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Modelling international collective responsibility: the case of grave humanitarian crises

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2010

HANNES PELTONEN
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Abstract

Since its popular appearance in 2001, the responsibility to protect has gained wide attention. Yet, the meaning of responsibility in the R2P report has remained unexamined. The first task of this article is to conceptualise responsibility as it seems to arise from the R2P report. It is argued that the responsibility in the report is collective in nature, and analogous to obligations erga omnes and collective responsibility to extinguish fires before the institutionalisation of fire departments. The second task is to provide a model of collective responsibility with criteria that allow dividing the burden of fulfilling the common responsibility among the members of the collective. The model bridges the conceptual level with the level of practice.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , April 2010, pp. 239 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

Introduction

Recently, at the international level, attention has focused on responsibility and the international community. This is especially since the publication of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) report by the International Commission on Intervention and State SovereigntyFootnote 1 and the subsequent adoption of its main ideas in a resolution by the General Assembly.Footnote 2 In both of these documents, however, little thought is given to the meaning of responsibility, supposedly held by the international community.Footnote 3 In addition, it seems that the question of how to share a burden arising from the advocated international collective responsibility is not discussed at all.Footnote 4

Gareth Evans has raised the question whether R2P's time has come and gone, a question which he answers in the negative while underlining that the concept has been misunderstood.Footnote 5 Whereas his focus is on some of the common misperceptions and misuses of the concept, I provide a conceptual analysis of ‘responsibility’ and as it seems to arise from the original document. As a second step, I propose a practical model of collective responsibility.

Thus, this article aims to contribute, in its first half, by conceptualising international collective responsibility and, in its second half, by providing a model which proposes a method for dividing the burden of a collective responsibility among the members of the collective, namely the international community.Footnote 6 In sum, the aim is to make sense of the responsibility that is advocated in the R2P report.

One might expect that the following pages include a technical solution to the first problem in the form of a sentence defining ‘responsibility’ that is then used to suggest a solution to the second puzzle, namely how to assign a collective responsibility and its costs among the members of the collective. What follows, however, is a demonstration that such technical ‘solutions’ are not necessary, and that a ‘road map’ or a framework can be constructed otherwise. On a higher level, it is argued that technical solutions may not even exist to political problems. Instead, one can hope to have signposts that bring focus and enable action without predetermining it.Footnote 7

A few remarks are necessary before continuing with the subject of this article. First, legal examples are used in the following pages, yet a full-blown legal argument is not attempted. Legal examples are used in order to illustrate a particular point within the general argument, which is best described as ethico-political. Second, it is acknowledged that legal, moral, and political responsibilities are not necessarily linked.Footnote 8 For example, legal responsibility does not necessarily denote moral responsibility or political responsibility. Where it is required to distinguish between these three, I refer to legal responsibility as liability, moral responsibility as responsibility, and political responsibility as accountability.Footnote 9 Third, the aim is to build on the R2P report, although some criticism might be necessary in order to achieve this end. Fourth, despite the discussion revolving around military action for humanitarian purposes, the Just War tradition seems unrelated within this article, because the purpose is to question none of the following: the Security Council's position as the right authority vis-à-vis military action, the requirement of right intentions (just cause), the requirement of proportionality, the requirement of reasonable prospects, or the requirement that force is used as a last resort. Finally, the collective responsibility model, which is proposed in the second half of this article, is a suggestion of how to conceive of collective responsibilities, but it is not claimed that this could be the only way.

A conceptualisation of ‘responsibility’

To be fair, the R2P report gives a threefold conceptualisation of responsibility: 1) ‘state authorities are responsible for the functions of protecting the safety and lives of citizens and promotion of their welfare’, 2) ‘national political authorities are responsible to their citizens internally and to the international community through the UN’, and 3) ‘the agents of state are responsible for their actions […] they are accountable for their acts of commission and omission.’Footnote 10 This conceptualisation, however, leaves unanswered the meaning of being responsible.Footnote 11 One would have expected that this aspect of responsibility was discussed in the R2P report, but it seems to have been neglected.

