A Question of Sovereignty

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Mrs.Lucysnow, Apr 22, 2009.

  1. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    What right do nations have to interfere in the internal social, cultural, political and judicial policies of another sovereign state?

    The present political climate is one of interference lead by a sense of moral entitlement mostly by Western nations through the U.N

    The U.N’s Declaration on Human Rights asserts in its pre-amble the advancement of said principles:

    “...recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”

    http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

    Signed by 48 member states in 1948 the declaration is not legally binding and it is not a treaty, rather it is the promotion of standards assumed to be universally accepted. With the best intentions these standards have been outlined but still these very principles have been manipulated by various countries to interfere with the internal affairs of other countries for their own political ends under the guise of human rights. Military aggression, moral and unethical economic blockades, causing isolation, hunger and malnutrition of innocent people, have all been carried out in the name of human rights. Nations band together to block resolutions in the name of political interests and solidarity so there is no real consensus only power- broking.

    Charters and resolutions by the U.N often go ignored and its difficult to force change on any particular nation short of military intervention and embargoes which often fail. I would go as far to say that the declaration has failed to reach its goals because it is unrealistic as long as there are autonomous nations representing differing attitudes at different times.

    We can agree not to trade with another country, we can agree not to dialogue with another country but what right do we have to force seemingly liberal western standards on all nations worldwide regardless of culture, history, social readiness, religious and cultural restraints and taboos? The U.N harps on human rights regardless of whether any particular nation honors the U.N declaration or not so why not allow for the self-determination and grass-roots struggle to run its course as an alternative to present methods? Nations change internal policy mostly based on internal pressure.

    Justice is not doled out equally among nations*, the U.N security council is only made up of five member states with other countries to rotate every two years. The international community is unable to stop any country from human rights abuses save condemnation which is often ignored. If we believe in the autonomous state then there is no right at attempts to force change. If we no longer believe in sovereignty then what is the alternative?

    Since the charter states this:

    Article 2.
    Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

    It would seem that this charter is an attempt to override sovereignty.

    *For example the U.S by the declaration’s guidelines has been recently guilty during the Bush years of article 5 also 9/10/11/12 due to the patriot act and the U.N did nothing.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------
    Countries that signed the declaration in '48:

    Afghanitsan, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Burma, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, India, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxumbourg, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Phillipines, Siam, Sweden, Syria, Turkey,United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

    The following eight member states abstained: Byolurussia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, South Africa, the USSR, and Yugoslavia.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2009
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  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Because of many things. Many times other nations want outside help and ask for it other times outsiders want to take stuff that another nation has for its own use.
     
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  5. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Is Iran asking for help? Burma? N. Korea? China?

    You need to read the declaration better yet read the thread

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
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  7. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Actually N.Korea is asking for help and Russia is supplying them with nuclear building materials and know how. Burma is being aided by China as well. Iran has built their nuclear program with Russias help and has bought many military weapons from Russia as well.
     
  8. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Cosmic IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE DISCUSSION THEN GET OUT OF THE BLOODY THREAD!
     
  9. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    You need not yell. I only was answering your question ...

    "What right do nations have to interfere in the internal social, cultural, political and judicial policies of another sovereign state?"

    If you do not like my answer I really do not understand why then you asked the question.
     
  10. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    You have nothing meaningful to add because you don't even understand the opening thread making your input inane and outside the topic. Now run along and be a dullard elsewhere.
     
  11. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I guess you just don't like to hear the truth , do you. :shrug:
     
  12. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    How is it that you confuse interference with aid? You don't understand what you are reading now either you read the thread and get with the program or you get out of the thread or I ask Tiassa to close the thread.
     
  13. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    "Sovereignty" is a really myth. Certain nations are powerful enough to protect themselves from projections of the will of other political bodies and over the course of centuries they came to think of that as a quasi-"right" to be free from the unwanted demands of others.

