Book Review: Tesón FR and van der Vosen B, Debating Humanitarian Intervention: Should We Try to Save Strangers?
| Author | Ignas Kalpokas |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929918819215 |
| Published date | 01 November 2019 |
| Date | 01 November 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Reviews |
Political Studies Review
2019, Vol. 17(4) NP10 –NP11
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
819215PSW0010.1177/1478929918819215Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2019
Commissioned Book Review
Debating Humanitarian Intervention: Should
We Try to Save Strangers? by Tesón FR and
van der Vosen B. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2017. 288pp., £39.00, ISBN 9780190202910
Humanitarian intervention is a notoriously
thorny subject and certainly a topic that sparks
great controversy among scholars and practi-
tioners within and beyond the domains of
International Law, International Relations or
Security Studies. Hence, it is always refreshing
to encounter a truly thought-provoking volume,
even if the thoughts thus provoked are not nec-
essarily positive.
For Tesón, the justness of humanitarian
intervention essentially boils down to a cost–
benefit analysis, in this case – the weighing of
the likely harm of intervention against that of
non-intervention. For an intervention to be per-
missible, just cause is the most important
requirement; necessity and proportionality
clauses are determined by the just cause, as are
the criteria for success, since the just cause
must be realised for the war to have been just.
The entire edifice, however, is based on a rele-
gation of the state to an entirely ancillary posi-
tion, if not lower: for Tesón, ‘[t]he moral
standing of the state is entirely parasitic on the
rights and interests of persons’ (p. 26); conse-
quently, only individuals, and not states, are
worth defending. In fact, the very idea of ‘[t]he
putative people’s right to a state that expresses
their own culture […] is profoundly illiberal’
(p. 90); however, Tesón makes no effort to dem-
onstrate that this actually is the case, and even if
it was illiberal, that does not automatically ren-
der it non-existent, particularly since something
akin to such a right is expressed in the
International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights. Moreover, Tesón, while
denying the right to cultural expression through
the sate by its citizens, simultaneously defends
the right of foreigners to impose their culture
on the unwilling, which is patently illogical.
Later, Tesón goes as far as to deny a people’s
right to a state as such, ignoring the fact that
self-determination is universally regarded as a
key principle of international law. This, how-
ever, is not even the only legally problematic
assertion that Tesón makes. On another occa-
sion, he insists that since the intervention is for
the sake of civilians, ‘it seems unfair to expect
that all or most of the cost of war should fall on
the intervener’s shoulders’ and thus civilians
should be bound to bear some of the harm (p.
114). Such a proposition potentially violates the
Geneva Conventions and fundamental non-
derogable principles of international law, pri-
marily the principle of distinction.
Tesón also circumvents the potentially
tricky issue of sovereignty, respect for which
could potentially preclude intervention.
According to the argument, sovereignty does
not apply because ‘the tyrant is defending him-
self against those who are aiding his victims’
(p. 28). However, this argument would only
hold for situations in which the head of state
has zero public support, which is unlikely in
practice because even the most brutal of tyrants
need a critical mass of public support in order
for their regime to stay afloat. Tesón’s denial of
self-determination and restriction of criminal-
ity to the dictator (and, potentially, their inner-
most circle) also allows for legitimation of
regime change: if deposing the ‘tyrant’ is nec-
essary for realisation of the just cause and pro-
portionate to that cause, then they can be
removed from office and a new regime
installed. Nevertheless, the morality of exter-
nal regime design is left unaddressed. The
denial of self-determination, logically, also
leads Tesón to the conclusion that citizens have
no right to depose the dictator themselves,
unless the circumstances are identical to those
warranting humanitarian intervention. Even
more problematically, Tesón asserts that
‘sometimes revolutions will be impermissible
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