Transcendence Looks at the Implications of Artificial Intelligence—​But Are We
Taking AI Seriously Enough?” The Independent, May 22. http://​www.independent.
co.uk/​news/​science/​stephen-​hawking-​transcendence-​looks-​at-​the-​implications-​of-​
artificial-​intelligence-​but-​are-​we-​taking-​9313474.html.
Joy, Bill. 2000. “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Wired 8, no. 4. www.wired.com/​wired/​
archive/​8.04/​joy.html.
Kant, Immanuel. (1785) 1997. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by
Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Khushf, George. 2007. “The Ethics of NBIC Convergence.” Journal of Medicine and
Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine 32, no. 3: 185–​96.
Kurzweil, Ray. 2005. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
New York: Penguin.
Lanier, Jaron. 2010. You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. New York: Knopf.
Lewis, Patricia, Heather Williams, Susan Aghlani, and Benoit Pelopidas. 2014. Too Close
for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy. Chatham House Report
of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. London: Chatham House.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. 2nd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre
Dame Press.
Mill, John Stuart. (1861) 2001. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Morozov, Evgeny. 2011. The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom.
New York: PublicAffairs/​Perseus Books.
Morozov, Evgeny. 2013. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological
Solutionism. New York: PublicAffairs/​Perseus Books.
Nordmann, Alfred. 2005. Converging Technologies: Shaping the Future of European
Societies. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1990. Love’s Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1999. “Virtue Ethics: A Misleading Category?” Journal of Ethics
3: 163–​201.
O’Neill, Onora. 1996. Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical
Reasoning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Persson, Ingmar, and Julian Savulescu. 2012. Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral
Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Turkle, Sherry. 2011. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from
Each Other. New York: Basic Books.
Vallor, Shannon. 2016. Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future
Worth Wanting. New York: Oxford University Press.
Verbeek, Peter-​Paul. 2011. Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the
Morality of Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Yearley, Lee H. 2002. “An Existentialist Reading of Book Four of the Analects.” In Confucius
and the Analects: New Essays, edited by Bryan Van Norden, 237–​74. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Latin America and the liberal international
TOM LONG*
International Relations (IR) has of late been consumed by debates over the future
of the ‘liberal international order’ (LIO). The LIO’s norms and institutions, associated with US leadership, appear to be threatened from without by the rise of
authoritarian powers such as China and corroded from within by the likes of
US President Donald Trump and a rising tide of anti-EU politicians and voters.1
Concern about the current crisis has been complemented by greater attention to
the order’s origins and evolution to unearth lessons about how the LIO might be
adapted to changing conditions.2 More critically, scholars have uncovered how
imperial practices and power disparities have been central to the LIO.
Despite the extensive and varied threads of the debate—historical and contemporary, supportive and critical—Latin America has been largely absent from the
multitude of studies of the LIO, also often called the American world order, the
global liberal order, or the US-led liberal world order. For example, a recent special
issue of International Affairs on ‘liberal internationalism in theory and practice’,
edited by G. John Ikenberry, Inderjeet Parmar and Doug Stokes, and representing
a spectrum of perspectives on the LIO,3 mentioned Latin America only twice,
and quite offhandedly. This is not an aberration; the same lack of attention to
the region pertains across the spectrum of Anglo-American IR scholarship that
deals most centrally with the topic. This empirical gap has consequences for our
understanding of the LIO. The absence of Latin America4 as an object of study in
the LIO debate, and the minimal consideration of Latin American states as actors
who have shaped the international order, contribute to theoretical blind spots in
IR scholarship and public debate on LIO, critical and supportive alike. For critics
who have emphasized the imperialist and colonial roots of the LIO,5 the past two
*
1
2
3
4
5
I wish to thank Carsten Schulz for detailed feedback on an earlier draft, as well as three anonymous reviewers
and the editors of International Affairs for constructive comments. This piece was written during a fellowship
supported by the US–Chile Fulbright Commission and the Universidad Pontificia Católica in Santiago, Chile.
I am grateful for their support.
Constance Duncombe and Tim Dunne, ‘After liberal world order’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan. 2018,
pp. 25–42.
G. John Ikenberry, Liberal leviathan: the origins, crisis, and transformation of the American world order (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2012), ch. 5.
‘Ordering the world? Liberal internationalism in theory and practice’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan. 2018.
‘Latin America’ is a necessary shorthand, though it obscures much diversity in how individual countries and
subregions engaged with and were affected by international factors.
Inderjeet Parmar, ‘The US-led liberal order: imperialism by another name?’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan.
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order: an agenda for research
International Affairs 94: 6 (2018) 1371–1390; doi: 10.1093/ia/iiy188
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Institute of International
Affairs. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
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6
7
8
9
2018, pp. 151–72; Beate Jahn, ‘Liberal internationalism: historical trajectory and current prospects’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 43–61.
The historian Greg Grandin argues against equating US–Latin American relations with ‘other comparable
hegemon–periphery relations’: Grandin, ‘The liberal traditions in the Americas: rights, sovereignty, and the
origins of liberal multilateralism’, American Historical Review 117: 1, Feb. 2012, pp. 68–91.
Grandin, ‘The liberal traditions in the Americas’, pp. 74–5. See also Ivan Jaksic and Eduardo Posada Carbó,
eds, Liberalismo y poder: Latinoamérica en el siglo XIX (Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2011). Regarding
liberalism and its critics in Brazil, see João M. E. Maia and Matthew M. Taylor, ‘The Brazilian liberal tradition
and the global liberal order’, in Oliver Stuenkel and Matthew M. Taylor, eds, Brazil on the global stage: power,
ideas, and the liberal international order (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for the phrase. Argentine jurist Carlos Calvo published Le Droit international
théorique et pratique in Paris starting in 1863. Major Latin American contributions from the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries relate to (non-)intervention, arbitration and jurisdiction in international disputes
(especially those relating to debt and investment) and territorial limits. See Arnulf Becker Lorca, ‘International
law in Latin America or Latin American international law: rise, fall, and retrieval of a tradition of legal thinking and political imagination’, Harvard International Law Journal 47: 1, Winter 2006, pp. 283–305.
See Julia Gray, ‘Life, death, or zombie? the vitality of international organizations’, International Studies Quarterly 62: 1, March 2018, pp. 1–13; Andrés Malamud and Gian Luca Gardini, ‘Has regionalism peaked? The Latin
American quagmire and its lessons’, International Spectator 47: 1, April 2012, pp. 116–33.
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centuries of history of Latin American states—independent but often internationally unequal—offer a rich vein of experiences of partial inclusion or marginalization from the LIO.6 For supporters (such as Ikenberry) who argue in favour
of reforming the LIO to save it, Latin American experiences could elucidate core
weaknesses exacerbated by the order’s global expansion.
The LIO has shaped Latin America, and Latin America has shaped the LIO—but
not always in the ways supporters or critics might expect. At first glance, Latin
America appears to be a poster child for the successes of the LIO: the region has
long (if distinctive and uneven) liberal roots;7 it rapidly democratized at the end of
the Cold War; and it includes many expansive free traders. The region’s diplomatic
traditions prize international law, peaceful settlement of disputes and international
organization. From as far back as the 1860s, Latin American jurists have made
prominent contributions to international jurisprudence, the ‘mortar’ that binds
international order.8 The region’s diplomats have played crucial roles in international organizations, as discussed below. However, in other ways, historically the
LIO has been—and remains—superficial in its reach in Latin America. The region
has had only partial success in pursuing its goals through the LIO. Domestically,
liberal roots are balanced by authoritarianism; formal democracy is hobbled by
poor governance; external openness is paired with monopolies and corruption;
and regional international organizations have weak competences despite their
proliferation.9 As often as Latin Americans have claimed a place in western liberal
international society, leading powers have relegated the region to secondary status.
This article has two primary goals. The first is to show how Latin America has
been largely overlooked in the primarily Anglo-American IR debate on the LIO.
The second is to illustrate why this omission matters for our understanding of the
LIO’s evolution and effects. Latin America’s omission emerges from two features
of the LIO debate. Supportive scholars have largely explored why Great Powers
choose to build order, and how that order shapes relations between these large
states. In these accounts, Latin America is placed within the US sphere of influence
and therefore is considered to be of little inherent interest. Critical accounts, on
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Latin America and the liberal international order
Overlooked: Latin America in the LIO debate
Before assessing how the LIO has variously included and excluded Latin America,
I will first examine how academic research on LIO, both supportive and critical,
has treated the region. To this end I have surveyed recent, prominent works of
IR scholarship focused on the liberal international order, the liberal world order,
the US-led world order, the American world order or some other variant, with
an emphasis on the English-language literature where the LIO has been a major
concern.
This is not, of course, terra nullius. There is a great deal of relevant work regarding
(and from) Latin America, but most of it has been unexplored in IR’s core debates
about LIO. Important studies discuss the Latin American role in international law
and human rights norms, international political economy, and regional and international organizations. However, these studies, often in neighbouring disciplines
to IR, have had little influence on the core IR narratives about LIO’s formation.
Likewise, scholars in diverse fields have explored the effects of international financial institutions, globalization and neo-liberalism on Latin America, but rarely in
terms of the LIO.11 Economic histories have examined how international markets
10
11
Giovanni Capoccia and R. Daniel Kelemen, ‘The study of critical junctures: theory, narrative, and counterfactuals in historical institutionalism’, World Politics 59: 3, April 2007, pp. 341–69.
See Arie M. Kacowicz, Globalization and the distribution of wealth: the Latin American experience, 1982–2008 (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Laura Macdonald and Arne Ruckert, Post-neo-liberalism in the
­Americas (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
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the other hand, have focused on LIO’s historical links to colonialism. Countries
other than Great Powers are foregrounded, but these are often colonies or decolonizing states. In short, Latin American experiences do not fit neatly into either
supportive or critical accounts. Placing Latin America at the heart of studies of
the LIO accordingly requires rethinking key aspects of the debate. Since many
countries in the region gained independence in the 1820s, Latin American statehood has evolved in conjunction with the LIO. Latin America’s international role
needs to be connected to broader questions of ‘ownership’ of the LIO beyond the
United States and Britain.
In the following section, I assess the role of Latin America in the primarily
Anglo-American literature on the LIO. Finding that the region has been of
marginal importance to that debate, I offer a macro-historical sketch of Latin
America’s engagement in the LIO’s formative ‘critical junctures’.10 My goal
here is not to establish an overarching causal explanation of how Latin America
shaped the LIO or how the LIO shaped Latin America—either of which would
be an enormous task. Instead, this brief history highlights spaces for empirical
and theoretical contributions to the LIO debate examining how the evolving
international order interacted with regions at its margins. For IR theory on LIO,
deeper study of Latin America’s experience should cast light on the ways in which
countries that were not Great Powers and were situated outside the order’s core
shaped, and were shaped by, the elements of this order over more than a century.
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12
13
14
15
16
John H. Coatsworth and Alan M. Taylor, Latin America and the world economy since 1800 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1998); Rosemary Thorp, Progress, poverty and exclusion: an economic history of Latin
America in the 20th century (Washington DC: Inter-American Development Bank, 1998); Victor BulmerThomas, The economic history of Latin America since independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
For introductions to Latin American debates, see Amado Luiz Cervo, ‘Sob o signo neo-liberal: as relações
internacionais da América Latina’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 43: 2, July–Dec. 2000, pp. 5–27;
Carlos Escudé, Realismo periférico: fundamentos para la nueva política exterior argentina (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1992);
Antônio Carlos Lessa, ‘Instituições, atores e dinâmicas do ensino e da pesquisa em Relações Internacionais no
Brasil’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 48: 2, July–Dec. 2005. In English, see Arlene B. Tickner, ‘Hearing Latin American voices in International Relations studies’, International Studies Perspectives 4: 4, Nov. 2003,
pp. 325–50.
Celso Lafer, Paradoxos e possibilidades: estudos sobre a ordem mundial e sobre a política exterior do Brasil num sistema
internacional em transformação (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Fronteira, 1982); Sebastião C. Velasco Cruz, ‘Entre
normas e fatos: desafios e dilemas da ordem internacional’, Lua Nova, no. 58, 2003, pp. 169–91; Valérie de
Campos Mello, ‘Globalização, regionalismo e ordem internacional’, Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional
42: 1, Jan.–June 1999, pp. 157–81; José María Gómez and Marie-Claude Smouts, América Latina y el (des) orden
global neo-liberal: hegemonía, contrahegemonía, perspectivas (Buenos Aires: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias
Sociales, 2004).
For an important exception, see Stuenkel and Taylor, eds, Brazil on the global stage.
Brazil is often grouped with other emerging powers. See Andrew Hurrell, ‘Hegemony, liberalism and
global order: what space for would-be Great Powers?’, International Affairs 82: 1, Jan. 2006, pp. 1–19; Kristen
Hopewell, ‘The BRICS—merely a fable? Emerging power alliances in global trade governance’, International
Affairs 93: 6, Nov. 2017, pp. 1377–96. For more direct discussions of Brazil in this light, see Stuenkel and
Taylor, eds, Brazil on the global stage; David R. Mares and Harold A. Trinkunas, Aspirational power: Brazil on
the long road to global influence (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2016); Sean W. Burges, Brazil in
the world: the international relations of a South American giant (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).
Literature on Brazil as a regional leader has discussed the LIO less directly. See Andrés Malamud, ‘A leader
without followers? The growing divergence between the regional and global performance of Brazilian foreign
policy’, Latin American Politics and Society 53: 3, Fall 2011, pp. 1–24; Maria Regina Soares de Lima and Mônica
Hirst, ‘Brazil as an intermediate state and regional power: action, choice and responsibilities’, International
Affairs 82: 1, Jan. 2006, pp. 21–40.
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shaped Latin American development, but with little attention to the particular
notion of the LIO.12 Many international political aspects of Latin America’s
relationship with the LIO have been subsumed by studies of US–Latin American
relations; however, the two fields are not coterminous. Finally, given the emphasis
here on the English-language debate, it is important to note that Latin American
scholars have extensively debated (often in Spanish and Portuguese) relevant issues
in somewhat different terms, focusing on US power in inter-American relations;
the effects of neo-liberalism and democracy promotion; and the region’s place in
global political and economic structures.13 Especially in Brazil, Latin American
IR scholars have sometimes tackled the LIO directly,14 but this work has rarely
informed the Anglo-American LIO debate.15
The following review groups work on the LIO into the broad camps of
supporters, critics and regionalists, with a focus on emblematic authors within
each perspective. These groupings necessarily elide some of the nuances present
in the work; even key supporters often advocate reforming the LIO and related
aspects of US foreign policy. However, the goal here is less a comprehensive
coverage of the LIO debate than a discussion of Latin America’s role in it. With
few exceptions, such as the rise of Brazil from 2006 to 2012, Latin America has
been considered tangential.16
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Latin America in the LIO canon
17
18
19
20
21
22
Ikenberry, Liberal leviathan; G. John Ikenberry, ‘The end of liberal international order?’, International Affairs 94:
1, Jan. 2018, pp. 7–23.
See also Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. Trubowitz, ‘Dead center: the demise of liberal internationalism in
the United States’, International Security 32: 2, Fall 2007, pp. 10–20.
Annabel S. Brett, Changes of state: nature and the limits of the city in early modern natural law (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2011).
Robert Gilpin, War and change in world politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Charles A.
Kupchan, ‘After Pax Americana: benign power, regional integration, and the sources of a stable multipolarity’,
International Security 23: 2, Fall 1998, pp. 40–79.
Robert O. Keohane, After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984); Charles Lipson, Reliable partners: how democracies have made a separate peace (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2003).
Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, ‘The nature and sources of liberal international order’, Review of
International Studies 25: 2, April 1999, pp. 179–96.
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Latin America is conspicuous by its absence from the canonical works on the
LIO, which typically see the order as overall positive, if not universally benign.
The term ‘liberal international order’ is perhaps most associated with Princeton
Professor G. John Ikenberry. For Ikenberry, the LIO, notwithstanding variations over time, can be understood as a relatively open and rules-based form of
organizing international politics.17 In discussing the LIO’s evolution, canonical
works argue that today’s LIO was layered over previous international orders—the
Westphalian system of sovereign states, British liberal internationalism and US
Wilsonianism—and retains some of their characteristics.18 (Less widely acknowledged is that this order was also layered over early international law that emerged
from the Iberian conquest of the Americas.19) Intellectually, Ikenberry and his
collaborators undertake another form of layering, adding liberal institutional and
ideational content to adaptations of hegemonic stability theory that emphasize the
centrality of a major power.20 Liberal authors have seen international multilateral
institutions as potentially self-sustaining, given the efficiencies and benefits they
create, and the shared liberal democratic norms of core states.21
Deudney and Ikenberry argue that the post-1945, US-led variant of the LIO is
marked by five features: co-binding security institutions that limited US unilateral
power; penetrated US hegemony that permitted consultation in US decisions;
semi-sovereign Great Powers in Germany and Japan that forswore military might;
economic openness through multilateral trade institutions; and shared civic
identities based in liberal democratic values.22 Though Ikenberry and his collaborators reach optimistic conclusions about the LIO’s benefits for economic growth
and international stability, they recognize that the order is inherently presaged
on international inequalities that grant the United States a dominant role in
maintaining the system. Some of the LIO’s hierarchical international relationships
are largely negotiated; others resemble patron–client relationships or are coercive.
