The first article deals with the UN practice of authorising interventions. Interventions constitute a temporary infringement on a state’s external sovereignty. The article on interventions has as its title “ The New Practice of UN Authorised Interventions: A Slippery Slope of Forcible Interference?” This article has a twofold aim: First, to depict what seem to be the emerging criteria for justified interventions; and second, to discuss whether by relaxing the principle of non-intervention, the UN may be caught on a slippery slope of forcible interference.
I demonstrate that the principle of non-intervention has been challenged on the basis of international human rights, on the basis of considerations concerning de facto statehood, and on the basis of democratic governance. I thereby question the assertion implied by external sovereignty that what goes on inside the territorial boundaries of sovereign states is not, as a matter of fact, the concern of external actors.
But is this change to be cherished or deplored? One reason for being critical towards relaxing the principle of non-intervention is that once interventions are allowed for specific and normatively defensible purposes, it may prove impossible, or at least very difficult, to establish barriers towards a further softening of the principle, which may have intolerable consequences. What may be a morally acceptable response to, for example, massive violations of basic human rights or the breakdown of state authority, may thus turn out to have unavoidable and intolerable consequences at some later stage. I argue that the practice of giving a moral justification for an
intervention in situation A, creates pressures for intervening in other situations that are similar to situation A. There is also the danger that the UN will further expand the requirements to be met before the principle of non-intervention applies. However, the composition of the UN Security Council as well as the decision-making procedures
whereby decisions concerning the authorisation of use of force are taken constitute restraints, if not stopping-points, along the slippery slope. This reduces the risk of entering it in the first place.
One line of thought addressed in this article is the following: The UN practice of authorising interventions may lead to a general change in attitudes towards the use of force in inter-state relations. This may make states more prone to intervene in
situations where the use of force has not been authorised by the Security Council, because one or several of the permanent members of the Council block a decision. At the time of writing (October 1999), less than seven months have passed since NATO bombed targets in Kosovo, as well as in other parts of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia – without prior authorisation from the UN. Why would a prior UN authorisation of such an action make a difference from a normative point of view, if states’ claim to protection under the principle of non-intervention is seen to be ill-founded and thus a prerogative that may be overruled when, e.g., the state in question does not safeguard the human rights of its inhabitants? I believe the most convincing argument that can be made for the need to obtain UN authorisation prior to such operations is that respect for human rights in general and the right to life in particular implies caution with regard to use of force in inter-state relations. And there is the danger that by intervening without prior authorisation from the UN, NATO may contribute to reducing the barriers for the use of force in such relations. And it seems to me that the need for obtaining an authorisation from the Security Council
represents a stronger institutional guarantee against abusive use of force in inter-state relations than do appeals for caution to NATO or other organisations. But I readily admit that the situation in Kosovo highlights some serious dilemmas, and that the question of authorisation is one that defies easy answers.
States’ claim to sovereignty is based on territorial boundaries. But do all existing states have a well-founded claim to territorial integrity? The answer to this question depends on what factors ought to determine the location of boundaries between sovereign states. The answer is important, since it will tell us which interests count, from a normative point of view, in determining reasonable claims to statehood. This is the question that lies at the heart of the second article, which I have called “ The morality of secession” . Secessions constitute a permanent loss of territory and the people who reside on that territory, and secessions thus also challenge states’ claim to
external sovereignty. In this article I systematically discuss and compare two sets of arguments that can be put forward to justify secessions. I term these arguments community arguments and justice arguments respectively. Both sets of arguments hold that the state, in order to have a well-founded claim to territorial integrity, must satisfy some basic moral requirements, but the nature of the requirements differs between the two sets of arguments. According to the national community argument, the territorial boundaries between sovereign states ought to encompass one and only one nation. On the other hand, it is the common denominator of the various justice arguments that state boundaries should be drawn in such a way as to be instrumental in realising basic values of justice.
Secessions normally challenge state sovereignty in the name of nationality, and the increase in the number of secessions mirrors Anthony D. Smith’s observation that
“ the legitimating principle for politics and state-making today is nationalism” (1986:
129). Can this development be defended from a normative point of view? One
condition for such a development to be acceptable is that strong reasons exist for there being congruence between the territorial boundaries of states and national settlement patterns. A nation may be defined as
A portion of mankind [that] are united among themselves by common sympathies that do not exist between them and any others – which make them co-operate with each other more willingly than with other people, desire to be under the same government, and desire that it should be governed by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively (Mill 1861/1991: 391).
