Legitimacy and the use of force: Can the circle be squared?

Review of International Studies

Volumn 31, Issue SUPPL. 1, 2005, Pages 15-32

  Hurrell, Andrew ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33645062151     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210505006765     Document Type: Review

References (45)

1. Thus the recent US emphasis on the use of military force needs to be seen in the context of a powerful and robust Jacksonian tradition within US foreign policy. See Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World (New York: Alfred N. Knopf, 2001).
2. See also Tony Judt's brave highlighting of those elements within US society that, in other places, we would not hesitate to label as militarist. See Tony Judt, The New World Order', New York Review of Books, 14 July 2005, pp. 14-18. It would be wrong, however, to focus too heavily on the US. For example, Putin has had no great difficulty in convincing many Russians that the brutal use of force in Chechnya is a perfectly legitimate means to restore 'order'.
3. See Ian Hurd, 'Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics', International Organization, 53:2 (1999), pp. 379-408.
4. Martin Wight, International Theory: The Three Traditions, eds. Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1991), p. 99.
5. For an excellent analysis of these classical debates, see David Dyzenhaus, Legality and Legitimacy: Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen and Herman Heller in Weimar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
6. See especially David Beetham, The Legitimation of Power (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991).
7. See, in particular, Ian Clark, Legitimacy in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005);
8. and Gelson Fonseca Jr., A Legitimidade e Outras Questões Internacionais (São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1998).
9. Fritz Scharpf, Governing Europe: Effective and Democratic? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
10. Thomas M. Franck, The Power of Legitimacy Among Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 19.
11. Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, 3rd edn. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002);
12. Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1957) p. 1.
13. For a clear example, see Bruno Simma (ed.), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
14. The emphasis on the need to 'constitutionalize international law' has also been visible amongst political theorists, again especially in Germany. Habermas, for example, has argued that 'The world organization . . . has a veritable constitution, which sets forth procedures according to which international breaches of rules can be determined and punished. There have been, since, no more just and unjust wars, only legal or illegal ones, justified or unjustified under international law.' 'America and the World: A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas', Logos, 3:2 (Summer 2004), p. 14.
15. See John Ferejohn, 'Judicializing Politics, Politicizing Law', Law and Contemporary Problems, 41 (Summer 2002), pp. 41-63. The idea that the use of force should be tightly constrained by legal and constitutional structures is also central to many liberal theorists of global governance such as David Held.
16. See David D. Caron, 'The Legitimacy of the Collective Authority of the Security Council', American Journal of International Law, 87:4 (1993), pp. 41-63.
17. Henry R. Nau, The Truth about American Unilateralism', The American Outlook (Fall 2003).
18. See John R. Bolton, ' "Legitimacy" in International Affairs: The American Perspective in Theory and Operation', Remarks to the Federalist Society, November 2003, 〈http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm26143.htm), accessed 10 August 2005. Bolton's argument is strikingly inconsistent and he is happy to acknowledge the legitimacy-conferring role of international law and society whenever it suits his own understanding of US interests.
19. Amongst the clearest statements of the conditional sovereignty idea is Richard N. Haas, 'Sovereignty: Existing Rights, Evolving Responsibilities', Speech at Georgetown University, 14 January 2003.
20. R. Y. Jennings, The Acquisition of Territory in International Law (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963), pp. 3-4.
21. See also Sharon Korman, The Right of Conquest (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), ch. 4.
22. Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 86.
23. Hedley Bull, The Great Irresponsibles? The United States, the Soviet Union and World Order', International Journal, XXV (1979-80), p. 439.
24. See Jochen Prantl, 'Informal Groups of States and the UN Security Council', International Organization, 59:3 (2005), especially pp. 582-5.
25. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schab (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1976).
26. W. Michael Reisman, The United States and International Institutions', Survival, 41:4 (1999-2000), pp. 71-2.
27. Martin Shapiro, The Giving Reason Requirement', in Martin Shapiro and Alec Stone Sweet, On Law, Politics and Judicialization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 228-57.
28. See also Jens Steffek, The Legitimation of International Governance: A Discourse Approach', European Journal of International Relations, 9:2 (2003), especially pp. 260-5. As Steffek makes clear, the importance of argument, persuasion and communication explains why the figure of Habermas is so central to the understanding of legitimacy.
29. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977), p. 15.
30. George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), pp. 56-7.
31. See Stephen Krasner, 'Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States', International Security, 29:2 (2004), pp. 85-120.
32. See, for example, Jack Goldsmith, 'Liberal Democracy and Cosmopolitan Duty', Stanford Law Review, 55 (2002-2003), pp. 1667-97.
33. It is noteworthy that the UN High Level Panel spoke explicitly of the need for a collective security system, despite all of the problems associated with the concept and despite failing to address those problems. See especially Part IID: Elements of a Credible Collective Security System, in A More Secure World- Our Shared Responsibility, Report of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (New York: United Nations, December 2004).
34. The classic statement is Inis Claude, 'Collective Legitimation as a Political Function of the United Nations', International Organization, 20:3 (1966), pp. 367-79;
35. see, more recently, Mats Berdal, The UN Security Council: Ineffective but Indispensable', Survival, 45:2 (2003), pp. 7-30.
36. The United States and the United Kingdom sought legal justification for the use of force against Iraq in March 2003 on the basis that previous UNSC resolutions provided 'continuing authority'. Whilst there are very good legal reasons to counter such a claim, the political point remains valid. If international society is capable only of such actions in the field of international security built around the authorisation of individual states or groups of states to act on its behalf, what sense does it make to deny those states the autonomy to carry through the agreed goals? See Adam Roberts, 'Legal Controversies in the War on Terror', keynote address, US Pacific Command, International Military Operations and Law Conference, Singapore 21-24 March 2005, pp. 4-5.
37. Steffek, 'Legitimation of International Governance', p. 263.
38. Ronald Dworkin, 'Hart's Postscript and the Character of Political Philosophy', Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 24:1 (2004), pp. 1-37.
39. Fred Dallmayr, 'Cosmopolitanism, Moral and Political', Political Theory, 31:3 (June 2003), p. 434.
40. A More Secure World, paras. 204-9.
41. See also Roberts, 'Legal Controversies in the War on Terror', pp. 9-10.
42. For an excellent analysis of the impact of this change on international legitimacy, see William Walker, Weapons of Mass Destruction and International Order, Adelphi Paper 370 (London: IISS, 2004).
43. Raymond Aron, Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966), p. 70.
44. For a neoconservative view of legitimacy in this context, see Robert Kagan, 'America's Crisis of Legitimacy', Foreign Affairs, 83:2 (2004), pp. 65-88.
45. G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint and the Rebuilding of Order after Major War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).