Responsibilities of states in conflicts

I just finished writing another chapter of my book on Africa. Doing so involved –among other things–poring over the reports of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in order to see how those good folks tried to comprehend and describe the violence that beset their land in the apartheid era.
In volume 6 there (one of the “codicil” volumes, published in 2001), I found the following very important quote:

    A state must be held to a higher standard of moral and political conduct than any other role player in a violent conflict. After all, a state has at its command powers, resources, privileges, obligations and responsibilities that liberation movements and other role players do not.(p.615)

I think that that simple piece of wisdom should be underscored in the present time, particularly in the context of the US’s conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; Israel’s conduct in the occupied territories; and Sudan’s conduct in Darfur. (To name just a few.)
The sentiment expressed there is pure John Locke. Locke, a 17th-century british philosopher, had a vivid understanding of (and as a result, a healthy distrust of) the huge power of states relative to that of non-state actors.
I was thumbing through my copy of Locke’s Two Treatises of Government, trying to find one or two of the more apposite quotes in that regard. Well, the book fell open instead at Chapter XVI, “Of Conquest”. It is worth re-reading– and particuarly so, perhaps, by all those in the US rightwing who have a healthy–one might say, Lockean–distrust of “big” government:

    Sec. 175. THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on any thing but the consent of the people; yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with, that in the noise of war, which makes so great a part of the history of mankind, this consent is little taken notice of: and therefore many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people, and reckon conquest as one of the originals of government. But conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an house is from building a new one in the place. Indeed, it often makes way for a new frame of a common-wealth, by destroying the former; but, without the consent of the people, can never erect a new one.

    Sec. 176. That the aggressor, who puts himself into the state of war with another, and unjustly invades another man’s right, can, by such an unjust war, never come to have a right over the conquered, will be easily agreed by all men, who will not think, that robbers and pyrates have a right of empire over whomsoever they have force enough to master; or that men are bound by promises, which unlawful force extorts from them. Should a robber break into my house, and with a dagger at my throat make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title, by his sword, has an unjust conqueror, who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it…

Locke had, I should note, many many faults as a political thinker. Like just about all the “English empirical” philosophers of his day he was an Anglican clergyman, and therefore an unmarried man who was essentially “kept”, in all respects, by the church and by his landed patrons. His views on gender issues were as a result understandably uninformed and circumscribed.
Beyond that, he developed a convoluted theory on how it was okay to take people in slavery, as booty during wars…. not unconnected, one might say, to his role as a shareholder in a famous big slavetrading company at the time, the Royal African Company.
In connection with that, he helped to write the Constitution of South Carolina, which by an amazing coincidence happened to be a state that strongly supported the institution of slavery.
But still, for all his blind spots, there were a few political facts that he understood well. First among them, that states are to be distrusted, constrained, and always held accounatble. Second, that rule by conquest is quite a different matter than rule by consent.

34 thoughts on “Responsibilities of states in conflicts”

  1. In the first two sentences you refer to Africa as a country. There are approximately fifty sovereign states in the continent of Africa. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was South African (from a single country, South Africa).
    Given the level of, let’s say, misunderstanding, prevelant in the USA, Africans like to correct these slips when they appear. I hope you understand.
    Not so crucial is your assertion that because John Locke was an Anglican clergyman, therefore he was unmarried. The fact that he was an Anglican clergyman would not have prevented him from marrying.

  2. It’s not just Locke. I believe that in Hinduism, officially, higher castes receive greater punishment for the same crime than lower castes. It’s the same idea that greater power confers greater responsibility, and greater culpability in the event of abuse. (Of course, in practice, it’s a different story….)
    Not connected with this post: Riverbend is back!

  3. Can you give an example of something you think would be permissible for a liberation movement that would be impermissible for a state to do? Or rather, if I can be a bit pushy, could you give a whole lot of examples? You leave this very vague exactly where I would want to be very precise.
    E.g., I wouldn’t want any liberation movement to suppose that it could ignore the distinction between combatants and non-combatants. Surely you wouldn’t either. So what constraints are placed absolutely on all parties, and what constraints only apply to states? And do states have unvarying moral constraints, or does, say, an existential threat entitle it too to suspend some of the constraints it would ordinarily be expected to operate under?