In order to shed light on the concept of responsibility, and on what is at stake, allow me to begin from the concept's etymological roots and its use. ‘Responsibility’ has its roots in the Latin word respondeo – I answer.Footnote 12 A reaction to this statement could be either ‘what does one answer for’ or ‘to whom does one answer’. In the former case, one could be answerable for something either in an ex ante or in an ex post facto sense.Footnote 13 The latter reaction is about the relative position of a person within a wider social structure, and about who can legitimately question that person's actions.

A peek at the usage of ‘responsibility’ reveals further distinctions. Since the meaning of concepts is in their use and not in their reference points in the world ‘out there’,Footnote 14 a brief Wittgensteinian examination is in order. In other words, examples from common use are best illustrations of a concept's meaning.Footnote 15 Responsibility is often used in relation to taking responsibility for something, such as childcare. Alternatively, one can be responsible for an act, event, or set of circumstances and be answerable for it, for example when a terrorist group claims responsibility for a bombing. Third, responsibility can denote a certain kind of behaviour; responsibility requires the ‘exercise of discretion by deliberate and thoughtful decision in the light of a sound calculation of probable consequences and a fair evaluation of claims.’Footnote 16 Thus, responsibility indicates a person's capacity to ‘act independently and take decisions without authorization.’Footnote 17 Lastly, responsibility is assigned to certain roles and positions, such as to judges or other office-holders.

There are some additional remarks arising from these examples of common use. As the second example illustrated, responsibility can be claimed. Claiming responsibility, however, does not require that one has actually committed the act for which one claims responsibility. For instance, a terrorist group might claim responsibility for a bombing without actually having committed it. Alternatively, one can take upon oneself the responsibilities of others.

Second, responsibility differs from duty and obligation. For a person to be called dutiful, all he needs to do is fulfil his obligations or duties, but to be called responsible would require something more as Pennock argues: ‘A moron might be dutiful, but we would hardly speak of him as a responsible person.’Footnote 18 Duties and obligations refer to cases that are (more) simple and clear-cut. Responsibilities, on the other hand, refer to situations, where ‘judgment or discretion is or ought to be exercised.’Footnote 19

The third additional remark relates to the transferability of responsibility, which requires an explicit focus.

Transferability of responsibility

In the case of responsibilities belonging to a particular office, one often considers that the responsibilities are transferred from one office-holder to another. In a sense, this might be the case. Yet, it is better to consider that the responsibilities remain unmoved while the previous office-holder is relieved of his responsibilities and the new office-holder is assigned those same responsibilities. This is one example of some misleading arguments one might encounter, and by starting with other examples such arguments I hope to illustrate further details about responsibility.

Let us first consider the argument that responsibility is transferred when a person is responsible for another person's actions, because the latter is incapable of acting responsibly. This argument is confused, because no transfer can take place, if the other person could not act responsibly in the first place. To give an example, the responsibilities of children and mentally challenged people are not transferred to the people who care for them; responsibilities and liabilities are ‘created’ for the custodians. When children learn to distinguish between right and wrong and develop the ability to deliberate, we can expect them to act responsibly. In turn, old-enough children take responsibilities upon themselves, while their custodians are relieved of some responsibilities. In sum, one is not born with responsibilities that are, at birth, transferred temporarily to one's custodians. Instead, responsibility is something one learns and integrates as a member of a community and that at a certain age becomes formally recognised (and required) by law.

Another confused argument relates to the limits of transferability of responsibility, particularly to the transferability of causal responsibility. Often it is argued that causal responsibility cannot be transferred, because it is ‘concerned with how a particular outcome is generated [and] does not even require that one is referring to an agent, let alone a moral agent.’Footnote 20 Such arguments, however, confound two distinct issues, namely causality and responsibility. As examples, consider the following two cases: 1) The wind knocks down a tree; and 2) While cutting down a tree, I warn you not to approach, but you reply: ‘I'll take my chances’, and consequently approach and injure yourself.Footnote 21 In neither of these cases would it make sense to say that the wind or I was responsible for what happened, and I wish to explain why this is the case.