    Like all rights, though, it is only as good as your ability to enforce it (or your ability to have others enforce it against encrachment on your behalf). A right with no ability to enforce it is no right at all, just wishful thinking.

    With "sovereignty" most nations *are* willing to collectively enforce another sovereign nation's right to it, by engaging in acts against the would-be interfering nations that cause them to back down and leave the target sovereign nation alone (or at least to think twice before the interference). Even the U.S., powerful though it is, feels some pressure from the world community when it "tramples" (for lack of a better word) the rights of other nations.

    You do reach a point, though, where certain sovereign nations engage in bad acts that cause the world community to stop offering this recirprocal protection. These acts may not be that they themselves disregard the sovereignty of others (though it can be, as in Iraq prior to the First Gulf War or Iran's interference in Israel (or, if you prefer Israel's interference in Lebanon and elsewhere, to which Iran's actions may be seen as a reaction)). In some cases the bad act is simple brutality against one's own people, as in East Timor or Rwanda.

    In those cases, without the support of the world order defending your nation's right to be sovereign, you can only defend it if you have the strength to defend it yourself. You must be able to, individually, inflict enough pain on a would be opponent to get them to back down (or at least creibly threaten that you have that power and the will to use it).

    When your opponent (and would be interferer) is the U.S., few nations, taken individually, can offer up defense enough to defeat the U.S., or even significantly harm it, so when the U.S. wants something from you badly, being isolated on the world stage is a bad place to be.

    Worse, the bad acts of such an isolated nation may be enough to convince multiple nations to intervene, each ignoring the so-called "right" (and I would say "no longer existing 'right'") of sovereignty.

    The plus side to this is that it allows the world to intervene, sovereignty be damned, in nations before their bas acts spill over into regional conflicts. The less "sovereignty" the world recognizes, the safer I think we become.
     
  14. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Well what of Myanmar/Burma? They have successfully had a lock down on citizen rights with no regional conflict and they couldn't care less about the rest of the world even though they've been condemned through UN sanctions, these sanctions by the way have done nothing but impoverish local population and hasn't weakened the Junta. No country threatens it wilth invasion even though they have very little military might to stave off one except perhaps with the help of China which I believe is the power base that effectively keeps countries like the U.S at bay (this has also worked in the favor of Sudan). They're lack of interest in world opinion has rendered UN resolutions and their declaration of human rights null and void of weight. The people of Myanmar beg the world for intervention because not only have we made them feel as if we care for their plight but there is no political will to take any serious action against the Junta. The UN charter is a farce and not a reality, it doesn't prevent human right abuses and leaves open only the age-old method of brute force as a means of a check because it doesn't have the power to stave that off ie Iraq.

    Would you advocate a world where their is less and less sovereignty and more and more UN enforcement?
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2009
  15. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I have to admit that I am not up to speed on any bad acts taken by Myanmar. Let's take you at your statement that they have locked down the riughts of their citizens and are generally oppressive:

    First, whether they are "sovereign" is a purely semantic question. Of course they would maintain they are. If no one is messing with them, that assessment may well stand for most purposes. If someone were messing with them and Myanmar was successfully resisting, that assessment would likely stand as well. If they were resisting and failing, but the international community was rallying to them in defense of their "sovereignty" (in the sense of the "right" to be free of outside interference), then in common terms we'd still recognize Myanmar as sovereign. If they were resisting, but failing, and the world community was on the side of the intervening state, then Myanmar's sovereignty is meaningless, and in the case of any right that can't be enforced, I'd say there is no right. In that view, of course, everyone has an opinion on the existence of the "right" (and some people believe rights objectively exist, even when they are being trampled on or are as yet undiscovered by the people "entitled" to them). Since I view rights as a subjective creation of societies, subjective coinsiderations come to play in saying whether this right exists in Myanmar.

