Sunday, September 11, 2016

Thomas Hobbes, Sovereignty, and South Sudan

Erica Van Deren, Week 2 Blog

Last week I went to a hearing at the House Foreign Affairs Committee covering “The Growing Crisis in South Sudan.” South Sudan has always (and you can say always here because most of us have been engaged in IR since the country’s birth in 2011) been a chaotic place, with warring factions, weak rule of law, and a steep uphill battle towards fulfilling the hopes of the South Sudanese and the international community in 2011. But the situation has changed in the past six months. Chaos is too facile a word to describe the situation. The UN seems too afraid to act and the US embassy can’t protect its citizens from gang rape a few miles from the embassy.[1] Over one hundred thousand South Sudanese have fled to neighboring Uganda since July.[2]

So what does this have to do with our readings this week on Thomas Hobbes? One of the panelists, Princeton N. Lyman, former special envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, was listing a number of options to improve the situation in South Sudan. One of these is setting up an international administration over South Sudan. “Put South Sudan on “life support” by establishing an executive mandate for the U.N. and the AU to administer the country until institutions exist to manage politics nonviolently and break up the patronage networks underlying the conflict.”[3] Lyman immediately follows up with comments about the challenges for this idea with the AU and UN, mostly rooted in concepts of sovereignty and statehood.

This option brought to mind Hobbes’ writing about the limits of the Sovereign and the rights of the citizens in Chapter 21. He explains that the power of the Sovereign only goes as “long, and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect” the citizens (p. 121). The right that all humans have to self-protection and preservation can’t be given up to the Sovereign. It’s an inalienable right.

There are many challenges with the option of “putting South Sudan on life support”. I often see the dialogue in the international community about failed and failing states as arrogant, neglecting to see the role that Western countries played in destabilization historically and implying that if only the Africans would let educated people in, we could fix this up quickly. But this section from Hobbes, coupled with this hearing, made me re-think my gut reaction. The major principles of sovereignty, as outlined by Hobbes and encapsulated in international law, have been violated by the government of South Sudan. As the government of South Sudan uses arguments of sovereignty to resist even nominal increases in international intervention, the appropriate response may be to say that the current leadership and opposition groups have violated the principles of sovereignty so grossly that they’ve forfeited the ability to claim sovereignty.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Erica,
    You bring up some interesting points in your post about the situation in South Sudan and the fact that the current government of South Sudan has violated the sovereignty principles and is not able to protect its citizens. I think this is the same situation in Syria where the government not only is not able to protect its citizens but also commits crimes against its own citizens. Just a couple of days ago the Syrian government used chemical weapons in the city of Aleppo that injured dozens of civilians (The Guardian 2016).

    As for the idea to set up an international administration in South Sudan: This would not be the first time the UN would establish such a mandate: The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was an international administration mission. This was actually a very successful mission because it supported the Kosovaars in establishing its own government and a functioning economy (UN.org). If the UN was able to set up an international administration mission in Kosovo, the UN should also be able to set up such a mission in South Sudan. The UN has the responsibility to protect, and therefore it should intervene and establish such a mission.

    References
    The Guardian. 2016. "Syrian Government 'Drops Chlorine Gas' On Rebel-Held Part Of Aleppo." Accessed September 12, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/06/syrian-government-chlorine-gas-aleppo
    UN. "UNMIK:Background." Accessed September 12, 2016. http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unmik/background.shtml

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  2. Erica,
    According to Hobbes a sovereign will begin with the consent of the governed in order to be legitimate. We could argue that even Assad had the tacit consent of his people prior to the uprising four years ago. However a U.N. mandate would have no such legitimacy. How would Hobbes treat such an intervention? I would argue he would say that until proven otherwise the sovereign remains the sole power in a state regardless of the actions he takes (cruel as that may be).

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  3. Erica,
    According to Hobbes a sovereign will begin with the consent of the governed in order to be legitimate. We could argue that even Assad had the tacit consent of his people prior to the uprising four years ago. However a U.N. mandate would have no such legitimacy. How would Hobbes treat such an intervention? I would argue he would say that until proven otherwise the sovereign remains the sole power in a state regardless of the actions he takes (cruel as that may be).

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    Replies
    1. I think you're right about Hobbes... Hence why I don't like him much!

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  4. I agree with Chris in saying that Hobbes view would not allow "Sudan on life support" idea because his idea was that those in power should be given power by their subjects. Hobbes states that "the Soveraigne Power is conferred by the consent of the People assembled" (pg. 96). On another note though, Erica, I do agree with you that if the U.N. were to proceed with that idea, it would be be a very complicated ordeal for many reasons. Some of these difficulties would include the idea of developed (or more powerful?) nations exerting sovereignty over others and also the cultural differences that would contribute to this controversy.

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  5. But what if the person in power cannot protect those that have given him the power and decided to be his subjects? Hobbes wrote that the sovereign's power will go as long as, "and no longer, than the power lasteth, by which he is able to protect them" (1651, p. 121). So when the sovereign is not able to protect its citizens anymore, it should not be in power anymore. In the case of Sudan/South Sudan (and even Syria), their governments were not able to protect their citizens anymore and even committed crimes against them. The U.N. should be able to intervene in these cases. Also, because, as I mentioned before, the U.N. has the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

    Erica, I have to say that I do not agree with Hobbes in many respects and if I had the chance to meet him I would like to tell him what I think of his book.

    References
    Hobbes, Thomas. 1651. "Leviathan". New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

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