When the territorial boundaries between sovereign states coincide with national settlement patterns, it is therefore individuals’ desire to be politically associated with some people rather than others that determines the location of boundaries. Granting existing states an a priori right to territorial integrity may consequently conflict with the value of letting individual choices of community determine the location of territorial boundaries. In the article on secession, I also discuss – and defend – the arguments that the cause of democracy and, albeit not without qualifications, the cause of social justice are served by the existence of a common national identity among a state’s citizenry. Moreover, some nations devoid of statehood have been
extremely vulnerable to persecution, although occasional UN authorisations of interventions for the purpose of protecting national minority groups weaken the
proposition that possession of statehood is a necessary condition for protection against persecution. Still it seems reasonable to conclude that there is a high probability that nations are more secure when they have a state of their own. I argue that strong arguments exist for according national minorities who are territorially concentrated in an area where few non-nationals reside, a right to secede. Such a right would
strengthen the bargaining position of such minorities vis-à-vis existing states.
Paradoxially, however, this may make it more likely that a satisfactory solution could be agreed upon that leaves the internationally recognised boundaries intact.
To grant existing states an a priori right to territorial integrity may also conflict with human rights, as this rules out territorial division as one possible solution to severe human rights conflicts. Human rights are rights that one holds simply by virtue of being a human. Therefore human rights are held universally. One of the most basic ideas underlying the idea of human rights is that fundamental justice is not relative to particular cultures or to state boundaries. By specifying minimum requirements that all institutions should satisfy, human rights provide a critical standard against which existing political decisions and practices can be measured. Human rights can be claimed, even when there is no legal basis for them in the state one belongs to. This has been termed “ the possession paradox” by Jack Donnelly (1985): One ‘has’ and
‘has not’ a right at the same time. The possession paradox is due to the fact that human rights are primarily rights on the state. It is the responsibility of states to safeguard the human rights of the population that resides inside the territorial boundaries of the state in question. One reason, then, why state boundaries carry moral significance is that they signify which state is responsible for protecting the human rights of the individuals who reside inside the boundaries of that particular state.
In practice this means that the human rights that individuals actually enjoy for most practical purposes depend on whether they reside on this or that side of a state boundary. At first glance, it would seem that the effective realisation of the idea of human rights requires the abolition of state boundaries and the corresponding institutionalisation of some kind of global power or world government. There is, however, one very important reason why we should be sceptical to the idea that the
institutionalisation of a world government would be instrumental in bringing about a world in which the human rights of all individuals are satisfied. This reason is that the existence of a world government with exclusive jurisdiction over all of the world’s territory and population would leave us with no place to take refuge, should we become subjects of human rights violations.
It would seem, then, that the remedy for human rights abuse is not to transcend state sovereignty. We also do not have particularly good reasons for believing that the proper remedy for human rights abuse is to give up the sovereignty principle. Thomas Hobbes characterised life under conditions of statelessness as one of “ continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short” (Hobbes 1651/1986: 186). Such conditions are not confined to the 17th Century. Commenting upon the situation in Kosovo in the aftermath of the NATO intervention in March 1999, Timothy Garten Ash (1999) claimed that “ If you occasionally wonder why we need states at all, you should visit a place like Kosovo that has none. This has advantages, of course. For example, you do not need to worry about speeding fines. But you can also get robbed or killed at night, and no one will take any notice” .
It is my contention that human rights can be effectively realised in a state system, and that the absence of a readily available and normatively acceptable alternative to such a system should not be deplored. To be sure, state power has all too often been the source of severe threats to individuals. Research suggests that state power has been a far more important source of threat to humankind in the 20th Century than has wars (Rommel 1994). What Rommel terms our century’s megamurderers (states who have killed, aside from warfare, more than 1,000 000 persons), alone bear direct
responsibility for the death of more than 151,000 000 persons. The comparable number of persons killed in wars (civil wars and inter-state wars) in this century up to 1987 was about 38,500 000. If one adds the figures for the victims of states which have killed less than 1,000 000 persons, the total number of victims of democide amounts to more than 169,000 000 (ibid.: 3).2 Estimates such as these are, to be sure, uncertain, not to say dubious. What remains undisputed is that state power kills. But it seems to me that the most effective remedy for such a situation is neither to transcend nor to dissolve state sovereignty. The most effective remedy for such a situation is
rather to create a state system consisting of responsible states, that is, states willing and able to secure the human rights of their inhabitants. Thus, one important aim of a normative analysis is to critically assess the extent to which an institutional scheme granting all existing states an unconditional right to territorial integrity provides incentives for states to remain or become committed to safeguarding the human rights of their citizens. I fail to see how a state system devoid of a right to secede provides strong enough incentives for states to take human rights seriously. I consequently hold that an existing state may forfeit its claim to territorial integrity by failing to safeguard the human rights of all its citizens. I argue that the case for secession arises when (i) a state conducts massive human rights violations against a part of the citizenry; (ii) that part of the citizenry live territorially concentrated in an area administered as a
province or another sub-section of the state; (iii) when the prospects of popular revolt are dim; and (iv) the UN has failed to take adequate action to protect the victims of human rights violations.