In the two examples, both the wind and I caused the tree's falling. The wind, however, did not intend to knock down the tree (how could it?), whereas I clearly intended to cut down the tree. Thus, despite the wind being part of the causal chain, it could not properly be called responsible for knocking down the tree, because it had neither choice nor was it even capable of having a choice. On the other hand, despite also being part of the causal chain and having a choice in felling the tree, my warning and your acceptance of the risk and possible consequences placed the responsibility upon your shoulders. One reason for the confusion over ‘causal responsibility’ might be due to neglecting liabilities or moral responsibilities that are present but not explicitly stated in cases that are used as examples: ‘if I cause you to fall and injure yourself […] I may be responsible; but this is because I am, under the circumstances, legally liable, or morally accountable, or both.’Footnote 22

Moreover, responsibility does not require being part of the causal chain, as an example from legal liability demonstrates.Footnote 23 A classic case is that of escaped cattle; where the cattle owner could be found liable for damages caused by the cattle without the cattle owner having been negligent or having done anything wrong himself. A landmark case of liability without negligence is the English case of Rylands v. Fletcher,Footnote 24 which concerned escape of water onto neighbouring land. It was a significant step in developing legal policies relating to modern industry, risk allocation, liability, and negligence. Although Rylands may have codified only strict liability and not absolute liability,Footnote 25 for the present purposes it is enough to note how in the absence of negligence and without intending to cause the escape of water onto Fletcher's land, Rylands was still found liable. In other words, responsibility, liability, and accountability are due to specific rules that are applied within a set of circumstances, and in determining them, causality may or may not play a role.Footnote 26

Lastly, although some responsibilities can be transferred or one is relieved from them by contracts, warnings, or changes of office, certain kinds of contracts are not valid, warnings might be insufficient, and retirement from an office does not guarantee immunity from one's actions taken while still in office. To give an example of how certain kinds of responsibilities and liabilities cannot be transferred, let us consider the famous American case MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co., which removed privity from negligence actions.Footnote 27 The significance of the case was that the car manufacturer was found liable to a distant third party, whereas in previous cases – such as in Winterbottom v. Wright Footnote 28 – the case would have been dismissed, because no direct relationship existed between the plaintiff and the defendant. In other words, the court found that the car manufacturer was not relieved of certain liabilities, namely product safety, by selling the product to a reseller. Thus, some responsibilities, liabilities, or accountability cannot be transferred.Footnote 29

Conceptual change

The MacPherson case also illustrates change in the conceptualisation of liability. The ruling in this case broke away from earlier practice, which had been codified by Winterbottom. According to the earlier logic,

negligence claims were dismissed if the plaintiff failed to allege an undertaking by defendant, if the plaintiff complaining of injury on defendant's land had the status of a mere trespasser, if the plaintiff's injury bore only a remote relation to the defendant's negligence, or if the plaintiff suffered a type of harm (such as pure emotional stress) against which the defendant was not required to guard.Footnote 30

MacPherson, however, embraced a new model of negligence. It was no longer required to ask whether a particular defendant owed a given plaintiff duty of care. Instead, the new logic of tort of negligence imposed a general duty of reasonable care owed by all to all.Footnote 31 Thus, within eight decades, the conception of liability through negligence underwent a remarkable transition.Footnote 32

It is no surprise that our conception of liability, or moral responsibility for that matter, changes over time. Legal systems adapt to new circumstances, to new laws, and to new interpretations of law. Similarly, our conception of moral responsibility has changed. To give an obvious example, the now infamous white man's burden was lauded in its heyday. Moreover, new developments, such as technological breakthroughs, pose completely novel scenarios, to which our conceptualisations must adapt.

Furthermore, our conceptualisations are also context dependent.Footnote 33 For example, a given understanding of liability is valid only within its own legal framework. Likewise, even though there might be a certain level of global agreement over fundamental principles of morality, it is the application of those principles, or the acceptable exceptions to those principles, which differ from one society to another. In sum, our conceptualisation of responsibility seems practical in the sense that it is concrete, temporal, and presumptive.Footnote 34

Collective responsibility

The discussion on responsibility has so far remained at an abstract level with an implicit focus on individual responsibility. Collective responsibility, on the other hand, is a responsibility held by a collective actor such as the international community in the responsibility to protect case.