Many—perhaps all—of the five characteristics that Deudney and Ikenberry
ascribe to the LIO could be relevant to Latin America’s engagement with the
United States and the wider world. However, the region is largely hidden in
‘the shadow that hegemonic nations cast’, to use the words of Ikenberry and
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23
24
25
26
27
28
29
G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, ‘Socialization and hegemonic power’, International Organization
44: 3, Summer 1990, pp. 283–315.
Ikenberry, Liberal leviathan, pp. 26–7, 90–91, 99–102, 149–50, 183–90.
Georg Sorensen, A liberal world order in crisis: choosing between imposition and restraint (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011).
David A. Lake, ‘American hegemony and the future of East–West relations’, International Studies Perspectives 7:
1, Feb. 2006, pp. 23–30; David A. Lake, Hierarchy in international relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
2009).
Tom Long, Latin America confronts the United States: asymmetry and influence (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2015); Christopher Darnton, ‘After decentering: the politics of agency and hegemony in hemispheric
relations’, Latin American Research Review 48: 3, 2013, pp. 231–39; Tanya Harmer, Allende’s Chile and the interAmerican Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold
War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); Max Paul Friedman, ‘Retiring the puppets, bringing
Latin America back in: recent scholarship on United States–Latin American relations’, Diplomatic History 27:
5, 2003, pp. 621–36.
Brantly Womack, Asymmetry and international relationships (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp.
5–7.
Carla Norrlof, ‘Hegemony and inequality: Trump and the liberal playbook’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan.
2018, pp. 63–88; Jeff D. Colgan and Robert O. Keohane, ‘The liberal order is rigged: fix it now or watch it
wither’, Foreign Affairs 96: 3, May–June 2017, p. 36.
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Kupchan.23 Ikenberry spends significant time in Liberal leviathan comparing multilateral US strategies in postwar Europe with bilateral approaches to east Asia.24
He mentions that US policies in Latin America were at times ‘crudely imperial’.
Similar phrases recur elsewhere in his work, which has not deeply explored Latin
America’s role in the LIO or the LIO’s effects on Latin America. Again, this absence
is not uncommon. For example, Sorensen’s book on the origins and crises of the
LIO mentions the region only briefly, largely in terms of its democratization and
uneven experiences with market transitions; it is tangential to his accounts of the
LIO’s rise and of its recent crises.25 The gap reflects relative inattention to the roles
of countries that are not Great Powers in shaping the LIO. Latin America’s lack of
Great Powers and the often overstated presumption of US domination have led
this scholarship to overlook the region’s contributions to and engagement with
the LIO.
As I suggest below, studying the Latin American experience challenges aspects
of these accounts, while providing an empirical base on which to develop undertheorized aspects of the LIO. Most accounts of the LIO leave the actual bargains
between the United States and weaker states unexplored, variously suggesting
mechanisms of socialization, use of market power, imposition and pay-offs. Most
explicitly, Lake sees weaker states as ‘subordinates’ that support a relationship
based in legitimate authority—whose support is in fact key to the maintenance
of order.26 Latin American acquiescence is often taken for granted. This contrasts
with emerging historical scholarship on Latin American agency in inter-American
relations.27 If these asymmetrical bargains are fundamental to the working of
liberal hegemonic leadership,28 they should be explored in greater depth. The
nature of these bargains raises questions about the benefits of the LIO: do these
relationships create widely shared gains, or are they narrow pacts with elites,
perhaps to the detriment of populations? While inequality has emerged, even
among supporters, as a central challenge in the LIO’s core states,29 these issues have
a longer and often troubling heritage in Latin America.
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Latin America in critical accounts
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
Parmar, ‘The US-led liberal order’, p. 152. See also Beate Jahn, ‘Liberal internationalism: from ideology to
empirical theory—and back again’, International Theory 1: 3, Nov. 2009, pp. 409–38.
Beate Jahn, Liberal internationalism: theory, history, practice (New York: Springer, 2013), pp. 3–4.
Parmar, ‘The US-led liberal order’, p. 157.
Jahn, ‘Liberal internationalism: historical trajectory and current prospects’, p. 50.
Susan Pedersen, The guardians: the League of Nations and the crisis of empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2015); Mark Mazower, No enchanted palace: the end of empire and the ideological origins of the United Nations
­(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
Inderjeet Parmar, ‘Racial and imperial thinking in international theory and politics: Truman, Attlee and the
Korean War’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations 18: 2, 2016, pp. 351–69.
Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: a history of US policy toward Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998).
See Pankaj Mishra, Age of anger: a history of the present (London: Allen Lane, 2017).
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In the eyes of its harshest critics, the LIO is little more than a façade, and an intellectual justification, for western and US dominance over the poor and weak. For
these critics, often situated in post-colonial theory, the LIO is characterized more
by imposition and coercion than by negotiation and restraint. Parmar, Jahn and
others argue that liberal internationalism, and much LIO scholarship, serve to
legitimate and naturalize, not to explain, certain international policies. ‘The key
point is that the LIO is a class-based, elitist hegemony—strongly imbued with
explicit and implicit racial and colonial/imperial assumptions.’30 Critics see liberal
politics as ineffective in developing country contexts, and often hypocritical. Jahn
argues that ‘liberal foreign policies frequently failed to achieve their goals and that
liberal actors often failed to act in accordance with liberal principles’.31 This vision
of the world has ‘special rules’ for the West and ‘cuts off the rest of the world’.32
In describing the LIO’s origins, critical accounts highlight colonialism’s role in the
development of today’s international system. Jahn argues that ‘the establishment
of liberalism thus required policies of colonialism’.33 Recent leading critical histories of the League of Nations and the creation of the United Nations emphasize
race and empire, but do not discuss the Latin American role, despite the region’s
numerical weight both in Geneva and at the 1945 San Francisco conference.34
Critics argue that the LIO is inextricably linked to hierarchies not just between
states, as Ikenberry agrees, but of class, race and empire. Parmar argues that
‘background ideas’ of race and empire underpinned foundational moments of
liberal order and continue implicitly to guide its institutions and policies today.35
The persistence of these ideas limits the LIO’s ability to incorporate non-western
powers.
Given the dominance of critical currents in the scholarship on US foreign policy
towards Latin America, which emphasize the role of economic interests and racial
prejudice in shaping US policy,36 one might expect the region to be a central case
for critical accounts of the LIO. However, Latin America has not featured prominently in these. For example, the region is barely mentioned in Pankaj Mishra’s
popular critiques of the LIO (and when it is, in Age of anger, it is always grouped
with Africa and Asia).37 Latin America’s minimal role owes much, perhaps, to
these countries’ largely sovereign status throughout the development of the LIO.
Latin America’s international political status has long been ­ambiguous: ‘Indeed the
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The LIO, Latin America and regional orders
Among works that engage directly with the LIO, Latin America has been most
represented in those that emphasize the regionalization of international order.
However, the relationship between regions and the LIO is somewhat ambiguous.
Proponents of liberal economic multilateralism tend to see regionalism as undermining global trade gains.42 From an IR perspective, these discussions focus on
whether regions are likely to promote stability or act as competing blocs. For
Katzenstein, regions are not entirely autonomous from the broader, US-led global
structures.43 Much of the regionalist literature has a contemporary bent. Acharya
sees regionalism as a response to US relative decline. Drawing on examples of
non-western contributions to the construction of international order, Acharya has
argued that the US-led LIO is likely to contract, that it is being replaced by open
and connected regional orders normatively shaped by local actors, and that these
are generally positive developments.44
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Andrew Hurrell, ‘Latin America and the West’, in Robert O’Neill and R. J. Vincent, eds, The West and the
Third World (London: Palgrave, 1990), pp. 153–69.
For a summary of the development of dependency theory, see Joseph L. Love, ‘The origins of dependency
analysis’, Journal of Latin American Studies 22: 1–2, Feb. 1990, pp. 143–68. The classic text is Fernando Henrique
Cardoso and Enzo Falleto, Dependency and development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1979; first publ. 1971). For a critical perspective connecting Latin America to world capitalist systems,
see William I. Robinson, Latin America and global capitalism: a critical globalization perspective (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2008).
Ilan Kapoor, The postcolonial politics of development (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 3–18.
See Tickner, ‘Hearing Latin American voices’.
Jagdish Bhagwati, ‘Regionalism and multilateralism: an overview’, in Jaime de Melo and Arvind Panagariya,
eds, New dimensions in regional integration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 22–51.
Peter J. Katzenstein, A world of regions: Asia and Europe in the American imperium (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2005).
Amitav Acharya, ‘Norm subsidiarity and regional orders: sovereignty, regionalism, and rule-making in the
Third World’, International Studies Quarterly 55: 1, March 2011, pp. 95–123, and ‘The emerging regional architecture of world politics’, World Politics 59: 4, July 2007, pp. 629–52.
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region has often been seen as a kind of international middle class, occupying an
intermediate position between First and Third Worlds.’38 Many critiques of the
LIO are focused on its philosophical bases, its ties with colonialism, the failures of
its policy interventions, or its limited and elitist nature. Latin America may be less
immediately relevant to formal colonialism, but it would seem to connect deeply
with concerns about the role of elites—an area of emphasis for the region’s historically oriented dependency theorists.39 The lack of attention to Latin America
in critiques of the LIO mirrors the disconnect, noted by Kapoor, between Latin
America’s tradition of economically oriented dependency theory and today’s
more influential cultural strands of post-colonial IR theory.40 However, because
these bargains were struck with (or imposed on) the leaders of legally sovereign
states, they may tell us more about the interaction of weak states with the LIO
today. These relationships are emphasized by the idea of ‘international insertion’, common in Latin American IR but usually marginal in dominant, Englishlanguage debates on the LIO.41
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Latin America and the LIO: a brief history
What can Latin America tell us about the LIO, and what can the LIO contribute to
our understanding of Latin American countries’ international roles and domestic
development? For authors generally supportive of the LIO, the order’s failure
to take deeper root in seemingly hospitable ground may offer puzzling cases or
insights into how to integrate states beyond the LIO’s North Atlantic core. For
critics focused on the illiberalism of the liberal order, Latin America presents a
different mix of exclusion and inclusion in aspects of international political and
economic order from more recently post-colonial states. In many respects, Latin
American states and the LIO evolved together. Historically, some Latin American
elites strove to become fuller members of the LIO’s society of states, structures of
open trade, global institutions and democratic practice—though they were often
45
46
47
Andrew Hurrell, On global order: power, values, and the constitution of international society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) , p. 255.
Amitav Acharya, The end of American world order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), pp. 1–11.
Mark Petersen and Carsten-Andreas Schulz, ‘Setting the regional agenda: a critique of posthegemonic regionalism’, Latin American Politics and Society 60: 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 102–27.
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Hurrell, emerging from a ‘society of states’ tradition, is sceptical about what
he calls liberal solidarist international society. Latin Americans historically emphasized a ‘traditional pluralist conception’ of global order. That emphasis on pluralism
shifted during the 1990s, when, ‘outside Europe, the Americas provide the clearest
example of the move towards a regional liberal solidarism’. For a decade, Latin
American states were active promoters of economic integration and democratic
solidarity at the regional level. Issues once considered purely internal—regime
type, human rights, organized crime—became the core of the inter-American
agenda with the support of most of the region’s leaders. A temporary reduction
in the region’s left–right tensions seemed to produce a Latin American consensus
for deeper integration within the LIO.45
The ambiguity regarding the relationship between regional orders and the
global LIO is particularly notable in the case of Latin America. Acharya argues
that regional orders will remain open and integrated under a looser global framework.46 During the early 2000s, South America upgraded regional organizations
and sought to diminish US influence through closer ties with a rising China; at
the same time, much of central America, Mexico and the Caribbean became more
deeply integrated with the United States through production chains and ­migration
networks. A multifaceted regionalism in Latin America has long coexisted with
deep US engagement.47 But will a retrenching United States seek to re-establish
a traditional sphere of influence in Latin America, or will Latin America press
for regional autonomy? What do these countervailing trends mean for the sorts
of bargains that Ikenberry describes between leading and secondary states? Seen
through a critical lens, how does the region’s historical experience with US interventionism—in which regionalism was often used defensively but without deep
commitments—mean for its future?
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Independence and the British LIO
There has been little attention to the role of Latin America in the emergence of
the first variant of the LIO: the British-led expansion of open trade, the gold
standard and freedom of the seas.54 Most states in Latin America had achieved
political independence by the mid-1820s and evolved alongside the British-led
order; imperial arrangements, liberalism and other ideas shaped the new and
inchoate forms of sovereignty that emerged in the region.55 Latin American states
were not, for the most part, colonized as part of the order’s extension. However,
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
Carsten-Andreas Schulz, ‘Civilisation, barbarism and the making of Latin America’s place in 19th-century
international society’, Millennium 42: 3, June 2014, pp. 837–59.
Louise Fawcett, ‘The origins and development of the regional idea in the Americas’, in Louise Fawcett and
Mónica Serrano, eds, Regionalism and governance in the Americas: continental drift (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Renata Keller, ‘Building “Nuestra América”: national sovereignty and regional integration in the
Americas’, Contexto Internacional 35: 2, July–Dec. 2013, pp. 537–64.
Lorca, ‘International law in Latin America or Latin American international law’.
Thorp, Progress, poverty and exclusion.
Joseph S. Tulchin, Latin America in international politics: challenging US hegemony (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner,
2016).
Long, Latin America confronts the United States.
Casper Sylvest, ‘Continuity and change in British liberal internationalism, c. 1900–1930’, Review of International
Studies 31: 2, April 2005, pp. 263–83.
See Lauren Benton and Lisa Ford, Rage for order (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), pp. 164–76.
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counterbalanced by conservative or nationalist forces within their own societies.
Even when Latin American liberals had the upper hand at home, they were not
always welcomed into Eurocentric international society on equal terms.48
Instead, Latin America often found itself on the margins of the LIO—but
not without some influence. It shaped expansive, if thin, regional international
institutions during the early twentieth century.49 The region developed important works on international law, though these were often defensive in content.50
The progress of democracy was uneven, and states’ international economic insertion was characterized by great fluctuations in models and performance.51 While
some authors interpret this as an absence of agency,52 one can instead treat Latin
American agency as present but conditioned by domestic forces and international
power asymmetry.53 Both critics and proponents of the LIO agree that asymmetries are central to the system’s creation and operation. Latin America offers an
important locale for a more thorough examination of peripheral states’ engagement with asymmetrical international orders—to the detriment of their societies,
some might argue—and for a close examination of international order’s effects on
processes of state formation and economic development.
The following historical sketch outlines potential insights into the LIO from
Latin American experiences. The focus is on Latin America’s relation to the LIO’s
critical junctures and on how we might understand the region’s international
position in this context. During two centuries of Latin American independence,
leaders have variously adopted, adapted, rejected and embraced aspects of liberal
international ideas and practices on politics and economics, even as their countries
were often left at the margins of the emerging, partly liberal, community of states.
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56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
Joseph Smith, Illusions of conflict: Anglo-American diplomacy toward Latin America, 1865–1896 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979).
Smith, Illusions of conflict, pp. 3–24.
Eric Helleiner and Antulio Rosales, ‘Peripheral thoughts for international political economy: Latin American ideational innovation and the diffusion of the nineteenth century free trade doctrine’, International Studies Quarterly 61: 4, Dec. 2017, pp. 924–34; Nils Jacobsen, ‘“Liberalismo tropical”: cómo explicar el auge de
una doctrina económica europea en América Latina, 1780–1885’, Historia Crítica, no. 34, July–Dec. 2007, pp.
118–47.
Miguel Angel Centeno, Blood and debt: war and the nation-state in Latin America (University Park, PA: Penn State
Press, 2002), esp. pp. 62–3, 154–60.
Grandin, ‘The liberal traditions in the Americas’.
Maia and Taylor, ‘The Brazilian liberal tradition and the global order’, pp. 37–46.
Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine (New York: Hill & Wang, 2011), pp. 140–46.