    More practically, if an intervening state went after Myanmar, I suspect few would stand up in their defense, and I doubt they would have the wherewithal to stop any western nation that was set on interfereing with their internal politics. In that view, whether you say they have sovereignty or not doesn't matter, since they are still at the whims of other nations (who happen not to be imposing on them now).

    I do not think the UN is "the body" that needs to intervene. Each nation makes its own decidions on whether to interfere. Some do so through the U.N. (which doesn't bother me) some do so unilaterally (whoich also doesn't bother me, though it makes the actor subject to collective action against it).

    What I do not think is useful about sovereignty is that many nations feel hamstrung by it, as was the case in Rwanda. There the U.S. was damned either way because to invade would have meant violating Rwandan supposed "sovereignty", so we did not. The result is that we later apologized for letting the massacre there happen. Dmaned if you do, damned if you don't. Leaders and legal scholars whould recognize that sovereignty is a legal fiction arising out of the fact that no one likes an interloper, and nations will recirpocally defend others from interloping (with the real goal being to preserve one's pown right to be left alone). Sometimes nations do things that obviate any claim they may have to be left in peace, and I hate to see a legal fiction mask that.
     
  16. jps Valued Senior Member

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    I don't believe that national sovereignty, in the abstract, has any moral significance, since a sovereign can be a democratic government or a tyrannical monarch exercising absolute authority over his citizens, or anything in between.
    This doesn't mean that I think there is no moral significance to one country invading another, only that its not the result of any abstract notion of national sovereignty.

    The citizens of a monarchy, who have heard nothing but positive things about their monarch from the state controlled media, may genuinely love him. The monarch, in turn, may actually provide the people with a decent standard of living, and a level of personal freedom.(think Liechtenstein) I think that a democratic country attempting to overthrow such a monarch either violently or through debilitating sanctions, in the name of democracy or human rights, would be probably be immoral. On the other hand, stepping in to support a popular democratic uprising against a hated tyrant, would probably not be immoral.

    The concept of national sovereignty begins to take on inherent moral significance if you're dealing only with democracies, because then you could characterize the issue as the right to "self-determination." In this context, one nation interfering with another's internal affairs becomes both more problematic and less likely to be justified, as presumably, citizens of democratic governments have whatever level of freedom they vote to have. This gets more complicated if you have a majority voting to disenfranchise a minority, but that raises questions about what a democracy really is.

    I think you've gotten to the core of the issue here. The UN declaration of human rights has some lofty, and in my view laudable, ideals in it, but they will not be effective so long as there are nations with national sovereignty. Instead, the declaration serves as a justification for nations to act in their own self-interest.

    Consider the U.S. policy toward Iraq. For many years, we had sanctions against the country, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died. You can argue that they died because Saddam didn't submit to our will, but be that as it may, the children are dead, and they would not be if we had not enacted the sanctions. Years later, we invaded the country, overthrew the government, and arranged for the election of a democratic government. Again, many thousands of people died. If our actions were purely motivated by democratic ideals, why the sanctions then the invasion? why not just invade? Because it was no judged to be in the national interest of the U.S. until it was done.

    In contrast, in Sudan, the situation is worse than it was in Iraq under Saddam Hussein in many ways, but the U.S. is not really willing to do anything to change it. Again, not in the national interest. I don't mean to single out the U.S., every country acts in its perceived national interest.

    Something like the Declaration of Human Rights can only be effective when democratic nations get together and agree to give up enough of their sovereignty to guarantee a basic floor of human rights for everyone. Unfortunately, ceding sovereignty will not be seen as in the national interest of powerful nations.
     
  17. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Pandeamoni: First, whether they are "sovereign" is a purely semantic question. Of course they would maintain they are. If no one is messing with them, that assessment may well stand for most purposes. If someone were messing with them and Myanmar was successfully resisting, that assessment would likely stand as well. If they were resisting and failing, but the international community was rallying to them in defense of their "sovereignty" (in the sense of the "right" to be free of outside interference), then in common terms we'd still recognize Myanmar as sovereign. If they were resisting, but failing, and the world community was on the side of the intervening state, then Myanmar's sovereignty is meaningless, and in the case of any right that can't be enforced, I'd say there is no right. In that view, of course, everyone has an opinion on the existence of the "right" (and some people believe rights objectively exist, even when they are being trampled on or are as yet undiscovered by the people "entitled" to them). Since I view rights as a subjective creation of societies, subjective coinsiderations come to play in saying whether this right exists in Myanmar.