The debate on collective responsibility centres on the question, whether ‘collectives are capable of bearing […] responsibility for outcomes, even when none of their members is in any degree individually responsible for those outcomes.’Footnote 35 For the most part, the focus has been on moral responsibility, and it seems that neither side could be declared winner. One of the early rebuttals of collective moral responsibility came from Lewis, who asserts that ‘it is the individual who is the sole bearer of moral responsibility.’Footnote 36 In his article published three decades later, David Cooper insists that collectives are more than the sum of their parts, because ‘there is such a thing as Collective Responsibility that is not reducible to Individual Responsibility.’Footnote 37 Downie's response to Cooper, however, demonstrates that ‘although there is a sense in which the actions and responsibility of a collective cannot be analysed in terms of the actions and responsibilities of the individual persons who compose the collective, it is not moral responsibility which is involved.’Footnote 38 Thus, many of the later contributions, such as Feinberg'sFootnote 39 and McGary'sFootnote 40 contributions, focused on moral responsibility, while others asked whetherFootnote 41 and what kind of a collective could be morally responsible.Footnote 42 Cane rightly observes that this puzzle ‘about group responsibility is a function of an excessively agent-focused approach.’Footnote 43

For the present purposes, however, the focus of the collective responsibility literature on moral responsibility poses as a problem. Admittedly, my focus has been also, but not exclusively, on moral responsibility. Yet, as tempting as it is to proceed in the footsteps of others and concentrate on moral collective responsibility, the aim of building on the R2P report would be lost. Surely, the International Commission intended more than assigning moral responsibility on the international community; it sought a way to make the international community act. Moreover, given that even the General Assembly has confirmed the existence of the collective responsibility ‘to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’,Footnote 44 it seems unnecessary to debate whether the international community can have a collective responsibility.Footnote 45 Instead, following Cane,Footnote 46 attention should be given to the societal role of collective responsibility and to the kind of collective responsibility in question.

It seems clear to me that the International Commission advocated a practical conception of the international community's collective responsibility, similar to the conception of responsibility outlined above. First, the international community is expected to take on the responsibility of states to protect their citizens, when a state is ‘unable or unwilling to fulfil [its] responsibility, or is itself the perpetrator.’Footnote 47 Second, for the international community to bear the responsibility to protect, it does not have to be part of the causal chain: ‘While the state whose people are directly affected has the default responsibility to protect, a residual responsibility also lies with the broader community of states.’Footnote 48 Third, the report clearly states that ‘the responsibility to protect implies an evaluation of the issues from the point of view of those seeking or needing support,’Footnote 49 thus denoting discretion and recognising the international community's ability to deliberate. Fourth, the responsibility to protect is an inalienable responsibility arising from ‘sovereignty as responsibility’Footnote 50 and from membership in a community: ‘in granting membership of the UN, the international community welcomes the signatory state as a responsible member of the community of nations […] the state itself, in signing the Charter, accepts the responsibilities of membership flowing from that signature.’Footnote 51

An analogy

As an analogy to illustrate the kind of collective responsibility that might be in question in the R2P report, let us consider the history of fire departments. Before fire departments became institutionalised, it was common that upon discovering fire the discoverer had the responsibility (or duty) to alert the other members of the community and ensure that the fire was either contained or extinguished. Naturally, members of the community were to deliberate (quickly) on the best course of action, and to work together to the best of their abilities. For example, a strong, young man was expected to contribute more than a pregnant woman. In addition, contributions to the common goal were unequal. Had everyone had to carry three buckets of water to the fire, or had everyone had to try to save an equal share of what could still be saved, the house would have burned down quickly and little would have been saved. In other words, coordination and dividing the burden along some set of criteria made the management of fires possible.

At a certain point in history, however, the task of extinguishing fires was delegated to professionals. They were properly equipped and trained, and required to respond to fire alarms, while the rest of the society was not – or at least this is the case to a large extent today.Footnote 52 In other words, the management of fires, and therefore also the responsibility to extinguish them, became institutionalised.

The institutionalisation of the collective responsibility to extinguish fires in the hands of fire departments solved several puzzles. For example, fire departments are more efficient, because they can be trained and equipped for the sole purpose of extinguishing fires. It also bypassed collective action problems (a ‘Hobbesian’ solution), located responsibility with the fire department, and thus allowed better apportioning of praise and blame. Clearly, institutionalising collective responsibilities might not always be possible, but where it is possible, there can be several advantages to such a move.