Carsten-Andreas Schulz, On the standing of states: Latin America in nineteenth-century international society, PhD
diss., University of Oxford, 2015.
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British investment in and trade with Latin America expanded markedly during the
period, affecting elite and state formation. As the twentieth century unfolded, the
western hemisphere was the crucial site of commercial and strategic competition
and accommodation between the United States and Britain.56
New Latin American states may not have been ‘rule-makers’ in the British
international order; however, an important segment of Latin American elites
actively favoured Britain as a bulwark against Spanish efforts at reconquest and
because liberal ideas aligned with their republican views and opposition to trade
restrictions.57 Liberal economic ideas, including those of key British thinkers,
were widely known and debated in the region throughout the nineteenth century.
Liberal philosophy influenced a period of export-oriented commercial policy in
Latin America, though liberals struggled to wean governments from reliance on
tariff revenues, and nationalist economic policies also had many adherents.58
More generally, political liberalism was unevenly embraced both within Latin
American societies and in the emerging liberal powers’ views of Latin Americans.
Liberalism at home remained a contentious question throughout the period of the
British-led LIO, provoking conflict in many countries between liberals on the one
hand and on the other conservatives, who favoured rigid social hierarchies and a
central role for the Catholic Church (in contrast to the Protestant Anglo-American
powers).59 Grandin argues that Latin Americans developed distinctive notions
of the relationship between individual rights and sovereignty from the United
States and Britain;60 but even this distinctive liberalism was far from universal. In
Brazil, liberalism was juxtaposed first with monarchy and slaveholding and later
with military authoritarianism and centralized developmentalism.61 The Mexican
liberal leader Benito Juárez (president 1861–72) favoured close ties with the United
States in opposition to conservatives who sought to—and briefly did—­re-­establish
European monarchy.62 The United States, of course, also experienced deep and
deadly divisions on these issues but, after its own civil war, claimed a leading
international role in a way that Latin American states could not. Even liberal Latin
Americans were not accorded full participation in the European society of states.
Latin American diplomats frequently argued for inclusion under the standard of
civilization, which created an international legal hierarchy, rather than rejecting
the standard’s legitimacy.63 Despite that, they often found themselves relegated
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The US-led LIO’s founding moments
Most accounts of the origins of the US-led LIO emphasize two key figures:
­Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These narratives,
particularly those of more supportive scholars, tend to emphasize the policymakers’ interactions with Europe and, in the case of FDR, Asia. Critical accounts
have focused on these figures’ continuation of imperial/colonial relationships and
the race, class and gender biases in founding moments. Latin America’s relative
absence from both strands is a particular oversight because US–Latin American
relations were fundamental to both Presidents’ foreign policy evolutions and
world-views.
Wilson, best known for the Fourteen Points and his advocacy of international
organization, appears as both a pivotal historical figure and a liberal/colonial archetype. Critical accounts point out that his record was notoriously retrograde on
‘the race question’, including keeping African American men out of Princeton and
then pushing them to the corners of federal employment.64 Racial p­ aternalism—
both Wilson’s and that of his European counterparts—also marked the post-1918
international system. This occurred most notably through the League of Nations
mandate system, which denied Africans, Asians, Arabs and Pacific islanders
the right to self-rule on the basis of assumptions that they were incapable of
­governance without ‘civilized’ tutelage.65 Parmar argues that ‘Wilson’s conviction
that US intervention in world affairs was essential’ to set the mould for the early
development of the LIO after the First World War.66 Ikenberry has recognized
this point, agreeing that ‘the liberal internationalism of the Woodrow Wilson era
was built around civilizational, racial and cultural hierarchies. It was a creature of
the western white man’s world.’67
64
65
66
67
Eric S. Yellin, Racism in the nation’s service: government workers and the color line in Woodrow Wilson’s America (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013).
Pedersen, The guardians.
Parmar, ‘The US-led liberal order’, p. 155.
Ikenberry, ‘The end of liberal international order?’, pp. 14–15.
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to secondary or marginal positions—in inter-American relations, at the Hague in
1907 and then in the League of Nations.
During this period, Latin America seems to fall into the gap between attention to Great Power interactions (the US–British power transition) and to those
powers’ colonial and imperial practices. Latin American countries may feature as
the battlefield, the prizes or the victims of frequent Great Power intervention,
but rarely as international actors in their own right. If we are to understand the
effects of the LIO on sovereign but relatively weak states—a central contemporary
issue—this is a major oversight. How did these dynamics affect the early version
of the LIO? How did this early LIO affect Latin America’s development, including
elite composition and definition of national interests? From the perspective of the
LIO debate, or at least its major English-language currents, these questions remain
largely unexplored.
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68
69
70
71
72
73
Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonian statecraft: theory and practice of liberal internationalism during World War I (Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 38.
Schoultz, Beneath the United States; Fredrick B. Pike, The United States and Latin America: myths and stereotypes of
civilization and nature (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992).
Quoted in Keller, ‘Building “Nuestra América”’; Mark T. Gilderhus, Pan American visions: Woodrow Wilson in
the western hemisphere, 1913–1921 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986).
Constance G. Anthony, ‘American democratic interventionism: romancing the iconic Woodrow Wilson’,
International Studies Perspectives 9: 3, Aug. 2008, pp. 239–53; Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: military occupation and the culture of US imperialism, 1915–1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Alan
McPherson, The invaded: how Latin Americans and their allies fought and ended US occupations (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2014).
Alan McPherson, ‘Anti-imperialism and the failure of the League of Nations’, in Alan McPherson and Yannick
Wehrli, eds, Beyond geopolitics: new histories of Latin America at the League of Nations (Santa Fe: University of New
Mexico Press, 2015), pp. 21–32.
Benjamin Allen Coates, Legalist empire: international law and American foreign relations in the early twentieth century
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), ch. 5, examines this tradition, but gives Latin American agency little
credit. Cf. Juan Pablo Scarfi, The hidden history of international law in the Americas: empire and legal networks (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2017); David Sheinin, ed., Beyond the ideal: Pan-Americanism in inter-American
affairs (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000).
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To what extent did this system also reflect Wilson’s earlier experiences of
‘teaching’ Latin Americans about good governance? One account of Wilson’s
liberal internationalism notes that ‘the president began to develop the idea of
collective security in the Western Hemisphere’ and saw postwar plans as ‘the
extension of [his] Latin American policy’.68 Wilson’s designs in both hemispheres
were marked by crusading notions of paternalistic progressivism and ‘uplift’, with
limitations on national self-determination and democratic governance. US policymakers’ racial contexts and prejudices also shaped policy towards Latin America
in the decades before the First World War.69 Wilson himself ordered multiple
military interventions in the region and infamously defended an intervention in
Mexico with the goal of ‘teaching the South American republics to elect good
men’.70 Wilson’s interventions were justified by democratic and progressive ideals,
but were equally marked by racial paternalism, notably in the long, brutal occupation of Haiti.71 Latin Americans decried the contrast between Wilson’s rhetorical embrace of self-determination and US occupations that denied that right to
Haitians and Dominicans; they would later attempt to use Wilson’s own League
of Nations to limit US unilateralism.72
However, the paternalistic progressivism of Wilson’s interventions in Latin
America differed from the mandate system in important ways: notably, in that the
US occupations violated the nominal sovereignty of the intervened. Most mandates
had never been recognized as possessing juridical international sovereignty. Some
US interventions evaded this problem by sending in the Marines at the invitation of
an (at least nominally) governing party—as in the case of Nicaragua—but this was
certainly not the case in Mexico, where Wilson intervened militarily twice. The
violation of sovereignty provided a rallying cry for many other Latin Americans,
who responded in part through international legal innovation.
US experience with international law and burgeoning pan-American inter­
national organization informed its international projects.73 These practices,
formed in the Americas—and not just by US fiat—clearly affected the ­Wilsonian
inter­­­
national project of 1919. Grandin argues that, ‘based on principles of
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74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
Grandin, ‘The liberal traditions in the Americas’, p. 72.
For an earlier period, see Brian Loveman, No higher law: American foreign policy and the western hemisphere since
1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010).
Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the rise of
American power (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); Scarfi, The hidden history of international law in
the Americas, pp. 31–4.
Stefan Rinke, Latin America and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
McPherson and Wehrli, eds, Beyond geopolitics.
Eugênio Vargas Garcia, ‘A candidatura do Brasil a um assento permanente no conselho da Liga das Nações’,
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional 37: 1, 1994, pp. 5–23.
McPherson and Wehrli, eds, Beyond geopolitics.
Eric Helleiner, Forgotten foundations of Bretton Woods: international development and the making of the postwar order
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014).
The creation of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America is a salient example. See Hernán Santa
Cruz, ‘La creación de las Naciones Unidas y de la CEPAL’, Revista de la CEPAL, no. 57, Dec. 1995, pp. 17–32.
J. Tillapaugh, ‘Closed hemisphere and open world? The dispute over regional security at the UN conference,
1945’, Diplomatic History 2: 1, Jan. 1978, pp. 25–42.
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non-­aggression, international arbitration, and economic justice, [Latin Americans] developed a sovereignty–social rights complex … that would revolutionize the interstate system’.74 Latin American legal practices of uti possidetis and
pan-American conferences shaped US plans for the League, Grandin notes. More
generally, Latin America shaped US international behaviours in the hemisphere
and globally.75 The overlaps were often quite concrete, as in the case of the League
covenant. Parmar notes the role of the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in shaping Wilson’s international designs; the same organization supported
the development of international law in the Americas.76
In many respects, the First World War brought Latin America more deeply
into the ‘global’ than ever before.77 The United States shirked the global postwar
system its President had helped design, but Latin America largely embraced it.
The League of Nations and the new International Labour Organization offered
opportunities to bolster multilateralism and gain greater access to international
society, while shaping developments in technical cooperation, labour rights and
arbitration.78 This was not an entirely smooth experience; Brazil quit the League
in disgust when defeated Germany was granted a permanent seat while its own
aspirations were ignored.79 Other Latin American states also had tense relations
with the new body and at times shunned it, but there were important successes,
too.80 More attention to Latin America’s interwar role would add nuance to a
period often examined largely as the failure of the LIO. For example, Helleiner
has shown how ideas that shaped Bretton Woods emerged from inter-American
policies during this time.81
Moving forward, Latin American diplomats were significant actors in the
creation of the post-Second World War system, translating their numerical weight
and diplomatic skill into influence, particularly in the preservation of regional
systems and the creation of social, cultural and economic components.82 Having
been promised a rejuvenated, more multilateral inter-American system in the
1945 Chapultepec conference, Latin Americans defended that goal at the San
Francisco conference that launched the United Nations. Their threat of a walkout
prompted the Great Powers to shift their positions and make space for regional
systems under Article 51 of the UN Charter.83 Latin Americans also shaped the
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84
85
86
87
88
89
90
Helleiner, Forgotten foundations of Bretton Woods.
Mary Ann Glendon, ‘The forgotten crucible: the Latin American influence on the universal human rights
idea’, Harvard Human Rights Journal, vol. 16, Spring 2003, p. 27.
Thomas Legler, Sharon Lean and Dexter Boniface, eds, Promoting democracy in the Americas (Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
Morris Morley and Chris McGillion, Reagan and Pinochet (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Kathryn Sikkink, ‘Latin American countries as norm protagonists of the idea of international human rights’,
Global Governance 20: 3, July–Sept. 2014, pp. 389–404.
Acharya, The end of American world order, p. 43.
Max Paul Friedman and Tom Long, ‘Soft balancing in the Americas: Latin American opposition to US intervention, 1898–1936’, International Security 40: 1, Summer 2015, pp. 120–56.
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development content of the Bretton Woods institutions at this time.84 Concepts
of human rights advanced by Latin American jurists, and previously developed
in the western hemisphere, strongly influenced the 1948 Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.85 Latin American ideas of democracy promotion, including
non-recognition of governments that had taken office by coup, have roots dating at
least to the 1907 Tovar Doctrine. They gained new life in the immediate post-1945
period, though the willingness to put pro-democracy norms into practice was often
limited. Uruguay’s 1945–6 Larreta Doctrine on collective intervention in defence
of democracy failed against Latin American opposition, as did the later Venezuelan
Betancourt Doctrine. Military authoritarians and dubious democrats have shielded
one another’s abuses behind the rhetoric of sovereignty and non-intervention.86
Even when the United States pushed for democratization, intransigent dictators
often resisted those pressures.87 Still, the flame of Latin American support for
democratic governance and human and social rights endured. Civil society and
regional juridical practices against human rights abuses in the 1970s and 1980s
reshaped global discourses and policies.88 These episodes support Acharya’s view
that the LIO was not only made in the USA; Latin American and others’ contributions ‘helped to localize and strengthen’ international order.89 However, these
contributions have rarely been examined in depth in the context of the LIO debate
to furnish a better understanding of that order. Instead, secondary powers and
minor states are seen as accepting bargains for their benefits or suffering as victims,
but rarely as shaping central aspects of the LIO’s formation. In practice, liberals,
radicals and reactionaries in Latin America all jousted with Washington to shape
the rules and their application.
Attention to the interwar period, and to the influence of the Good Neighbor
Policy on evolving US and Latin American views of international order, would
not just uncover the ‘forgotten foundations’ of other US policies; it would help to
show how those policies have been shaped from the margins—sometimes through
explicit attempts to constrain US unilateralism.90 These contributions merit inclusion in the narrative; their relative absence reflects the ensuing marginalization of
Latin America from the order that its diplomats supported and shaped in Bretton
Woods and San Francisco.
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Cold War
91
92
93
94
95
96
Leslie Bethell and Ian Roxborough, Latin America between the Second World War and the Cold War: crisis and
containment, 1944–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Many of these liberals, such as Venezuela’s Rómulo Betancourt and Costa Rica’s José Figueres, were fervent
anti-communists. See Aaron Coy Moulton, ‘Building their own Cold War in their own backyard: the transnational, international conflicts in the greater Caribbean basin, 1944–1954’, Cold War History 15: 2, 2015, pp.
135–54; Kyle Longley, The sparrow and the hawk: Costa Rica and the United States during the rise of José Figueres
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997).
Christopher Hemmer and Peter J. Katzenstein, ‘Why is there no NATO in Asia? Collective identity, regionalism, and the origins of multilateralism’, International Organization 56: 3, Summer 2002, pp. 575–607; Galia
Press-Barnathan, Organizing the world: the United States and regional cooperation in Asia and Europe (New York:
Routledge, 2004).
Max Paul Friedman, ‘Fracas in Caracas: Latin American diplomatic resistance to United States intervention
in Guatemala in 1954’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 21: 4, 2010, pp. 669–89.
For recent histories of the US and Latin America during the Cold War, see Brands, Latin America’s Cold
War; Stephen G. Rabe, The killing zone: the United States wages Cold War in Latin America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011).
David F. Schmitz, Thank God they’re on our side: the United States and right-wing dictatorships, 1921–1965 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
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While Latin Americans shaped the institutions of the post-Second World War
order in their region and globally, the concrete benefits of the LIO fell short of
their expectations, particularly in terms of material support for economic development. Many Latin American liberals, whose influence had increased between
1944 and 1947,91 were sidelined as anti-communism trumped democracy in US
and LIO priorities.92 Though the origins of US–European and US–Asian postwar
relations have received extensive attention, the reborn inter-American system
plays little role in these IR debates.93
During the Cold War, Latin America was part zone of contestation and
part second-class member of what Ikenberry calls the western order inside the
world system. Initially, the United States counted on—and largely received—
Latin American backing in international organizations, particularly in the UN
General Assembly. This began to change as Latin American diplomats used
the inter-American system to extract greater concessions in exchange for their
support against communism.94 Of course, US–Latin American relationships were
not always negotiated, and even when they were not as equals. Examples of US
coercion, often in the name of preserving liberal (anti-communist) international
order are myriad, including covert operations in Guatemala in 1954, in Guyana
in the early 1960s, in Cuba for decades, in Chile in the early 1970s, and in central
America during the 1980s. Invasions of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and
Grenada in 1983 were only the most obvious instances in which the United States
awarded itself exemption from the LIO’s rules.95 In other cases, the United States
tolerated or directly supported illiberal rulers who maintained stability and diplomatic support in Latin America and elsewhere.96
Latin America’s role in the Cold War has not been a major part of the discussion of the LIO. For critics, US interventions in the region might be proof that
imposition and violence are the core of the LIO—Exhibit A of the imperial nature
of US policy. Ikenberry, too, categorizes US relationships with Latin America as
‘crudely imperial’. However, recent historical scholarship has demonstrated the
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Liberal at last?
