1. Interrogating the Ethics of the Responsibility to Protect.
- Author
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Busser, Mark
- Subjects
- *
POLITICAL ethics , *INTERVENTION (International law) , *FEMINISM , *SOCIAL movements , *ETHICS - Abstract
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) report fails to fully engage the ethical and political dilemmas of alternative concepts of 'responsibility'. The R2P report focuses on strategic benefits of intervention: suffering at the margins of power is implied to be worth addressing only because, if left unchecked, it can produce a threat to the 'civilized' world. Moreover, the R2P report thinly veils a narrative of metaphysical duty reminiscent of colonialism by asserting that there are circumstances in which states have a duty to protect those who have no right to expect that protection. A closer examination of the report's intellectual links to the just war tradition shows that its arguments rely on an obscured set of meta-ethical premises. The way the report's authors seem to conceptualize concepts like 'responsibility', 'obligation', and 'justification' restricts and cheapens the vision they offer for a 'responsible' form of global politics. This paper draws from feminist and postcolonial theorizations of 'global ethics' to critique the R2P concept's privileging of knowing, benevolent, Western decision-makers as those whose task it is to decide which duties must be acted upon and when. By emphasizing the elements of accountability and answerability that are essential parts of the concept of responsibility, it is possible to imagine a new and transformative mode of engagement where global actors would commit to the engaged justification of their actions and truly take responsibility for their failings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008