    I agree with much of your statement. What I am curious about is whether this only render us with a might makes right policy? Its ludicrous to pretend that the UN charter on human rights has any weight, on a political level there is not much concern for human rights as the attitude by the U.S state department during the Rwanda genocide point out, its all rather lip-service and public window-washing. What is all comes down to is is military aggression in our interest or not. Either we do away with the pretense of the charter or we give the UN more power to enforce it.
     
  18. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Exactly. The examples you gave are among others exactly what I was referring to. Power whether with good or bad intentions never cedes power I agree but doesn't it look as if we could be heading in the direction of nations having to cede sovereignty? A kind of pyramid of power where the top five nations dictate what is allowed to take place within nations of lesser status. I don't see the West ceding power to guarantee human rights I see the western agenda being used as a guise to control other nations 'rogue nations' if you will.

    JPS: The concept of national sovereignty begins to take on inherent moral significance if you're dealing only with democracies, because then you could characterize the issue as the right to "self-determination." In this context, one nation interfering with another's internal affairs becomes both more problematic and less likely to be justified, as presumably, citizens of democratic governments have whatever level of freedom they vote to have. This gets more complicated if you have a majority voting to disenfranchise a minority, but that raises questions about what a democracy really is.


    I consider Israel a good example of how that works. With over 230 UN resolutions being passed against them they are still allowed the facade of a just working democracy.

    It seems to me that if the UN has no place outside of hot air discussion is should be disbanded or modified.
     
  19. John99 Banned Banned

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    Nice. This is why i dont bother with you.
     
  20. John99 Banned Banned

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    And i got a warning for saying you were on a high horse. unwarranted high horse.
     
  21. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    So don't bother.
     
  22. jps Valued Senior Member

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    I agree that there seems to be a trend toward this internationally. Its remarkable whats happened with the EU over the last decade or so.
    The catch is the United States. It has yet to agree to any treaty that would subject its citizens to the authority of an international court, and zealously protects all aspects of its sovereignty in virtually every arena. It also ignores treaties that it has signed when they conflict with its perceived national interest, by redefining their terms (think convention against torture, Geneva conventions). I think the scenario you describe of powerful western nations using the guise of human rights to control other nations will become more prevalent, but I think it will not coincide with the U.S. ceding any of its sovereignty, even nominally, at least in the forseeable future. Consider how immediately the U.S. dismissed Sarkozy's suggestion that an international financial regulator be created.

    I think that the non-binding declaration of human rights serves adequately as an excuse to interfere with other nations, and a more binding treaty would just complicate things for the U.S. As it stands, the U.S. can ignore it without serious objection because it is not binding. It can also enforce it against other nations, without serious consequences, because other nation's cannot impose consequences on the U.S. that would not seriously harm their own interests. The declaration gives them adequate cover to let these things slide, without openly acknowledging the elephant in the room, that the U.S. away with all this stuff because nobody can stop them, and that's all.


    The U.N. does some good work, but as far as mediating disputes and guaranteeing human rights, it is largely ineffective. Israel is a good example of this. It is also a good example of another nation that will not be ceding its sovereignty in the interest of establishing a basic floor of human rights anytime soon, as this would require it to change its treatment of the Palestinians significantly, and in a manner that it would view as contrary to its national interest.
     
  23. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    The idea of nationalism was created as a tool for exploitation. So why not the notion of enforced liberty? Egalitarianism is a myth anyway. All the societies that pretend to be egalitarian have been built on exploitation.
     

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