When the liberal order expanded at the end of the Cold War, it seemed that Latin
America’s full membership might be at hand. From the mid-1980s, the region
embraced the LIO’s tenets as readily as any other across the globe. Elections
97
98
99
Renata Keller, Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the legacy of the Mexican revolution (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Andrew Hurrell, The quest for autonomy: the evolution of Brazil’s role in the international system, 1964–1985 (Brasilia:
Alexandre de Gusmão Foundation, 2013; first publ. 1986).
Arie M. Kacowicz, The impact of norms in international society: the Latin American experience, 1881–2001 (Notre
Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005). Brazil later diverged, partially, from the nuclear-free
consensus. See Hurrell, The quest for autonomy, pp. 136–8, 160–64; also Ryan A. Musto, ‘“A desire so close to
the hearts of all Latin Americans”: utopian ideals and imperfections behind Latin America’s nuclear weapon
free zone’, Bulletin of Latin American Research 37: 3, April 2018, pp. 160–74.
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importance of Latin American agency during the Cold War; a better understanding
of these complex relationships would add nuance to accounts of the LIO during
the period. Mexico delicately managed relations with both the United States
and Fidel Castro’s Cuba to burnish its regime’s fading revolutionary credentials
without jeopardizing economic growth.97 In their ‘quest for autonomy’, Brazil’s
generals maintained a certain distance from the US despite shared opposition to
communism. At times they were ahead of the United States in repressing the
region’s left; at others, their developmentalist policies conflicted with Washington’s goals.98 In a more positive light, even partial inclusion in the LIO facilitated the region’s emergence as a nuclear weapons-free zone and contributed to
the relative absence from Latin America of interstate militarized conflicts after
the Second World War, though internal conflicts and US interventions could be
equally destabilizing and devastating.99 In practice, Latin American support for or
contestation of US policies varied widely. Scholarship on Latin America’s Cold
War emphasizes overlapping local, regional and national dimensions of conflicts.
However, the international dimension has largely been considered in terms of
US–Soviet bipolarity. A more complete picture would consider how the LIO
shaped Latin American preferences and choices. Globally, the emergence of new
states through decolonization provided diplomatic partners for Latin Americans
seeking to challenge the United States. However, liberal internationalism remained
influential in Latin America’s Cold War, which saw struggles for democracy and
multilateralism at local, regional and global levels. International institutions were
sites not just of hegemonic coercion but of both resistance and willing cooperation as well. This included US-backed regional and subregional organizations that
diluted or mediated US influence. A fuller picture of the LIO during the Cold
War requires a better understanding of how it operated in Latin America and how
Latin American states engaged with, accepted, challenged, revised or influenced it.
These processes were in play from the founding moments, at which Latin Americans were not only present but active, through the middle of the Cold War when
democracy barely survived in the region, to the resuscitation of liberal regional
traditions during the 1980s amid repression and bloodletting.
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100
Jorge Heine and Brigitte Weiffen, 21st century democracy promotion in the Americas: standing up for the polity (New
York: Routledge, 2015); Thomas Legler, ‘The shifting sands of regional governance: the case of inter-­
American democracy promotion’, Politics and Policy 40: 5, June 2012, pp. 848–70.
101
Edwin Goñi, J. Humberto López and Luis Servén, ‘Fiscal redistribution and income inequality in Latin America’, World Development 39: 9, Sept. 2011, pp. 1558–69.
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spread; economic barriers fell; regional commitments to democracy were made
and strengthened. Ambitious plans for subregional and hemispheric trade were
advanced, often including enthusiastic cooperation with the United States. Many
Latin American states expanded their involvement with UN peacekeeping, global
environmental governance and global trade regimes.
However, this engagement often provoked greater disappointment. The order’s
reach was broad, but not deep. De jure democracy was supported—in some cases,
regional commitments helped turn back threats to democratic rule—but regional
democratic norms were applied unevenly, and rarely against incumbents, sapping
the instruments of legitimacy.100 In many more countries, weak state capacity
undermined the gains from democratic governance. Liberalization, which had
emerged largely in response to debt and economic crisis, was broadly perceived
as having exacerbated inequalities. Ikenberry argues that the LIO’s crisis in core
states results from the decline of ‘embedded liberalism’ and the rise of neo-liberalism, which reduced state capacities to cushion global economic fluctuations. This
dynamic was more pernicious and came earlier in Latin America, long marked by
high inequality and little propensity on the part of elites to support redistributive
taxation.101 Privatization helped balance the budgets of heavily indebted governments but also limited their ability to respond to dislocation and discontent.
International and constitutional commitments to social guarantees—Grandin’s
‘sovereignty–social rights complex’—often remained paper thin. Meanwhile, the
explosion of global connections facilitated transnational corruption and illicit
trade alongside legal exchanges. A plethora of illicit non-state actors benefited
from the underbelly of LIO-inspired globalization; products and funds were
easier to move than ever, but the lack of a legal framework meant that markets
were opaque and disputes were settled with violence. Not all these problems can
or should be blamed on the LIO; nor should they be disconnected from domestic
causes. However, in many of these issues, international drivers are central. PostCold War democracy promotion, engagement with international financial institutions and evolving patterns of trade are deeply connected, and profoundly rooted
historically, in the region’s uneven engagement with the LIO.
Discontent set the stage for two important shifts, both with ambiguous effects
for Latin America’s engagement with the LIO. The first was the emergence of the
‘new left’ or ‘pink tide’ in the region. There is nothing necessarily anti-LIO about
a turn to the left—the post-1945 refoundation emerged in the context of the US
New Deal and a brief opening for the Latin American democratic left. However,
this time many new left leaders rejected both US leadership and participation in
the LIO at a time when Washington itself was trampling on international norms
in the name of the war on terror. Liberal regional commitments on democracy,
human rights and trade waned, while enthusiasm grew for the creation of subre-
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Conclusions
Latin America has been marginal in the study of the origins and operations, causes
and consequences, of the liberal international order. There is much to learn from
the region’s evolution alongside that of the LIO, its longstanding contributions
to the international law, norms and institutions that form the LIO’s core, and its
experience of partial inclusion in an asymmetrical order. Studying Latin American
engagement with the LIO would provide a more robust understanding of the role
of secondary powers and small states in the order’s creation and continuation. We
have sketched these gaps above, but much work remains to be done.
As IR increasingly recognizes the need to incorporate non-US and
non-European perspectives to become a truly global field,105 the literature on the
LIO would benefit from engagement with concepts and theories emerging from
Latin American scholarship—only briefly signalled here. How do the negotiated
bargains of hierarchy, as seen by scholars such as Ikenberry and Lake, square with
concepts like autonomy and international insertion more often emphasized by
Latin American IR?106 The debate over whether to join hegemonic hierarchies or
prioritize principles is surely relevant to understanding the choices of secondary
states.107 Latin America has the longest sovereign history of any region in facing
102
For a discussion of regionalism during this period, see Pía Riggirozzi, ‘Region, regionness and regionalism
in Latin America: towards a new synthesis’, New Political Economy 17: 4, 2012, pp. 421–43; Tom Chodor and
Anthea McCarthy-Jones, ‘Post-liberal regionalism in Latin America and the influence of Hugo Chávez’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research 19: 2, 2013, pp. 211–23.
103
Marco Antonio Vieira and Chris Alden, ‘India, Brazil, and South Africa (IBSA): South–South cooperation
and the paradox of regional leadership’, Global Governance 17: 4, Oct.–Dec. 2011, pp. 507–28.
104
Cf. Jorge G. Castañeda, ‘Not ready for prime time: why including emerging powers at the helm would hurt
global governance’, Foreign Affairs 89: 5, Sept.–Oct. 2010, pp. 109–22; Jorge G. Castañeda and Oliver Stuenkel,
The BRICS and the future of global order (Lexington, KY: Lexington Books, 2015).
105
Amitav Acharya, ‘Advancing global IR: challenges, contentions, and contributions’, International Studies
Review 18: 1, March 2016, pp. 4–15.
106
Roberto Russell and Juan Gabriel Tokatlian, ‘From antagonistic autonomy to relational autonomy: a theoretical reflection from the Southern Cone’, Latin American Politics and Society 45: 1, Spring 2003, pp. 1–24;
Tullo Vigevani and Gabriel Cepaluni, A política externa brasileira: a busca da autonomia, de Sarney a Lula (São
Paulo, Brazil: Editora Unesp, 2016); Matias Spektor, ‘O projeto autonomista na política externa brasileira’, in
Aristides Monteiro Neto, ed., Política externa, espaço e desenvolvimento (Brasilia: Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica
Aplicada, 2014), pp. 17–58.
107
Carlos Escudé, ‘An introduction to peripheral realism and its implications for the interstate system’, in Stephanie G. Neuman, ed., International Relations theory and the Third World (New York: St Martin’s, 1998).
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gional orders with varying commitments to liberal norms.102 The second shift
was the ‘rise of the rest’, namely China. Together, these trends opened space for
greater Latin American participation in South–South diplomatic efforts, with
Brazil often leading the way.103 To an extent, this brought Latin America (or at
least Brazil) into the debate about whether rising powers will make the LIO less
liberal and less orderly.104 With a hint of déjà vu, these discussions often emphasize
US–Chinese competition and depict the region as a zone of Great Power rivalry.
There is tremendous diversity in Latin American responses to this conjuncture,
in which Latin American liberals must also grapple with the inconsistency of the
LIO’s central players.
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this choice from the margins of international order, liberal or otherwise. These
choices look very different depending on geostrategic and economic position,
even within Latin America. The region’s diversity offers a wide variety of perspectives, contexts and experiences. Including Latin America in the study of the LIO
offers much more than a new set of cases; it should provoke a deep rethinking of
the relationships at the core of that order, as well as the theory and concepts we
use to explain them.
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Cambridge Review of International Affairs
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccam20
The Latin American politics of international law:
Latin American countries’ engagements with
international law and their contradictory impact
on the liberal international order
Juan Pablo Scarfi
To cite this article: Juan Pablo Scarfi (2022) The Latin American politics of international law:
Latin American countries’ engagements with international law and their contradictory impact
on the liberal international order, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 35:5, 662-679,
DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2021.1920887
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2021.1920887
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Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2022
Vol. 35, No. 5, 662–679, https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2021.1920887
The Latin American politics of international law: Latin
American countries’ engagements with international law
and their contradictory impact on the liberal
international order
Juan Pablo Scarfi
University of San Andres
Abstract Recent studies on international law and liberalism have shown
convincingly that both liberal internationalism and international law have played a
central role in the international politics of Latin America and that Latin American
countries have contributed to the consolidation of multilateralism and the Liberal
International Order (LIO). Yet, the connections between the institutionalisation of
international law and the rise of liberal internationalism in the region have tended to
be overlooked. This article examines the genealogy of these connections, focusing on the
emergence of two contending legal traditions, a solidarist liberal internationalist
tradition and a pluralist and political one. The article argues that the emergence of
these opposing legal traditions across the region have had a contradictory impact on the
formation of the LIO, contributing to its emergence and consolidation by promoting
multilateralism, and to challenging and revising some of its fundamentals when
stressing a strong attachment to absolute non-intervention.
Introduction
Latin American Countries’ engagement with the practice and theory of modern
international law has been a dominant feature since the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries. Latin American engagements with the Liberal
International Order (LIO), and the emergence of a specific liberal internationalist tradition in the region, has only very recently become a subject of scholarly
attention (Long 2018; Grandin 2012). Yet scholarship has traditionally overlooked the connections between the institutionalisation of international law
and the rise of liberal internationalism in the region. This article examines the
genealogy of these connections, focusing on the emergence of two opposing
legal traditions in the formative period of the US-led LIO (consolidated in
1945), a solidarist liberal internationalist one and a pluralist and political one.
The former tradition advocated a unitary, continental ideal of American international law and Pan-American hemispheric solidarity, based on a
A first preliminary version of this paper was delivered at
America in the Liberal International Order,” held in November
University, Baltimore. I am particularly grateful to Max Paul
journal special issue Christy Thornton and J. Luis Rodriguez
comments on different versions of my paper.
# 2021 Department of Politics and International Studies
the Research Colloquium “Latin
14 and 15, 2019 at Johns Hopkins
Friedman and the editors of the
for their detailed and thoughtful
The Latin American politics of international law 663
combination of primarily US and Latin American legal values. This system
maintained an optimistic and even humanitarian faith in the formation of USled liberal internationalism and the main institutions associated with the LIO,
including Bretton Woods, the UN and especially the Inter-American System
and the OAS Charter. By contrast, the latter tradition promoted a regional
defensive approach to Latin American international law and thus invoked it as
a political instrument to challenge US liberal imperialism and the emerging
US-led LIO in an attempt to limit US interventionism and unilateral practices
in the region. The article thus proposes a historically rooted typology of these
two opposing approaches to international law and liberal internationalism.
Focusing on the microcosm of the Americas, and the international legal
thought of Isidro Fabela, Alejandro Alvarez and Carlos Saavedra Lamas, it
concentrates on the transitions from the League of Nations to the UN and
from the Pan American Union to the OAS.
This article focuses on the institutionalisation of international law in the
Americas, and I have used the term ‘the Latin American politics of international law’ to grasp the opposing legal and political sensibilities adopted by
Latin American international lawyers and diplomats and the different layers of
these two opposing internationalist solidarist and pluralist traditions as they
emerged in the region (Koskenniemi 1990). Most of the early founders of international law as a modern discipline in Europe, as Martti Koskenniemi has
observed, ‘were imperialists not irrespective of their liberalism but as a consequence of it’ (Koskenniemi 2011, 3). A dominant Pan-American liberal international and imperial legal approach, based on US legal and political values,
shaped the emergence of international law as a modern discipline in Latin
America and the US. Financially supported by the Carnegie Endowment of
International Peace and based in Washington DC, the American Institute of
International Law (AIIL), emerged as the principal continental international
law organisation in the Americas, and was created in 1915 by two leading figures in the field, the US and Chilean jurists James Brown Scott and Alejandro
Alvarez (Scarfi 2017). The AIIL jointed together all the national societies of
international law of the Americas and thus promoted a continental approach
to what their leading members term American international law. As such, the
AIIL epitomised the solidarist and Pan-American liberal internationalist
approach, for the leading members of its executive committee maintained an
optimistic faith in the consolidation of the US-led LIO. The pluralist legal tradition was composed instead of a rather eclectic and skeptical group of both liberal and non-liberal jurists, who shared a common concern about the limits of
international law and international organisations for balancing imperialist and
hegemonic practices and moderating great power politics. Liberalism in the
Americas thus cannot be fully understood as a single unified family, since different solidarist optimistic and skeptical pluralist varieties were deployed
(Jaksic and Posada Carb
o 2011).
In recent years, a number of scholars in different disciplines have begun to
critically examine the historical and contemporary connections between liberalism and empire (Bell 2016; Armitage 2000; Pitts 2005). Similarly, recent revisionist literature, associated to the so-called historical turn in international law,
has explored the connections between international law and empire
(Koskenniemi 2001; Anghie 2005; Coates 2016). Within this literature, Latin
664 Juan Pablo Scarfi
America has tended to be overlooked.1 This article engages with these two
bodies of revisionist literature on liberalism and empire, and international law
and empire, focusing on the regional reactions provoked by the rise of US
hegemony as an informal empire in Latin America in the context of the formation of the LIO. As such, it critically examines the historical genesis of a USled LIO in the Americas. It conceives the US-led LIO created in 1945 as a set of
norm-based institutional and multilateral arrangements in matters of security,
military power, economic trade, consultation and negotiation of US decisions
and a set of shared liberal values, all deeply historically grounded on US-led
liberal imperialist roots (Deudney and Ikenberry 1999; Bell, 2016; Parmar
2018). These imperial roots manifested in the Americas through regular US
interventionist policies in the region between 1907 and 1933 (Long 2018).
Rather than regarding the US-led LIO as illiberal, as has been contended in
recent literature, this article postulates that in its genesis there were close connections between US liberal internationalism and imperial ideologies, which in
turn influenced the institutionalisation of international law in the Americas.
Therefore, Latin America’s engagement with international law generated a
contradictory impact on the US-led LIO that merits exploration, paying special
attention to such connections between liberal internationalism, US imperialism
and Latin American anti-imperialism. The paper shows thus that Latin
America contributed to legal innovation as adaptation to the US-led LIO and
to an opposing legal quest for reversing it, politicising international law and
US interventionism (Long 2018).