In the article on secession, I argue that there ought to be congruence between state boundaries and national settlement patterns. In the third article, which has been given the title “ How to Reconcile the Political One with the Cultural Many” , I argue that there is no necessary conflict between this claim and the existence of – and
corresponding need for – accommodating ethno-cultural pluralism within the nation.
In this article I take the existing location of boundaries for granted and discuss the question of how the state ought to respond to ethno-cultural differences in the
population that resides within its borders. A distinction is made between the question of how to create congruence between state boundaries and national settlement patterns under conditions of ethno-cultural pluralism on the one hand, and the question of how to respond to groups who have developed a national consciousness on the other.
I discuss several strategies for making national identities compatible with a fairly wide range of ethnic and religious identities. Some nations are indeed depicted as communities that transcend ethnicity. But also when the national culture has been shaped by the dominant ethnic group, national identities may be compatible with a fairly wide range of ethnic and religious identities. I identify two strategies aimed at making national identities more hospitable to ethnic and religious pluralism, and I term these strategies the rights strategy and the public debate strategy respectively.
2 The term democide includes both genocide, politicide and mass murder (Rommel 1994: 3).
The former strategy aims at making the national culture hospitable to ethnic and religious minorities by institutionalising some special rights for such minorities. The latter strategy aims at making the national culture hospitable to ethnic and religious minorities by way of an open discussion on the meaning of the national identity in question. I argue that both strategies face some important challenges with regard to limiting the kind of cultural pluralism that is to have a well-founded claim for being accommodated in, e.g., legislative processes. The question of establishing legitimate limits is far more important than the question of whether the state ought to follow the rights strategy or the public debate strategy. But once these limits have been
established, it seems to me that although the public debate strategy has some attractive features, the rights strategy is likely to provide a more robust defence for ethnic and religious pluralism within the nation, while at the same time preserving the
distinctness of the national culture. It is worth noticing that the right to enjoy one’s culture in company with others is an important part of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. If a state fails to safeguard this right, a case for secession may therefore arise.
The normative landscape changes, however, when markers of ethnicity have become the basis for incompatible national identities in the population. The state in question is then not a multi-cultural or multi-ethnic nation-state, but a multi-national state. As will be remembered, in the article on secession I argue that the territorial boundaries of sovereign states ought to encompass one and only one nation. Sometimes, however, efforts at building and sustaining a common national identity among co-citizens have failed, while no drawing or redrawing of boundaries can create congruence between state boundaries and national settlement patters. Under such conditions, we have little choice but to try to look for institutional solutions that seem capable of securing that individuals who have a common national identity enjoy some degree of
self-government, even if these institutional solutions fall short of sovereign statehood.
Some such institutional solutions imply that decision-making competence is dispersed rather than being concentrated in one institution. This in turn means that sub-section A of the total citizenry has no political appeal against decisions taken by institution X, while sub-section B of the total citizenry has no political appeal against decisions taken by institution Y. I suggest that two factors determine whether a proposed solution is a normatively acceptable way of responding to conditions of
multi-nationality, namely the settlement pattern of the respective groups and the degree of antagonism between these groups.
The purpose of the first three articles is evaluative. In these articles I assess whether current institutional schemes and political practices can be defended from a normative point of view. In the fourth and final article the perspective changes somewhat. This article deals with Norwegian policy vis-à-vis the Sami minority. The aim of this article is not to assess whether this policy can be defended from a normative point of view. Rather the aim of this fourth article is to examine the actual impact of
international norms on contemporary policy-making in Norway, in a situation where the existence and particular location of Norway’s territorial boundaries are taken for granted. This article is hence an example of an empirical study on norms.
In this article I argue that particular international norms, most notably Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and ILO Convention 169, have affected – and are about to affect – the shaping of Norwegian policy towards the Sami. Such norms considerably limit the scope of majoritarian political decision-making in Norway with respect to the Sami minority. I also discuss some of the mechanisms that may account for how it is that international norms affect domestic political decision-making. International norms have given the Sami minority some degree of immunity against unconstrained majority rule. Even if it is the case that the Norwegian Parliament, the Storting, still has almost exclusive decision-making
competence with regard to Sami matters, the powers of the Storting are constrained by international norms. Thus even if the Norwegian state’s institutions still claim final
competence with regard to Sami matters, the powers of the Storting are constrained by international norms. Thus even if the Norwegian state’s institutions still claim final