Triumphing over evil: Edmund Burke and the idea of humanitarian intervention
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1755088215590886 |
Journal of International Political Theory
2016, Vol. 12(3) 276 –298
© The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1755088215590886
ipt.sagepub.com
Triumphing over evil:
Edmund Burke and the idea
of humanitarian intervention
Camilla Boisen
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Abstract
This article argues that one of the main justifications underlying Burke’s plea for a military
campaign against revolutionary France was based on humanitarian considerations. With
its revolutionary doctrines, France had committed an open act of aggression against the
European community of states, the containment of which required a right of intervention
and the immediate restitution of the ancien regime. The French Republic endangered
the lives of its own citizens, those of Europeans in general, and was liable to lead to
the collapse of the whole ancient order upon which the European family of states
depended. The motivation and evidence for this is to be found in his understanding
of the law of nations, developed from customary practices that constituted a society
of states or the Commonwealth of Europe as Burke termed it. It is in this respect
that Burke departs significantly from better known codifiers of the law of nations such
as Grotius, Pufendorf and Vattel. As such, the basis for ‘humanitarian intervention’ in
Burke’s writing is predicated upon common and customary law.
Keywords
Edmund Burke, humanitarian intervention, just war theory, law of nations
Introduction
Humanitarian intervention is considered a modern invention, the product of a more
enlightened age, in which such issues as the responsibility to protect weigh heavily on
the international community. Because of its potential clash with the pre-eminent norm of
sovereignty, the prospect is raised with extreme caution by its proponents and with the
utmost scepticism by those suspicious of the motives behind it. Recent events have
Corresponding author:
Camilla Boisen, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Central Block East
Campus, Johannesburg 2000, South Africa.
Email: camilla.boisen@wits.ac.za
590886IPT0010.1177/1755088215590886Journal of International Political TheoryBoisen
research-article2015
Article
Boisen 277
shown that too hasty a move to intervene may have catastrophic consequences for those
who are the purported beneficiaries of intervention. The almost complete collapse of
civil society in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq sounded alarm bells when Syrian rebels were
also to become the ‘beneficiaries’. The issues raised by these modern examples are not
new, even though the ‘concept’ may be of recent origin. In fact, ‘humanitarian’ morally
grounded interventions have been at the forefront of political reflections for centuries.
Edmund Burke, for example, was one in a long line of international observers, including
Vitoria, Grotius, Sepúlveda, Las Casas, Pufendorf and Vattel, who believed that there
were certain things that governments should not be permitted to do to their citizens, or
subjects, without incurring the wrath of ‘civilised’ societies, who had an ‘imperfect duty’
to intervene, both for the sake of those against whom extreme harm is perpetrated and for
the sake of international stability and order.
The loss of religious reasons as the basis for legitimate intervention, which charac-
terised the early modern period just war paradigm, and the elevation of states’ sover-
eignty as the primary juridical pillar of the international legal system raise the question:
by what earthly authority, in the absence of natural law, beyond contestation may sov-
ereignty be disregarded? The answer, which is consistent with contemporary liberal
democratic political philosophy, is that this is only permissible if it is in the interests of
those whose right of self-determination is thereby undermined. Thus, it is permissible if
it is evident that the state is illegitimate either because it is failing to uphold the human
rights of its subjects or it is in an equally demonstrable way frustrating their right of
self-determination. Such arguments are often criticised for being abstract, morally con-
testable and insufficiently mindful of the historical basis of societal relationships.
Burke’s answer is dismissive of ideals and abstract principles, and he appeals instead to
precedent, which allows for radical actions in support of conservative principles based
on empirical grounds of legitimation for intervention.1 If there is one thing to learn from
recasting Burke’s ‘reflections’ on the French Revolution anew, it is, to put it bluntly, that
there is no point in intervening if we do not have anything in common with the people
we want to save.2
Burke’s ideas should be of interest to modern day scholars because Burke gives the
modern readership an argument for the preservation of historically existing moral com-
munities when they are under threat from home and abroad, which does not depend upon
abstract ideas of human rights, invoked but little understood in modern debates on
humanitarian intervention. Thus, there are broader observations to be drawn from study-
ing the moral basis of interventionism in the history of political thought. While the con-
temporary debates about what counts as humanitarian intervention are distant from
Burke’s writings, the debates have a familiar ring to them. Today we might look for
answers to questions of the moral constituency of humanitarian intervention, and when
such action might be justified, in the long-standing debates between the cosmopolitans
and the communitarians.3 The history of the cosmopolitanism and communitarianism
debate shows that there are multiple sites of dispute over what might count as a good
reason for intervention. While the specific battle over what constitutes humanitarianism
can be traced from the 1899 Hague conference (Roberts and Sutch, in press), its philo-
sophical roots go much deeper. I am by no means drawing any parallels between Burke
and these contemporary ‘schools of thought’, but what I do want to show is that the his-
To continue reading
Request your trial