Moreover, a new body of literature on Latin American regionalism has
stressed in recent years the need to historicise Latin American contributions to
the international order and the LIO. The debate on Latin American ‘post-hegemonic regionalism’ in particular has stimulated a fruitful discussion in this
regard, especially about the long history of Latin American regionalism
(Riggirozzi and Tussie 2012). Contributions by Petersen and Schulz (2018) and
Fawcett (2019) have made a case for historicising Latin American regionalism
and its contribution to multilateralism, identifying long-standing historical patterns that suggest that the agenda of post-hegemonic regionalism is ‘much
older’ and that Latin American approaches to regionalism have generated
opposing regional trends in clear consensus with the international order, as
well as in tension with it. In other words, even in hegemonic contexts, such as
the emergence of the US-led LIO, Latin America has tended to maintain a
strong regional agenda. Indeed, in the case of Latin American jurists, as
explored in this article, they advanced a quest to overturn the US-led LIO promoting a radical anti-imperialist politicisation of international law and regional
ideas of absolute non-intervention. This paper contributes to this literature and
thus to historicising Latin American regionalism by offering a different insight
into the intellectual history of how Latin American jurists envisioned the
emerging US-led LIO and reacted to it in opposing ways when international
law was institutionalised across the region.
The paper argues that international law was deployed as a liberal internationalist solidarist tool for legal innovation in support of the emerging USled LIO and as a pluralist instrument for political and anti-imperialist
1
Two exceptions are Grandin (2012) and Long (2018).
The Latin American politics of international law 665
resistance in an attempt to overturn the LIO, especially US interventionism in
Latin America. This politicisation of international law generated a long-standing opposition between these two continental and regional legal traditions
(Scarfi 2018). The emergence of the US as an informal empire in the context of
the construction of a hemispheric legal tradition in Latin America and the
regional politicisation of international law have tended to be overlooked.2
The article is divided into three sections. The first of these focuses on the
Mexican Revolution and the rise of a broader Latin American pluralist critique
of US interventionism and the reformulation of the principle of non-intervention. The second section examines the emergence of an epistemic continental
legal community following the Second Hague Peace Conference, the creation
of the AIIL in the context of the First World War, and the rise of a solidarist
and Pan-American liberal internationalist approach to international law. The
third section explores the emergence of inter-American multilateralism and the
institutionalisation of the principle of non-intervention in the context of the
Montevideo Conference of 1933 and its legacy in the consolidation of the OAS
and the LIO in the 1940s. The conclusion assesses the contradictory impact of
the Latin American politics of international law over the LIO, focusing on the
tensions between the promotion of US-led and Pan-American liberal internationalism on the one hand, and the principle of absolute non-intervention on
the other.
The Mexican revolution, the critique of US interventionism and the Latin
American redefinition of the principle of non-intervention
The international impact and external reactions to the Mexican Revolution generated revisions among Mexican diplomats and international lawyers regarding the precedents and nature of the Latin American tradition of international
law. In particular, it led to a Latin American critique of the Monroe Doctrine
and US interventionism and the construction of a robust anti-imperialist
approach to the principle of absolute non-intervention (Scarfi 2020, 2021). At
the same time, the institutionalisation of international law in the Americas and
the creation in 1915 of the AIIL, which coordinated the national societies of
international law, as will be shown in the next section, overlapped with the
Mexican Revolution and the First World War.
US President Woodrow Wilson’s intervention in Veracruz was highly
resented in Mexico and gave birth to the so-called Carranza Doctrine, formulated by Isidro Fabela, the Minister of Foreign Affairs under Venustiano
Carranza. It was an assertive anti-interventionist doctrine. In its first formulation, Fabela drew on the Calvo and Drago Doctrines, which were originally
formulated as inter-American principles to protect Latin American states primarily from European interventions to collect public debts, in an explicit
attempt to reconstruct a Latin American anti-interventionist legal tradition
(Veçoso 2020; Scarfi 2016). The Calvo Doctrine (1868) proposed by Carlos
Calvo, and the Drago Doctrine (1902), formulated by Luis M. Drago, stressed
that those who invested in a foreign country should make their claims within
2
Exceptions include Eslava et al (2017) and Scarfi (2017).
666 Juan Pablo Scarfi
local tribunals and courts, avoiding diplomatic or military interventions on the
part of states or governments. Both doctrines emphasised thus that juridical
distinctions between foreigners and nationals were inadmissible, since any
pecuniary claims, either from foreign or national investors, had to be settled in
local tribunals regardless of the nationality of the claimant (Veçoso 2020; Scarfi
2016). While Andres Bello, Calvo and Drago, were for the most part advocates
of the principle of non-intervention, Carranza and especially Fabela sought to
strengthen these precedents in order to revive and modernise at the same time
a distinctive Latin American international law. Tracing back the precedents
and (re)inventing a regional tradition was a defensive intellectual, legal and
diplomatic operation for legitimising the Mexican Revolution, which had clear
and explicit regional implications. Fabela sought to delink the Latin American
legal tradition from the US one and from the Pan-American legal approach
promoted by the AIIL. He opposed the Drago Doctrine, conceived as a juridical Latin American doctrine, to the US Monroe Doctrine, which, according to
him, could not be regarded as an authentic legal principle (Fabela 1957; Fabela
1946). He thus portrayed the Carranza Doctrine as a modernised synthesis of a
long-standing regional tradition of non-intervention in the face of the Monroe
Doctrine (Fabela, 1959, 131–138).
US armed and unilateral intervention in Veracruz by 1914 created an
opposite reaction in Mexico than in Argentina, Brazil and Chile (the ABC
countries). On the one hand, the reaction of the ABC countries was oriented
towards the promotion of a mediation between Mexico and the US, which led
later to initiatives, advocated mainly by US President Woodrow Wilson, for a
Pan-American Pact between the US and the ABC countries to enforce the
Monroe Doctrine as a hemispheric principle (Gilderhus 1986, 37–45). Originally
promoted in the 1880s by US Secretary of State James Blaine, PanAmericanism was a US-led policy of economic, political, legal and cultural
cooperation towards Latin America and operated as ‘the friendly face of US
hegemony’ in Latin America (Sheinin 2000, 1; Healy 2001). In this context there
was an important liberal international optimism about the progress of PanAmericanism, as well as great expectations for the consolidation of peace in
the Americas and the construction of a specific continental American international law, following the creation of the AIIL in 1915. The ABC mediation
itself was enthusiastically supported in the US since its enunciation. Argentine
ambassador to the US, Romulo Na
on, a fervent supporter of Pan-Americanism,
was one of its main promoters (Yankelevich 1997, 73–74; Gilderhus 1986,
30–35). The official response of the Mexican Foreign Office, formulated by
Fabela, was also to reject the ABC mediation and the armistice thereby proposed, arguing that Mexico would act according to its sovereign interests.
Indeed, according to Fabela ‘the ABC assumed the role of intervening in the
internal affairs of our republic’ (Serrano Migall
on 1981, 49). These US and ABC
intromissions in the internal affairs of Mexico led in turn to the germination of
the so-called Carranza Doctrine, which according to Fernando Serrano
Migall
on, was formulated by Fabela himself (Serrano Migall
on 1981, 161–163).
Fabela regarded the Monroe Doctrine as particularly problematic for Latin
American states, for it was above all a US unilateral political and elastic principle with no legal legitimacy or status as a principle of international law
(Serrano Migall
on 1981, 185; Scarfi 2020, 2021). By contrast, the Carranza
The Latin American politics of international law 667
Doctrine affirmed the principles of equality among nations, sovereignty and
absolute non-intervention in the internal affairs of another state as fundamental and universal interconnected principles; equality between foreigners and
nationals, leaving no room for national distinctions; diplomacy based on the
establishment of universal confraternity, avoiding the pressure of powerful
states over ‘weak nations’ (Serrano Migall
on 1981, 195; Fabela 2000). Moreover,
it rejected explicitly the Monroe Doctrine and any Pan-American redefinition
of it. Although some of these ideas were formulated by Calvo and Drago and
were to be institutionalised later in 1933 at the 7th Pan-American Conference
held in Montevideo, the Carranza Doctrine was pioneering. It was incorporated into article 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 (Serrano Migall
on
1981, 161). Fabela considered this article of the Mexican Constitution as a juridical confirmation of the Carranza Doctrine, in that it stated the principle of
non-intervention and non-interference of foreign capital or interests for any
exploitation of land and properties included within the jurisdiction of the
Mexican nation, stressing also the equal status of foreigners and nationals for
the acquisition of properties or land in Mexico (Scarfi 2021, 229).3
One of Fabela’s most famous works, The United States against Liberty (Los
Estados Unidos contra la libertad), published in 1920, should be read as a
result of Fabela’s international experience of dissemination of the Carranza
Doctrine across Europe and South America, Argentina, Brazil and Chile
between 1916 and 1917. He sought to gain international legal recognition for
Mexico, promoting a regional critique of US interventionism (Fabela 1920). US
politicians and diplomats disseminated a critical overview of Mexican affairs
and the transformations introduced by the Mexican Revolution, and Carranza
and Fabela were perceived as advocates of Pan-Hispanism and antiAmericanism (Britton 2006, 39). Unlike US-led Pan-Americanism, PanHispanism promoted Latin American and Hispanic traditions and became
prominent in the 1910s and 1920s, especially following the Mexican
Revolution, as a defensive initiative for regional integration, taking a step back
from US-led projects in the Americas and limiting US interventionism and
hegemony in Latin America. Pan-Hispanism was eventually regarded in US
foreign policy circles as the epitome of anti-Americanism and thus a threat to
US strategic interests.
Fabela adopted a pluralist approach to international law, one that grasped
the nature of legal principles in connection with power politics, highlighting
the limitations of weak countries in revolutionary circumstances, such as
Mexico, for deploying international law in the name of self-determination and
sovereignty. As such, he proved to be especially aware of the politics of international law in US-Latin American relations and the threats posed by US
3
Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution declared: ‘The domain of the nation is inalienable
and imprescriptible’ and that ‘only Mexicans by birth or naturalisation, and Mexican companies,
have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their appurtenances, or to obtain
concessions for the exploitation of mines, waters or minerals in the Mexican Republic. The State
may concede the same right to foreigners as long as they agree to be considered by the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs as nationals with respect to these goods and not to invoke, for this purpose, the
protection of their own governments with regard to them’. See Texto original de la Constitucion de
1917 y de las reformas publicadas en el Diario Oficial de la Federacion del 5 de febrero de 1917 al 1o. de
junio de 2009, Biblioteca Jurıdica Virtual del Instituto de Investigaciones Jurıdicas de la
UNAM, 138–9.
668 Juan Pablo Scarfi
liberal internationalism and US interventionism in Mexico, as promoted by US
President Wilson. Indeed, Fabela’s book provided a systematic overview of
US interventions in Central America and the Caribbean with a special
emphasis on Cuba and the Platt Amendment, which legitimised US interventions in Cuba (Fabela 1920; Scarfi 2021). This work was, according to
Modesto Seara Vazquez, a ‘fervent repudiation of intervention’ and a warning of what Fabela considered to be a systematic and constant violation of
international law on the part of the US (Seara Vazquez 1961, 84). As such,
the book could be read as a Latin American manifesto in defence of absolute non-intervention, postulating a reinvention of a Latin American international law tradition.
The title of Fabela’s book, The United States against Liberty, speaks for itself
as a testimony of a skeptical regional (liberal) critique of US liberal internationalism. The US could not present itself to behave in the name of liberty and
was not authentically liberal, according to Fabela, but rather acting against liberty and even liberalism, for it maintained policies of interventionism in Latin
America invoking the unilateral and elastic Monroe Doctrine and violating the
territorial integrity of weak nations (Fabela 1920). Fabela believed that in order
to be properly liberal it was essential for the US to maintain consitency
between principles and policies, and respect the right of self-determination of
Latin American nations.
Fabela was convinced that the emerging League of Nations failed to adopt
an anti-interventionist principle in the face of the Monroe Doctrine, since article 21 of the League Convenant accepted the doctrine as a ‘regional understanding’ (Northedge 1988, 324). As such, according to Fabela, it was a clear
manifestation of official international and European approval by a Europeanled international organisation like the League of Nations. Fabela’s skepticism
about the League proved to be sensible since the organisation became a complete failure in the years to come as an anti-imperialist institutional tool for
weak Latin American states to defend the principle of self-determination and
limit US interventions in the region (McPherson 2015). Following the creation
of the League of Nations, Fabela praised Carranza’s effort as a political and
pluralist diplomatic challenge to the Monroe Doctrine. He affirmed: ‘The
President of Mexico, Venustiano Carranza, is the only chief of state who has
not accepted the doctrine, rejecting it politically and officially, since it entails a
tutelage for Hispanic America that his own country has not requested neither
does believe it need’ (Fabela 1920, 310).
As the epitome of the Latin American pluralist legal tradition, Fabela maintained a skeptical approach to liberalism and a political understanding of international law. He deployed international law as a political tool for advancing
an anti-imperialist regional agenda in the face of US interventionism and liberal imperialism. As such, he was well aware of the region’s plurality of traditions and the sharp differences between Latin American and US approaches to
international law. Fabela’s anti-interventionist ideas contributed pioneeringly
to setting the political grounds for the institutionalisation of the principle of
absolute non-intervention and inter-American multitaleralism at the
Montevideo Conference (1933), a subject to be explored in the third section of
the article.
The Latin American politics of international law 669
The Second Hague Peace Conference, the creation of the American Institute
of American international law and the rise of pan-American liberal
internationalism
A few years before the Mexican Revolution, in the context of the Second
Hague Peace Conference (1907), the US delegation presented a project for the
creation of an international court of justice. Thanks to the efforts of US
Secretary State Elihu Root, who visited South America in the context of the
Third Pan-American Conference (1906), Latin American countries were invited
to participate in the Second Hague Peace Conference on an equal basis. The
US proposal for a judicial world court composed of judges, drafted by Root’s
legal advisor and founder of the AIIL, Scott, was supported by two Great
European powers, Germany and Great Britain. Scott’s proposal stressed that
judges should be appointed in proportion to the wealth and population of
each nation (Scarfi 2017, 28–29, Simpson 2004). The Brazilian delegation, in
particular jurist Ruy Barbosa, known later as ‘the Eagle of The Hague’, successfully resisted the US proposal on the grounds of a robust understanding of the
principle of sovereign equality. Barbosa argued that each country, regardless
its wealth and power, should have equal representation in this proposed court
and questioned the distinction between great powers and small states (Becker
Lorca 2015, 160). Thanks to Barbosa’s support for sovereign equality, the US
proposal could not be approved at The Hague. This episode of confrontation
between Barbosa and Scott, who were involved a few years later in 1915 in the
foundation of the AIIL, marks an initial moment in the progressive Latin
American politicisation of international law in the name of robust ideas of sovereign equality and absolute non-intervention.
As has been already shown, US intervention in Mexico in 1914 generated a
reaction from the ABC countries oriented towards the promotion of a mediation between Mexico and the US. This proposed mediation inspired Wilson’s
initiative for a Pan-American Pact between the US and the ABC countries to
enforce the Monroe Doctrine as a multilateral hemispheric principle, creating a
wave of optimism among Latin American and US jurists and diplomats in the
construction of common Pan-American liberal internationalist legal tradition
and hemispheric institutions and projects (Gilderhus 1986, 37–45; Scarfi 2017,
66–69). Wilson’s liberal internationalism and his ideals for collective security,
as exemplified by the creation of the League of Nations were inherited from
his previous ‘Latin American policy’ and to some extent they were a mere
‘extension’ of it (Ambrosius 1991, 38; Long 2018, 1383). More importantly,
Wilson redefined the Monroe Doctrine as a multilateral, hemispheric, PanAmerican Pact in 1915, and just a few years later in 1917, he proposed it as a
world doctrine. In his famous speech ‘Peace without Victory’, he affirmed: ‘I
am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the
doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world’ (Wilson 1982,
538–539). The AIIL and the international legal ideas and projects of Alvarez
and Scott emerged out of this conjuncture and maintained a great deal of compatibility and parallels with Wilson’s Pan-American liberal internationalism.
Interestingly, Wilson was present in the Second Pan-American Scientific
Congress (1915) when the AIIL was formally inaugurated, in which context
Scott drafted a ‘Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations’ (Scott 1916).
670 Juan Pablo Scarfi
Established in Paris and closely connected with transnational legal circles
both in Europe and the US, the Chilean jurist Alvarez was archetypical of the
Pan-American liberal internationalist and French solidarist legal traditions and
was an advocate of the Monroe Doctrine as a hemispheric, multilateral and
international legal principle (Scarfi 2017, 31–85; Obreg
on 2006; Gilderhus 1986).
Alvarez promoted pioneering notions of human rights on solidarist grounds.