  4. Dom– thanks for the editorial correction, which I’ve now implemented. the book is on (three countries in) Africa; the chapter in question was on S. Africa.
    Re the Anglican clergy, they weren’t allowed to marry till the mid- or late 19th century; so yes, Locke, Hobbes, all of ’em did indeed lead very limited lives.
    Chris, no I personally don’t think that non-state actors should be allowed to do things that states aren’t allowed to do… and Additional Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions spells that out. But the fact remains that states have just an exponentially greater ability (1) to cause harm to people, and conversely, (2) to put in place control mechanisms that can stop harm being caused. For instance, look at the question of torture in places of detention. The US military can cause it in much greater numbers than can any of the various forces opposing it (whose control over territory is very fragmentary). And at the same time, if the US President and Joint Chiefs of Stass declared and then credibly implemented a policy of zero tolerance for torture, its practice could be stopped almost overnight. This notably hasn’t happened yet.
    If, however, Muqtada Sadr, or Abu Musa’b al-Zarkawi, or any of the American forces’ opponents wanted to stop torture by his followers– how quickly and effectively could he do it?
    This isn’t to say we shouldn’t demand that they ALL stop practicing it. We should! But our expectations of regular military forces w/ chain of command, control over territory, etc., should be very high.

  5. Nation-states are the highest authorities. There are no supra-national institutions, only inter- (between) national ones.
    States have no moral character. They are instruments of class rule. The states that Locke concerned himself with were bourgeois.
    You don’t have to agree with this Marxist idea of the state, but because it exists, you may not just assume that there is a legitimacy in states, and still less that there is a higher power than states.
    In Africa, where I live, these questions are practical and immediate and would be so whether you all have an opinion or not. Let me refer you to Kwame Nkrumah’s writings as a start (e.g. “Neo-colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism”).

  6. Helena, thanks for the correction re Anglicans. As a Catholic boy, I thought that they had sorted all that out in the Reformation.

  7. “All the talk about thinkers like Leo Strauss was just intended to add a little false intellectual respectability to what was essentially the same old group of American thugs telling the rest of the world how morally superior America is, and if you don’t agree we’ll prove it by killing you. The only new factors added by neo-conservatives were their particular interest in advancing the interests of Likudniks in Israel using the assets and lives of Americans, and a bungling incompetence inspired by the current President. Otherwise, it’s just the same old combination of moral smugness and violence that has characterized much of American history.” – xymphora, today.
    Now, all you liberals, show me how you are different from the neocons, as described above by xymphora.
    The smugness is certainly a common factor, and the record (e.g. “Killing Hope”, by William Blum) shows that the violence is bipartisan.
    Guilty as charged, I’d say.

  8. Not as high brow as the other posters here, but Helena, if you want to visit the most truly beautiful country in Africa, try Tanzania. Heck Bill Gates has a special island retreat off the coast.
    I spent six years there I have enormous respect the founding father of Tanzania, here’s a short bio of a man that the USA hated.
    Dr. Julius Nyerere, President of the Republic of Tanganyika is one of the most able, modest, and democratic minded statesmen Africa has ever produced. He is man who is hailed by contemporary historians and politicians, as being a leader of superb qualities, wide vision, and intellect.
    He was born in 1923 in Northern Tanganyika. He went to school at the age of 12. He attended Makerere College in Uganda, from 1943 to 1945, and obtained a diploma in Education. The next four years were then devoted to teaching in a Catholic Mission School in Tanganyika. Entering the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, in 1949, Dr. Nyerere graduated with a Masters degree in Economics and History.
    When he came home to Tanganyika to teach, he found his people making restless efforts in order to achieve independence, but without a leader to spearhead their demands. He therefore joined The Tanganyika African National Union. Under the leadership of Dr. Nyerere and his party, Tanganyka has been able to achieve its independence smoothly and in an orderly manner. It has also been termed as an island of peace in the ocean of instability and agitation.
    Dr. Nyerere has made it clear that he looks upon any immigrant, who has made his home in Tanganyika, as a Tanganyikan born African. On June 1960, he advocated an East African Federation at the Conference of Independent African States in Addis Ababa and announced that he was prepared to postpone Tanganyikan independence if this will further the independence of the other East African States.
    When South Africa applied to remain a member of the Commonwealth after she became a republic, his intervention along with other leaders, led to South Africa’s withdrawal from membership. Dr. Neyere was quoted as saying, “The principles of the Commonwealth will be betrayed. To vote South Africa in is to vote us out

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