He sought to defend and safeguard the individual rights of the human person
through social and collective mechanisms of interdependence and solidarity
among the members of the international community, which could potentially
involve collective interventions (Neff 2014, 290–297; Scarfi 2017, 54–58).
Moreover, Alvarez believed that the Monroe Doctrine could be beneficial for
the Americas if it were to be deployed as a foundational principle of continental solidarity for the construction of a common American international law
based on multilateralism He went as far as to affirm that the Monroe Doctrine
‘is the expression of the will of America’, that is, the Western Hemisphere as a
whole (Alvarez 1909, 313). In other words, he was convinced that forging a
continental tradition in the name of hemispheric exceptionalism, based on the
Monroe Doctrine and thus US exceptionalism, could prompt the US to commit
itself in the long-run to continental multilateral standards (Scarfi 2016). He considered that the Latin American and US legal traditions could be combined
into a common ‘Pan-American School of international law’ and that the
Monroe Doctrine was the foundational principle of this unitary continental
legal tradition (Alvarez 1927, 16). Alvarez was the ideologue and progenitor,
along with the US jurist James Brown Scott, of the AIIL. As such, he promoted
a series of projects for the codification of American international law
(Alvarez 1923).
Alvarez believed that US intervention in Mexico and the conflicts between
the two countries could not disturb the ‘progressive tendency towards the
most perfect harmony’ that prevailed amongst the peoples and countries of the
Americas (Alvarez 1916, 18). These tensions were not the product of opposing
US and Latin American legal traditions, neither of US interventionism in Latin
America. It was rather, according to Alvarez, Mexico’s fault and its own
internal disturbances in connection to the Mexican Revolution. He asserted:
‘The current conflict between the United States and Mexico could not be presented against this [diagnosis], since it is not the result of antagonisms in interests, rivalries or territorial aspirations, but rather the consequence of internal
disturbances, which since a few years time, have afflicted Mexico and have
prevented it from maintaining order in the frontier with the United States’
(Alvarez 1916, 18).
The creation of the AIIL in 1915 and its Declaration of the Rights and
Duties of Nations, drafted by Scott, in the context of the First World War,
when European nations were involved in imperial competition, contributed to
consolidating and reinforcing the worldview promoted by Alvarez. The First
World War stimulated a significant departure from European influences and
leadership in Latin America. It presented a window of opportunity to say
‘good-bye to Europe’ and to look inward, projecting both a continental
American and a regional Latin American approach to international society and
international law (Compagnon 2014; Rinke 2017; Scarfi 2018). Alvarez defined
American international law, as based on the principles of continental
The Latin American politics of international law 671
solidarity, peace, and republicanism, in opposition to European international
law, rooted instead on the balance of power, imperial competition, and monarchical regimes (Alvarez 1909; Alvarez 1910). He believed that the Americas
offered the most fertile soil for founding the international law of the future
and these missionary continental aspirations were presented as a series of lessons to be learned by the Old World from the standards of American international law. These lessons were summarised in his work, The International
Law of the Future (1916), a study published under the sponsorship of the AIIL
(Alvarez 1916).
Alvarez regarded the US as the natural leader for constructing a much
broader hemispheric solidarist legal tradition to be offered by the Americas as
a gift and model to the world in order to forge a renovated international law
for the future. ‘While the United States formulated those protests [in defense
of the rights of neutral countries] in their own name, they have become once
again, like one hundred years ago –in the times of President Monroe-, the
spoke-country of the overall feelings of the New World; and all the nations
that composed it have formulated along with them [the United States] a common cause’ (Alvarez 1916, 14). Alvarez’s optimism in the Americas as a model
for the international law of the future was also overwhelming. He went as far
as to affirm that ‘while in Europe we see the most desolating social storm that
History has ever known, in the American continent it could be observed, by
contrast, a progressive tendency towards the most perfect harmony and
towards an increasingly better intelligence, maybe the most complete that has
ever existed amongst peoples’ (Alvarez 1916, 17–18).
An advocate of a solidarist hemispheric legal posture, Alvarez advanced
pioneering liberal internationalist and humanitarian ideals for the Americas in
the inter-war period, which led in turn to consolidating the OAS Charter and
thus a US-led multilateral Inter-American System in the early Cold War period
(Alvarez 1916, 94–97; 1944, 462–463). It has been recently acknowledged that
Alvarez played a pioneering role in promoting human rights ideals in line
with the Latin American legal tradition (Sikkink 2017, 62–63). In the context of
the second meeting of the AIIL held in Cuba in 1917, Alvarez presented liberal
internationalist and humanitarian ideals, invoking the ‘international rights of
individuals and international associations’, including certain individual rights,
such as, the inviolability of property, the right to enter to and reside in any
part of the territorial jurisdiction of the state, the right to associate and meet,
the rights to liberty of press, consciousness, religion commerce, navigation,
and industry, the rights of foreigners to be protected by the national tribunals
of their country of residence, and the rights of states to protect their nationals
when their rights have been affected (Alvarez 1918a). These notions were
incorporated into the projects for the codification of American international
law prepared and drafted by Alvarez himself in 1923 and revised in 1926 by
all the members of the executive committee of the AIIL (Alvarez 1923, 99–101).
All in all, Alvarez could be regarded as an intellectual ideologue of the InterAmerican System in particular and the emerging US-led LIO more broadly. He
believed that Latin America and the US were performing an exceptional role
as progenitors of ‘the international law of the future’.
Unlike Fabela, who was in favor of absolute non-intervention, Alvarez
admitted scope for multilateral and ‘collective interventions’, and other forms
672 Juan Pablo Scarfi
of interference in exceptional circumstances on solidarist grounds (Fabela 1959,
161). The US international legal tradition and Scott’s legal approach maintained certain common grounds with Alvarez, but defended a much stronger
humanitarian interventionist posture (Scarfi 2017, 179–189). In the second meeting of the AIIL, Alvarez maintained a moderate approach to non-intervention,
creating certain exceptions for ‘friendly’ and ‘conciliatory’ interventions on the
part of one state in the internal affairs of another (Alvarez 1916, 94; Alvarez
1918b, 378–379). Although he regarded non-intervention as the basic norm, he
made three cases for exceptional interventions, which were consistent with
regards to the regular practice of US interventions in Latin America. This is
particularly true regarding the Platt Amendment, which famously granted the
US the right to intervene in Cuba on a regular basis. Indeed, one of the exceptions was the case ‘when one State concedes to another one the faculty of intervening’ (Alvarez 1918a, 379). In the 1920s, when Alvarez prepared the projects
for the codification of international law for the AIIL, he adopted a more robust
but still moderate approach, which gave room for collective, multilateral and
non-violent interventions. The declaration on non-intervention read: ‘No State
may intervene in the external or internal affairs of another American State,
against its own will. The only interference that these could exert is amicable
and conciliatory, without any character of imposition’ (Alvarez 1923, 98). This
specific declaration and the AIIL projects on codification, as will be shown in
the following section, created a great deal of controversy at Rio de Janeiro
Commission of Jurists (1927) and the Sixth Pan-American Conference held in
Havana (1928).
The emergence of inter-American multilateralism at Montevideo and the
legacy of the Latin American politics of international law
The emergence and consolidation of Inter-American multilateralism at the
Montevideo Conference in 1933 was the result of the tensions over the principle of intervention and non-intervention that emerged in the late 1920s first
at the Rio de Janeiro Commission of Jurists (1927) and then at the Sixth PanAmerican Conference held in Havana (1928) between the two opposing solidarist and pluralist legal traditions explored in the previous two sections of this
article. These tensions emerged, as has already been shown, from the AIIL
projects on the codification of American international law prepared by
Alvarez. This final section of the paper focuses primarily on the arrangements
established at Montevideo and the legacy of inter-American multilateralism up
to the institutionalisation of the OAS Charter in 1948 and the consolidation of
the international institutions associated with the LIO.
In the context of the Rio and Havana meetings, the projects for the codification of international law became a political subject of debate and were politicised accordingly. US delegates in alliance with a small group of Latin
American ones, particularly Charles Evans Hughes and the Peruvian jurist
Victor Maurtua, sought, however controversially, to legitimise the principle of
humanitarian intervention, which the great majority of the Latin American delegates, notably Honorio Pueyrredon and Gustavo Guerrero, opposed. This
manifested also as a tension between the legal character of the former meeting
and the political nature of the latter, and eventually led to a confrontation
The Latin American politics of international law 673
between a legalist and elitist approach to codification, as advocated by Scott,
Alvarez, Maurtua and other members of the AIIL, and a political and pluralist
one, as promoted by jurists outside the AIIL such as Fabela and the Argentine
Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Saavedra Lamas. The contradictions between
politics and law reached their peak at Havana, where Maurtua joined the US
delegate Hughes in a controversial defence of interventions on humanitarian
grounds. Maurtua regarded the ‘battle formula’ of absolute non-intervention as
a ‘political gesture’, and opposed it to the AIIL projects, particularly to the
‘Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations’ originally prepared by Scott
and based on a ‘frank’ and ‘serene’ ‘juridical formula’ (Ma
urtua 1940, 122;
Scott 1916; Scarfi 2017, 97–137). In the context of the Rio de Janeiro
Commission of Jurists of 1927, the AIIL proposal prepared by Alvarez was
reframed, under the initiative of Luis Anderson, and thus the principle of nonintervention was then articulated in absolute terms. Anderson’s proposal read:
‘No State could intervene in the internal affairs of another’ (International
Commission of Jurists 1927, 240). At the Havana Conference there was a fervent debate over intervention and non-intervention. For this reason, the codification projects of the AIIL and Alvarez could not be adopted and the issue
was left to the Seventh Pan-American Conference held in Montevideo (1933).
At the Montevideo Conference, Saavedra Lamas adopted a political posture
in defense of non-intervention and against the AIIL projects, the Monroe
Doctrine and Pan-Americanism, taking a step back from the legal and solidarist approach advocated by Alvarez and the AIIL. This political attitude paved
the way for a transition from US-led Pan-Americanism to an inter-American
multilateral system, based on a robust and reciprocal attachment to the principles of non-intervention and sovereign equality, as institutionalised with the
Good Neighbor Policy (1933). Although non-intervention has been recognised
as central feature of the Latin American legal tradition, the politicisation of
international law that emerged at the Montevideo Conference has been overlooked (Esquirol 2012, 566–577). The Mexican delegation, particularly Jose
Manuel Puig Casauranc, also pushed further for the adoption of multilateral
economic standards and a robust notion of sovereign equality, based on the
rights of weak states and the duties of great nations (Thornton 2018). Thanks
to Saavedra Lamas, Puig Casauranc and other Latin American delegates, an
anti-interventionist political posture in international law prevailed over the juridical formulas of the AIIL, as well as over Hughes and Maurtua’s polemical
defense of interventions and US-led liberal imperialism. In other words,
Saavedra Lamas and Puig Casauranc contributed to institutionalising a more
robust notion of non-intervention by reinforcing and expanding the implications Anderson’s previous proposal so that it could also include non-intervention in the external affairs of other states, in addition to internal ones, and by
also condemning categorically the Platt Amendment (Septima Conferencia
Internacional Americana 1933, 122–123, 119; Scarfi 2017, 147–168). On the
grounds of a pluralist, political and inclusive legal approach, Saavedra Lamas
had already opposed back in 1927 the projects for the codification of international law advanced by the AIIL as an Argentine delegate at the Rio de
Janeiro Commission, especially the Bustamante Code of Private International
Law, advocating the inclusion of national legal traditions into the code
(Saavedra Lamas 1931, 747–753; Scarfi 2017, 110–111, 139).
674 Juan Pablo Scarfi
The South American Anti-War Treaty of Non-Aggression and Conciliation
was not only a response to the Chaco War (1932–1935) between Bolivia and
Paraguay, but it also proved to be a strategic tool for Saavedra Lamas to consolidate the principle of absolute non-intervention in the context of the
Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States and moving away
from the Pan-American liberal internationalist legal tradition, for it was presented at Montevideo as a ‘fait accompli’ (Grandin 2006, 1055). The so-called
Saavedra Lamas South American Anti-War Treaty was signed in October 1933
in Rio de Janeiro before a group of South American nations, including
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and presented then to the
League of Nations a few months before the Montevideo Pan-American
Conference. As such, it offered a synthesis of the political and pluralist
approach of Saavedra Lamas to international law. Drawing on the precedents
of the Calvo and Drago Doctrines, the Treaty adopted a strong Argentine –
and South American – attachment to the principle of absolute nonintervention,
as defended by Saavedra Lamas and Fabela. Article 3 of the Treaty affirmed:
‘the contracting states undertake to make every effort for the maintenance of
peace [and] they will bring the influence of public opinion to bear but will in
no case resort to intervention either diplomatic or armed’ (Saavedra Lamas
1933, 4). The Anti-War Treaty also epitomised an inclusive and pluralist South
American approach to international law and peace, distinct from that of the
US and the Pan-American approach, for it sought to include the different legal
and political traditions of the region and presented itself as both a regional
and universalist world initiative. The Montevideo Conference consolidated
most of the principles contained in the Anti-War Treaty as inter-American
norms regarding non-intervention, state recognition and autonomy, peace, and
a robust, reciprocal notion of sovereign equality which implied in turn a moving away from US-led Pan-Americanism (Scarfi 2017, 137–168; Becker Lorca
2015, 337–352). Indeed, regarding Pan-Americanism, the Anti-War Treaty also
stated categorically that there was an ‘ … inevitable difference between the
Latin world and the Saxon one, in modes of temperament, geographical and
economic circumstances and in the consolidation of political institutions’
(Saavedra Lamas 1933, 14). Therefore, the consolidation of inter-American
multilateralism at Montevideo with all its multilateral implications was not the
product of the AIIL projects of codification prepared by Alvarez, nor was the
US Good Neighbor Policy launched a few months before the conference, but
was instead a result of the redefinition of the relations of power politics
between the US and Latin America that emerged from the Latin American politicisation of international law (Grandin 2012; Scarfi 2017).
By politicising international law, Fabela, Saavedra Lamas and other pluralist Latin American jurists consolidated not only the principle of non-intervention and sovereign equality and inter-American multilateralism, but also
modern multilateralism, since following the Montevideo Conference, their
ideas also shaped the formulation of the UN Charter (1945), especially articles
2(7) and 2(4) (Hurd 2018, 48, 73; Scarfi 2020). The liberal internationalist ideals
of Alvarez were pioneering and informed the American Declaration of the
Rights and Duties of Man, along with those of other Latin American jurists,
such as Eduardo Rodrıguez Larreta, who were also to contribute to the formation of core principles and institutions associated with the LIO such as the
The Latin American politics of international law 675
OAS Charter (Long and Friedman 2020). Recent studies on the ideological and
imperial origins of the League of Nations and the UN have shown the extent
to which these modern international organisations were rooted in liberal internationalist and imperial projects informed by ideas of international governance
based on the experiences of the British Empire and informal US liberal imperialism (Mazower 2009; Mazower 2012, 116–213). Latin American jurists contributed to both shaping and challenging these ideals as they were introduced in
the formative period of the US-led LIO. Even certain robust ideals of global
social and economic equality and justice, as stated in the ‘Charter of Economic
Right and Duties of States’, which were consistent with the pluralist tradition,
were formally introduced within the UN and Bretton Woods system, but they
would not have a lasting impact in the years to come (Thornton
2018, 397–398).
The approaches of Barbosa, Fabela and Saavedra Lamas to non-intervention
and sovereign equality were pioneering, since they were promoted as early as
1907 and 1914 and later introduced in 1933, creating normative grounds for
limiting some core liberal internationalist ideals associated to the institutions
of the LIO created in 1945. These early contributions to what I have termed
the Latin American politics – and politicisation – of international law
prompted in turn the US to commit itself to the principle of non-intervention
and sovereign equality in 1933, moderating its own liberal imperialist practices
in Latin America. For this reason, the inter-American pioneering experiment of
multilateralism associated to robust ideas of non-intervention and sovereign
equality, was quite different from the modern multilateral LIO created in 1945,
associated with liberal internationalism and humanitarian ideals and norms.
Conclusion
As shown throughout this article, Latin American countries’ engagement with
international law was particularly robust, but it manifested itself through
opposing legal approaches, a solidarist liberal internationalist one and a pluralist and political posture. As such, it generated a contradictory impact on the
US-led LIO. On the one hand, Latin American pluralist jurists challenged some
of the fundamentals of the LIO in its formative US-led emerging context of the
1910s, 1920s and 1930s by deploying international law as a political tool to
moderate US liberal imperialism, especially unilateral usages of the Monroe
Doctrine and US interventionism in Latin America. On the other hand, the
tradition of American international law and the AIIL was particularly consistent with US hegemony and thus contributed to consolidating a US-led liberal
internationalist and solidarist approach, as well as emerging liberal internationalist and imperial and humanitarian interventionist aspirations and eventually
the creation of the Inter-American System. Moreover, this tradition provided
the intellectual and legal inspiration for the consolidation of the US-led LIO
and its fundamental international institutions, the UN and Bretton Woods, as
well as the OAS.
The Montevideo Conference of 1933 could be seen as the outcome of a
long-standing Latin American political and pluralist quest for absolute nonintervention. This quest for non-intervention should not be seen simply as justifying authoritarian regimes or accommodating with human rights violations,
676 Juan Pablo Scarfi
but rather as a limit to US liberal imperialism and interventionism in the formative period of the US-led inter-American and global LIO.
Finally, it is difficult to assess retrospectively the legacy of the Montevideo
Conference. Yet it is fair to conclude that without this precedent and the previous normative grounds created by the Mexican Revolution in defense of absolute non-intervention, the restrictions to US humanitarian interventionism in
its present forms would have been less robust and it would have been more
difficult for weak Latin American states to defend their right to self-determination. In short, without a pluralist Latin American politics of international law,
it would have been even more difficult to moderate US-led liberal imperialism
in the years to come.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Juan Pablo Scarfi is a Research Associate at the Argentine Research Council
and Lecturer at University of San Andres, Argentina. He received his PhD at
the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Hidden History of
International Law in the Americas (Oxford University Press, 2017), El imperio de la
ley (Fondo de Cultura Econ
omica, 2014), and co-editor of Cooperation and
Hegemony in US-Latin American Relations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016).
ORCID
Juan Pablo Scarfi
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7096-568X
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After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order
Article in Ethics & International Affairs · October 2017
DOI: 10.1017/S089267941700020X
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After Liberal Hegemony: The
Advent of a Multiplex World Order*
Amitav Acharya
“T
he dominance of a single great power,” wrote American scholar
Robert Keohane in his widely acclaimed book After Hegemony,
“may contribute to order in world politics, in particular circumstances, but it is not a sufficient condition and there is little reason to believe
that it is necessary.” This proposition has never been put to a greater test as it
is now. Since the election of Donald J. Trump as U.S. president in November
 there has been a vast outpouring of anxiety over the future of the liberal
world order. But the myths, limitations, and decline of this order have been anticipated and forewarned for some time, even though its proponents have not
acknowledged it.
The “first myth” about the U.S.-led liberal hegemonic order, as I have written
elsewhere, is “how far it extended for much of its history, especially during the
Cold War period.” I pointed out that “the Soviet bloc, China, India, Indonesia,
and a good part of the ‘third world’ were outside of it . . . . Despite the exalted
claims about its power, legitimacy, and public goods functions, that order was little
more than the US-UK-West Europe-Australasian configuration.” Noting that the
liberal order was hardly benign for many countries in the developing world, I
argued that it should be seen as a limited international order, rather than an inclusive global order.
Joseph S. Nye, one of the staunchest champions of the liberal order, made a
similar point when he wrote in the January/February  issue of Foreign
Affairs that the liberal order “was largely limited to a group of like-minded states
centered on the Atlantic littoral” and “did not include many large countries such
as China, India, and the Soviet bloc states, and . . . did not always have benign
effects on nonmembers.” The liberal order did expand and strengthen with the
*This essay is based on the second edition of the author’s book The End of American World Order (forthcoming).
Ethics & International Affairs, , no.  (), pp. –.
©  Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
doi:./SX
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economic reforms in China and India, and with the end of the cold war. And
while the champions of that order celebrated its expansion, they still generally
assumed that the main challenge to it would come from the rising powers, led
by China. Their assumptions notwithstanding, precisely at a time when many
of these powers today are not doing all that well, the liberal order appears to be
imploding. Trump’s victory and Brexit suggest that the current challenge to the
liberal order is as much, if not more, from within as from without.
The domestic challenges to the liberal order led by Trump and his supporters
could be overstated, however. After all, Hillary Clinton won a majority of the popular vote, and the Brexit referendum only passed by a slim margin. More importantly, however, the crisis of the liberal order has deeper roots, owing to long-term
and structural changes in the global economy and politics. As such, Trump’s
ascent to power is a consequence—not a cause—of the decline of the liberal
order, especially of its failure to address the concerns of domestic constituents
left behind by the global power shift. Given these factors, Trump is unlikely to
reverse the decline of the liberal order even if he wanted to. Instead, he may
well push it over the precipice.
In what follows, I first describe the foundations of the liberal order, and show
that the ground on which it was built has been eroding for some time, though
Trump’s rhetoric and policies are also damaging. Next, I argue that for now the
rising powers are not in a position to overturn the current order completely,
and in fact they may wish to preserve some elements of it in the near and medium
term. I describe a “multiplex world” in which elements of the liberal order survive,
but are subsumed in a complex of multiple, crosscutting international orders.
Finally, I offer some suggestions on how scholars and policymakers can manage
the transition to such a multiplex world.
Foundations of the Liberal Order
The idea of liberal international order rests on four key elements: free trade; post-war
multilateral institutions; the growth of democracy; and liberal values. As I will show,
each of these elements has been stagnating and decaying for some time. Rather than
being the cause of the stagnation, Trump is simply hastening the decay.
In recent decades China’s phenomenal economic growth has been a major factor behind the expansion of global free trade. Since , however, global trade
has been growing at a meager annual rate of  percent and the trade-to-gross
272
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domestic product (GDP) ratio has been falling. Not coincidentally, this corresponds closely with China’s recent economic slowdown. And this is not a temporary change. China’s shift to a domestic consumption–driven economy and the
likelihood of a middle-income trap could continue to have a negative impact
on world trade for years to come, regardless of the policies President Trump
may adopt toward China or on trade in general.
Add to this slowdown the sentiments against globalization in the United States,
which we saw come to the fore in the  presidential election. Those states that
the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was expected to carry—such as
Wisconsin (which had not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since
) and Pennsylvania and Michigan (which had not done so since )—as
well as such swing states as Ohio and North Carolina all voted for Trump because
of disillusionment with economic globalization and free trade. Trump ran on an
electoral platform that pledged to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(which he has since done), to renegotiate or withdraw from NAFTA, and to punish China for its alleged currency manipulation, “theft of American trade secrets,”
and “unfair subsidy behavior.”
The second key element of the foundation of the liberal order is the post-war
system of multilateral institutions built and maintained by the United States
and its allies. Like trade, this too was already fragmenting long before Trump’s
ascension. The large UN-based multilaterals that formed the core of the post-war
order are no longer the only game in global governance. Since the creation of the
UN system in the s there has been a proliferation of regional and plurilateral
arrangements, private initiatives, and various forms of partnership involving governments, private parties, and civil society actors in such areas as security, climate
change, and human rights—many of which were neither the product of U.S. leadership nor beholden to American purpose. Here again, as with trade, the Trump
administration is following a trend already in motion, seeking to further sideline
the traditional, long-standing liberal institutions. It has already indicated that the
United States will place greater stress on bilateral deals based on a stricter and
more direct reciprocity, rather than rely on multilateralism.
In this vein, although alliances are instruments of realpolitik and power politics,
U.S. liberal internationalists have long viewed the global network of U.S. alliances
as the bedrock of the liberal order’s provision of public goods. Trump is of course
not the first American leader to call for U.S. allies to do more for their own
defense, but his approach is much more than the usual “burden-sharing” talk
after liberal hegemony
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of past presidents, such as Nixon and Reagan. Trump projects a fundamental lack
of faith in the strategic and normative utility of U.S. alliances. He is also the first
president who has explicitly warned allies of the withdrawal of U.S. protection in
the event that they do not comply with his demands. He may not carry out his
threats, but his stance itself further undermines the credibility of the liberal order.
The third element of the liberal order is the growth of democracy. The global
democratic revolution known as the Third Wave saw the number of democracies
nearly double after the end of the cold war. However, the trend had already peaked
by , and it faced further setbacks with the unfulfilled promise of the Arab
Spring and reversals and backslidings in Egypt and Thailand. Against this rather
dismal backdrop, there is now a real possibility that Trump’s victory might
encourage authoritarianism around the world. Indeed, Trump’s victory is
reassuring not only to anti-democratic leaders outside the West—such as
Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Hungary’s Viktor
Orbán—but also to far-right movements in the West, such as those led by the
Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, Italy’s Matteo Salvini, Britain’s Nigel Farage, and
France’s Marine Le Pen (who received an impressive . percent in the recent
French presidential elections). Whether such an authoritarian wave will materialize remains to be seen, but there is little question that Trump’s victory has given
democracy a bad name. “Democracy the loser in U.S. Vote,” declared the China
Daily, which criticized the level of personal attacks and “nasty aspects” of
American-style democracy during the long and brutal presidential election
campaign.
The fourth element is liberal values, which have suffered greatly since the
election of Trump. As noted by Volker Perthes, director of the German
Institute of International and Security Affairs, Trump’s victory “represents a
hard knock for the West’s normative bedrock of liberalism.” It has also dented
America’s soft power, which depends much on the attractiveness of its domestic
politics, culture, and institutions. People around the world are unlikely to forget
Trump’s attack on the Hispanic judge in California, which fellow Republican
and House Speaker Paul Ryan described as a “textbook case of racism,” or his
attack on the parents of Gold Star U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan, who
died from a car bomb in Iraq after ordering subordinates to stand back while
he inspected the vehicle. As this soft power continues to erode, the influence of
the liberal order will continue to wane.
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The Emerging Powers
It is ironic that while the founders of liberal order are retreating (at least temporarily), and the order itself is fraying at the edges, some of the powers, especially
China, that are supposed to challenge it are offering support, albeit qualified and
potentially short-term. In his speech at Davos in January , Chinese President
Xi Jinping came out strongly against protectionism, and Chinese policymakers
(such as He Yafei, a former Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs) speak of their country leading a new wave of globalization. This should not be surprising, as public
opinion in China and India are strongly in favor of globalization. A few weeks
before the November  U.S. presidential election, a Pew Survey reported that
 percent of Chinese respondents and  percent of Indians agreed that involvement in the global economy is a positive thing, compared to only  percent of
Americans. Among the BRICS, Russia has been a loser in globalization, and
hence may be least interested among them in preserving the liberal order.
Moreover, the BRICS are not in a position to exploit the crisis in the liberal
order through concerted action even if they so desired, as some of them, such
as Brazil, South Africa, and Russia, are themselves in considerable economic
and political distress. The GDP growth of the five BRICS nations slowed from
an average of  percent annually in  to about  percent in .
Investment growth slowed from  percent in  to  percent in . In
, Goldman Sachs closed its BRICS investment fund, which had lost  percent
of its assets since its  peak. These economic setbacks will hinder any attempt
to formulate some new order. At the same time, political challenges also abound.
China-India tensions over the border dispute in the Doklam region, as well as
China’s opposition both to India’s bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group and
its attempt to add the chief of the anti-India terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad
to the UN’s terrorist list, demonstrate that the two arguably most important
BRICS nations, given their vast economies and populations, do not share a common vision of world order. Further, although India is a key member of the
China-initiated multilateral Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), it is
opposed to China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative (and especially the
China-Pakistan Corridor) because it undercuts Indian influence in South Asia.
China and India also suffer from problems of legitimacy and support in their own
respective neighborhoods, further constraining their potential to take a greater role
in world order. China is embroiled in bitter territorial disputes with Japan over
after liberal hegemony
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islands in the East China Sea, and with Vietnam, the Philippines, and others over
islands in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, India’s relations with its own South
Asian neighbors remain difficult, and could worsen due to growing Chinese aid to
neighbors such as Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka as part of the OBOR initiative.
Domestic political problems (in Brazil and South Africa) and dependence on
global trade (especially for China and India) ensure that the putative challengers
to the liberal order may hold back or even offer greater support to that order at
least in the short term—as Xi Jinping did in Davos. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to assume that the emerging powers would have the same stake in the liberal
order as the West simply because they have benefited, and are still benefiting,
from it. Without concrete progress in meeting their demand for reform of the existing international institutions to give them more voice and influence, the rising powers will be suspicious of accepting any new schema devised in the West for preserving
the liberal order. At the same time, they still have to co-exist with the West, which
itself has to negotiate accommodation with them in order to salvage aspects of the
liberal order. This interplay is the inexorable logic driving us toward what I call a
“multiplex world.”
Multiplexity, Not Multipolarity
Many pundits see the emerging world order as a return to multipolarity, but this is
misleading. There are at least five major differences between prewar multipolarity
and the emerging twenty-first-century world order. First, prewar multipolarity was
largely a world of empires and colonies. The primary actors in world politics were
the great powers, and those were mainly European, though the United States and
Japan joined the club in the latter part of the nineteenth century. In contrast, the
contemporary world is marked by a multiplicity of actors that matter. These are
not only great powers, and not even just states, but also international and regional
institutions, corporations, transnational nongovernmental organizations, social
movements, transnational criminal and terrorist groups, and so on.
Second, the nature of economic interdependence today is denser, consisting of
trade, finance, and global production networks and supply chains, whereas prewar
multipolarity was mainly trade-based.
Third, contemporary economic interdependence is more global compared to
that in the nineteenth century, when it was mostly intra-European, with the
rest of the world in a situation of dependence on the European empires.
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Fourth, there is far greater density of relatively durable international and
regional institutions today, whereas pre–World War I Europe had only one—
the defunct European Concert of Powers—and the interwar period only had the
short-lived and failed League of Nations.
Fifth, challenges to order and stability have become more complex. The traditional challenge to world order, interstate conflict, has declined steadily since
World War II and now stands at a negligible level. Meanwhile, intrastate conflicts
and transnational challenges have grown considerably. Arguably, the biggest
threat to the national security of many countries today comes not from another
state but from a terrorist network. Moreover, issues such as climate change,
human trafficking, drugs, and pandemics do not respect national boundaries
and are magnified by interdependence and globalization, further complicating
the mosaic of security challenges facing the twenty-first-century world.
The emerging world order is thus not a multipolar world, but a multiplex
world. It is a world of multiple modernities, where Western liberal modernity
(and its preferred pathways to economic development and governance) is only
a part of what is on offer. A multiplex world is like a multiplex cinema—one
that gives its audience a choice of various movies, actors, directors, and plots all
under the same roof. Trump and Brexit have shown that there are serious variations and differences in the script of world order even within the West—not just
between the West and the rest, as is commonly assumed. At the same time, a multiplex world is a world of interconnectedness and interdependence. It is not a singular global order, liberal or otherwise, but a complex of crosscutting, if not
competing, international orders and globalisms.
A multiplex world is not defined by the hegemony of any single nation or idea.
This does not necessarily mean the United States is in decline—this is still arguable. But it does mean that the United States is no longer in a position to create the
rules and dominate the institutions of global governance and world order in the
manner it had for much of the post–World War II period. And while elements
of the old liberal order will survive, they will have to accommodate new actors
and approaches that do not bend to America’s commands and preferences.
Crosscutting Globalisms, Not Liberal Hegemony
It is wrong to say that globalization is over. Instead, in a multiplex world it will
take, and is already taking, a different form. Globalization may become less driven
after liberal hegemony
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by trade and more by developmental concerns. This might give more space to the
initiatives of the emerging powers, which tend to focus more on infrastructure
than on free trade. Thus, the new globalization could well be led less by the
West and more by the East, especially China and India, as it had been for a thousand years before European colonialism. On its own, China may not be able to
lead globalization outright, but it has the potential to reshape it with initiatives
like the One Belt, One Road strategy and the AIIB.
Moreover, the new globalization will be anchored more by South-South linkages
rather than North-South ones. This is already happening: According to the United
Nations Development Programme, the South has increased its share of global output
from one third in  to almost a half today, and it has increased its share of world
merchandise trade from  percent in  to  percent in . And
South-South trade jumped from less than  percent of world merchandise trade in
 to about  percent in . According to the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development, South-South flows in foreign direct investment now
constitute over a third of global flows. These trends could reshape globalization.
Due to the prominence of China and other emerging powers, the new globalization might also be more respectful of sovereignty, especially compared to the
Western-led globalization during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which
has been associated with colonialism and direct and indirect military intervention
to secure Western economic and strategic interests (a long list of examples would
include the Suez and numerous interventions in Latin America). This is not to say
that emerging powers do not use force or violate sovereignty. With its growing
overseas investments, China will be tempted to abandon its professed policy of
noninterference and to use force or coercion in support of its economic and strategic goals. But in line with the outlooks of the emerging powers, the new globalization is likely to be more economic and less political or ideological (especially
compared to the West’s promotion of democracy and human rights).
G-Plus, Not G-Zero, Governance
Many of Trump’s stated policy positions suggest a nationalist, inward-looking U.S.
foreign policy. His policies on trade and security are undermining global institutions, such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, and disrupting climate change negotiations. In many ways, this may push the system of global
governance to be even less U.S.- and Western-centric. But here, too, as noted
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earlier, the post-war architecture of global governance was already moving in that
direction. Global governance has already begun accommodating the growing roles
of private bodies (corporations, foundations, etc.), civil society groups, and
regional arrangements, thus reducing the position of formal intergovernmental
organizations. And the emerging powers have already been clamoring for a greater
voice and leadership in existing institutions while also creating new global and
regional mechanisms, such as the BRICS-initiated New Development Bank and
Contingent Reserve Arrangement (a financial mechanism), the AIIB, China’s
OBOR and its Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in
Asia mechanism, and India’s own plans for infrastructure development in
South Asia, to name a few. And while the demand for global governance will
remain, the architecture will continue to fragment and decenter, confirming the
onset of the multiplex world.
The maintenance of world order depends on regional orders. As Henry
Kissinger argues, “The contemporary quest for world order will require a coherent
strategy to establish a concept of order within the various regions and to relate
these regional orders to one another.” Yet developing such inclusive, open
regional orders is a critical challenge. This would require creating new regional
mechanisms and supporting those that already exist but are constrained by a
lack of resources. While some liberal thinkers see regionalism (not including
the European Union) as a threat to world order, there are many regional initiatives
that, if recognized and strengthened, could actually support world order. For
example, ASEAN + ’s Chiang Mai initiative on finance has allowed those countries to better cope with short-term liquidity problems, supplementing the existing
capacity of the International Monetary Fund. As another example, though the
Obama administration feared the Chinese-inspired AIIB would be a competitor
to the World Bank, its structure and rules mimic those of established multilateral
institutions, and its management includes persons from Western countries. Thus,
it is more likely to complement rather than compete with the World Bank or
Asian Development Bank. In a fragmented and pluralistic world, exploring local
and regional initiatives in diverse issue areas that complement older but fragmenting global institutions could be one of the most promising way to build world
order in the twenty-first century.
A multiplex world will not be free from disorder, but it is also not necessarily
doomed to be what Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini call a G-Zero World—“one
in which no single country or bloc of countries has the political and economic
after liberal hegemony
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leverage—or the will—to drive a truly international agenda”—simply because of
the loss of a predominant U.S. leadership role. Leadership-sharing between the
Western powers and the emerging powers is more attainable than (hard) powersharing. A world less dependent on U.S. leadership—but without a complete U.S.
retreat into isolationism—will still find ways to cooperate. It will still come
together in crisis, as happened at the G- summit after the  global financial
crisis, or to combat common perils, as happened with the  Paris Agreement
on climate change. The latter was made possible not because of proactive U.S.
leadership but because of common understanding among the Western nations,
the emerging powers (led by China), and civil society groups. Importantly, the
agreement avoided the traditional Western legalistic sanction-based approach in
favor of a softer, voluntaristic approach that is characteristic of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations.
A multiplex world is a G-Plus world, featuring established and emerging powers, global and regional institutions and actors, states, social movements, corporations, private foundations, and various kinds of partnerships among them.
The Stability of a Multiplex World
There are several things that should be kept in mind by the international community in general and the Western nations in particular to help manage the transition to a multiplex world.
First, stop pining for the return of liberal hegemony, by which I mean the post–
World War II world order created and dominated by the United States and centered around Western interests, values, and institutions. That order might have
delivered much good (as well as lots of bad) to the world, and some of its institutions (such as the UN system) will continue, but the particular historical circumstances behind the rise of liberal hegemony are gone. The global power shift is for
real and here to stay.
Second, unless and until the Trump administration radically changes course or
is replaced, prepare to live without significant U.S. support for multilateralism.
Under Trump, this support might come selectively and sparingly, but its absence
should not deter international cooperation if other major players participate or
offer support.
Third, the end of U.S. hegemony does not equal the “return of anarchy,” if
anarchy implies the end of global cooperation, as some worry. Progress in global
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governance was never linear to start with, nor was there ever any consensus that
global governance is a good thing. Demand for global governance has and will
continue to be varied depending on the issue area. Such demand is driven by a
mix of strategic, functional, and normative motives as well as a domestic political
calculus. While the normative and domestic motivations may be declining
among Western states, the functional and strategic motivations might yet drive
demand for global governance in several areas, including climate change and
transnational security.
Fourth, despite claims about the world being “on fire,” there are also many success stories of growth and stability in the world. When it comes to international
stability, there is both good and bad news. Some forms of international violence,
such as interstate wars, are on a long-term decline. For all its media coverage and
obvious tragedy, terrorism poses a largely concentrated, localized threat. In ,
for example, only five countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Syria—
accounted for  percent of deaths from terrorism worldwide. Also notable, just
four groups were responsible for  percent of all these deaths: the self-proclaimed
Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda. Moreover, many of the
signs of “anarchy” today, including death tolls in the Middle East, are the result
of failed but avoidable policies pursued by the United States and its key
Western allies. Examples here might include the  U.S. invasion of Iraq, or
the  Anglo-French operation in Libya to effect regime change (thus abusing
UN Security Council Resolution , which was meant for civilian protection).
Further, as some have argued, the Libya case may have been partly responsible
for the subsequent failure to intervene in Syria. Estimates published by the
International Institute for Strategic Studies found that out of the total ,
conflict-related fatalities worldwide in , Iraq and Syria accounted for nearly
half. Learning from these mistakes is more important to the future of world
order than yearning to bring back liberal hegemony.
Fifth, give due credit to the contribution of non-Western actors to the marketplace of ideas for global cooperation. Latin American countries championed
human rights before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and had developed a tradition of regional norm and institution building before the EU was conceived. The East Asian countries, led by Japan, pioneered a path out of
postcolonial dependency and underdevelopment. The UN Convention on the
Law of the Sea had much to do with the leadership of Southeast Asian diplomats.
The ideas of human development and human security were conceived by
after liberal hegemony
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Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, while the Responsibility to Protect concept
was to a large extent an African contribution.
Sixth, encourage pragmatic globalism in place of ideologically-charged liberal
internationalism, a term that is deeply associated with Western hegemony and
hypocrisy. History provides many examples of practical, non-ideological, issuebased cooperation among nations of diverse political composition to uphold international stability.
Seventh, embrace G-Plus global governance. The growing complexity of global
governance is inevitable due to the proliferation of a variety of new actors and
transnational issue areas. It is impossible for the state-centric bureaucratic institutions crafted in the s to cope with these changes. These institutions should
welcome the proliferation of “demanders” of global governance and learn to
work with them, avoiding duplication of resources. The ongoing fragmentation
in global governance creates new opportunities for closer partnership between
intergovernmental institutions, civil society, and the private sector.
Eighth, take regional powers and regionalism seriously. Regions are crucial sites
for both conflict and cooperation. In considering ways to develop a new world
order, one should not focus too much on the big emerging powers while neglecting the role of other regional powers in the developing world, such as Indonesia,
Nigeria, and Turkey. Not all forms of regionalism are harmful to global cooperation; indeed, they may contribute to it. Many regional organizations share normative concerns about peace and justice and deserve their space in any meaningful
scheme for global order. The traditional liberal universalist tendency to associate
regionalism with spheres of influence or power balancing is misplaced, since many
examples of regionalism today are open, interactive, and inclusive.
In sum, the stability of a multiplex world will require many Western nations to
give up their free-riding on the United States and accept shared leadership with
the rising and regional powers. It will require greater partnership between global
and regional bodies, as well as public, private, and civil society groups. A G-Plus
world requires a genuinely reformed system of global governance that accords sincere recognition to the voices and aspirations of all. America and its Western allies
must give up exclusive privileges such as the French leadership of the IMF,
American presidency of the World Bank, and Japanese presidency of the Asian
Development Bank in return for the trust and cooperation of the rest.
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A New Vocabulary of International Relations
The complexity of international politics today calls for a greater questioning of the
existing theories and vocabulary of international relations, especially of liberalism
and realism. Liberals often profess a monopoly over all “good things” in international life, such as rationality, respect for human dignity, good governance, free
trade, and rule-based order, and they trace the origins of these goods exclusively
from Western civilization. Yet these ideas and practices can be found in other,
non-European civilizations, including but not limited to Islamic, Chinese, and
Indian. Liberal theory has shown little acknowledgement of the multiple sources
of and contributions to the development of its ideas and practices. As a result, liberalism is seen today as asking and expecting “the rest” to follow principles that it
claims have been solely developed in the West, even as the leading liberal Western
nations grossly violate them. With liberalism now under challenge at home, it will
be even harder to sell it to the rest of the world.
When facing the future, while liberals remain in denial, realists return to the
past. Instead of seeking fresh ideas to understand and explain change in world politics, they keep rehashing notions like multipolarity (or the general theory that
international stability depends mainly on polarity or the distribution of power)
or the Thucydides’s Trap to describe the present or emerging world order.
This is a misapplication of history. The world today is a far cry from the
nineteenth-century multipolar era; it is even more distant from the self-styled
and limited geopolitics of the Greek city-states.
The era of liberal hegemony is past. The liberal international order will be just one
of many crosscutting systems, and it will have to compete or enmesh with other ideas
in a world of growing complexity and interconnectedness. International relations
scholars should be wary of conventional wisdom and be open to new concepts
and theories, and hence to new possibilities of world order that have no precedent
in history. Keohane was right: A hegemon is neither necessary nor sufficient for
global order—and neither, it turns out, is an unchallenged liberal ideology. In a multiplex world, scholars and practitioners alike will have to embrace the complexities of
this new system. The future may very well depend on it.
NOTES

Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, ), p. .
after liberal hegemony
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










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A prime example is the special issue under the cover heading “Out of Order? The Future of the
International System,” Foreign Affairs , no.  (January/February ), www.foreignaffairs.
com/issues///. See also Anne-Marie Slaughter, “The Return of Anarchy?” Journal of
International Affairs, March , , jia.sipa.columbia.edu/return-anarchy.
Amitav Acharya, The End of American World Order (Cambridge: Polity, ), p. .
Joseph S. Nye, “Will the Liberal Order Survive? The History of an Idea,” Foreign Affairs , no. 
(January/February ).
Barry Eichengreen, “Globalization’s Last Gasp,” Project Syndicate, November , , www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/growth-before-globalization-by-barry-eichengreen--?barrier=accessreg.
This term refers to the documented phenomenon of when the rapidly growing economy of a country
stagnates after reaching a per capita income level of roughly $, to $, as it loses the initial
advantages that had led to high growth, such as abundant cheap labor and high investment rates, to
low-wage competitors.
Edward Alden, “The Biggest Issue That Carried Trump to Victory,” Fortune, November , , fortune.com////trump-voters-free-trade-globalization/.
“ Point Plan To Rebuild the American Economy by Fighting for Free Trade,” www.facebook.
com/notes/the--committee/donald-j-trumps-vision//.
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the
State (New York: Penguin Press, ).
“Democracy the Loser in U.S. Vote,” China Daily (USA), November , , usa.chinadaily.com.
cn/opinion/-//content_.htm.
Volker Perthes,“President Trump and International Relations,” Point of View, Stiftung Wissenschaft
und Politik, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, November , , www.
swp-berlin.org/en/point-of-view/president-trump-and-international-relations/.
He Yafei, “China’s Role in Steering the Future of Globalisation,” Telegraph, May , , www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world/china-watch/politics/role-in-steering-globalisation/; Zheng Bijian (former
permanent Vice-President of the Central Party School), “China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ Plan Marks the
Next Phase of Globalization,” Huffington Post, May , , www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chinaone-belt-one-road_us_cbebedcddb.
Bruce Stokes, “Unlike the West, India and China Embrace Globalization,” Yale Global Online, October
, , yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/unlike-west-india-and-china-embrace-globalization.
World Bank Global Macroeconomics Team, “Global Weekly: Sources of the Growth Slowdown in BRICS,”
January , , blogs.worldbank.org/prospects/global-weekly-sources-growth-slowdown-brics.
Suzanne Nossel, “The World’s Rising Powers Have Fallen,” Foreign Policy, July , , foreignpolicy.
com////brics-brazil-india-russia-china-south-africa-economics-recession/.
The OBOR, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is a massive Chinese economic aid and
investment program worth over a trillion U.S. dollars over the next decade. Launched by President Xi
Jinping in , it focuses on infrastructure development in Eurasia and beyond. China’s motives
behind the initiative are both economic (such as expanding markets for its surplus production capacity,
new business for Chinese companies, and promoting the economic development of its western provinces), and strategic, especially enhancing Chinese influence in the region and the world. See Scott
Cendrowski, “Inside China’s Global Spending Spree,” Fortune, December , , fortune.
com/china-belt-road-investment/.
Amitav Acharya, “Emerging Powers Can Be Saviours of the Global Liberal Order,” Financial Times,
January , .
Acharya, End of American World Order. Interestingly, a recent essay in Foreign Affairs also argues for
developing a “mixed order” to cope with a “pluralistic world.” See Michael J. Mazarr, “The Once and
Future Order: What Comes After Hegemony?” Foreign Affairs , no.  (January/February ).
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report . The Rise of the
South: Human Progress in a Diverse World (New York: UNDP, ), p. .
Ibid; Joakim Reiter, Deputy Secretary-General of United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD), “UNCTAD and South-South Cooperation,” March , .
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Investment Report  (Geneva:
United Nations, ), pp. , –, unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir_en.pdf.
Henry Kissinger, “Henry Kissinger on the Assembly of a New World Order,” Wall Street Journal, August
, , www.wsj.com/articles/henry-kissinger-on-the-assembly-of-a-new-world-order-.
ASEAN + refers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus China, Japan, and South Korea.
Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini, “A G-Zero World,” Foreign Affairs , no.  (March/April ),
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/--/g-zero-world.
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Amitav Acharya
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On June , , Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement.
However, far from signaling the collapse of the agreement, the reaction to U.S. withdrawal perfectly
illustrates the dynamics of the multiplex world, where global cooperation on critical challenges does
not necessarily rely on a leading power. No other country followed the United States; and at a meeting
in Hamburg in July , the other nineteen members of the G- reaffirmed their “strong commitment” to the Agreement, calling it “irreversible.” Trump’s decision paradoxically also prompted a
wave of domestic support for the Agreement, including from U.S. businesses, states, and cities,
which are especially crucial to climate action. See Oliver Milman, “G leaders’ statement on climate
change highlights rift with US,” The Guardian, July , , www.theguardian.com/world//jul/
/g-climate-change-leaders-statement-paris-agreement.
Slaughter, “The Return of Anarchy?”
For a detailed discussion and debate, see Amitav Acharya, ed., Why Govern? Rethinking Demand and
Progress in Global Governance (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, ).
Fareed Zakaria, “Global Success Stories,” Washington Post, August , , www.washingtonpost.
com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-global-success-stories////aa-e-e-ae-cfeffa_story.html?utm_term=.fdfea.
Therése Pettersson and Peter Wallensteen, “Armed conflicts, –,” Journal of Peace Research ,
no. (), p. .
Global Terrorism Index  (Sydney and New York: Institute for Economics and Peace, ), p., economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads///Global-Terrorism-Index-..pdf. This data is
derived from the Global Terrorism Database of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism
and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence at
the University of Maryland.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The IISS Armed Conflict Survey , Press Statement,
Arundel House, London, May , , pp.–, www.iiss.org/en/about%us/press%room/press%
releases/press%releases/archive/-fe/may-/armed-conflict-survey--press-statementabe.
These Latin American initiatives included the Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and
Peace, attended by nineteen Latin American nations and held in Mexico City, February –March ,
 (the Chapultepec Conference). Three years later, twenty Latin American and Caribbean countries
as well as the United States signed the American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man at Bogota,
Colombia, in April —seven months before the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights on December , . See Kathryn Sikkink, “Human Rights,” in Why Govern, ed. Amitav
Acharya (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ) pp.–. See also Amitav Acharya.
“‘Idea-Shift’: How Ideas from the Rest Are Reshaping Global Order,” Third World Quarterly , no.
 (), pp. –; “Principles from the Periphery: The Neglected Southern Sources of Global
Norms,” Global Governance , no.  (); and “The UN and the Global South,  and :
Past As Prelude?” Third World Quarterly , no.  ().
Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ). Although Allison popularized the phrase “Thucydides’s Trap,”
the underlying logic of the term reflects realist theories of international relations, especially “power transition” theory, which is precisely about how a rising power and a status-quo power might get into
conflict.
after liberal hegemony
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