The fire department analogy should not be taken literally. There is no similar institutionalisation of collective responsibility regarding grave humanitarian crises at the international level, and the Security Council, for example, has certainly not been provided with the same chance of meeting its responsibilities as fire departments.Footnote 53 Yet, there seems to be something to the analogy, if considering for example the reactions to Rwanda in 1994 or to Darfur, Chad, Kenya, and Haiti more recently; there is a strong expectation that the international community, and especially the Security Council, take action and put down the flames in such hot spots. The rest of this article focuses on making better use of this analogy.

International collective responsibility and humanitarian crises

In 2005 the General Assembly acknowledged the responsibility of states to protect their citizens and the subsequent responsibility of the international community, through UN, to take collective action, including under Chapter VII powers, if necessary.Footnote 54 This General Assembly action seems more an acknowledgement of moral responsibility and political accountability than legal liability. Furthermore, once again, theory does not seem to meet practice, because the concept of responsibility to protect may have been accepted but not incorporated into practice.Footnote 55

Evidently, the International Commission chose to make its ethico-political argument via the concept of ‘sovereignty’ instead through law, because international law would not support, without controversy, claims of state obligation or liability to intervene in other states.Footnote 56 The legal discourse, however, clarifies the collective nature of this international responsibility as possibly something analogous to an obligation erga omnes.

Obligations erga omnes are a special case of international obligations. The extraordinary character of these obligations is that they are binding on all states without exceptions, and that each state is considered to have a legal interest in their protection.Footnote 57 Thus, explicit consent is not a requirement of obligations erga omnes. Common examples of these obligations include outlawing of aggression and genocide, and protection from slavery and racial discrimination.Footnote 58

An authoritative document on the outlawing of genocide is the Genocide Convention.Footnote 59 The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has verified that ‘the rights and obligations enshrined by the Convention are rights and obligations erga omnes’Footnote 60 Some, such as Ragazzi, have argued that these obligations are not restricted to the prohibition of genocide but include also the prevention and punishment of genocide.Footnote 61 Such arguments, however, are contentious. Surely, the ICJ did not mean that states would have a duty to intervene in other states, even military if necessary, in order to prevent, punish, or end genocide. As Judge ad hoc Kreća explains:

As an absolutely binding norm prohibiting genocide, it binds all subjects of international law even without any conventional obligation. To that effect, and only to that effect, the concrete norm is of universal applicability (a norm erga omnes) […] The position is different, however, when it comes to the implementation or enforcement of the norm of genocide prohibition. The norm prohibiting genocide […] is applicable by States not in an imaginary space, but in an area of the territorialized international community.Footnote 62

Moreover, as Judge Oda clarifies, these obligations:

are borne in a general manner erga omnes by the Contracting Parties in their relations with all the other Contracting Parties to the Convention – or, even, with the international community as a whole – but are not obligations in relation to any specific and particular signatory Contracting Party.Footnote 63

In sum, obligations erga omnes are shared among the members of the international community but they do not belong to any particular individual member; they are collective obligations.

The responsibility to protect, enshrined by the R2P report, resembles in many ways obligations erga omnes.Footnote 64 For one, it is shared by all sovereign states, since it arises from peer-acknowledged sovereignty.Footnote 65 In addition, all sovereigns can be considered to have an interest in upholding this responsibility, because it ultimately, in the report, grants states their sovereign status. Finally, the responsibility does not belong to any particular member of the international community, because ‘if the state is unable or unwilling to fulfil this responsibility, or is itself the perpetrator, […] it becomes the responsibility of the international community to act in its place.’Footnote 66 For obvious reasons, the R2P report recognises the Security Council as ‘the first port of call’,Footnote 67 but this does not equal to assigning the responsibility solely to the Council.Footnote 68 As the report emphasises, if the Council ‘fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations’,Footnote 69 the General Assembly under ‘Uniting for Peace’ procedure, regional or sub-regional organisations, or concerned states ‘may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation.’Footnote 70

The similarities with the fire department analogy should now be evident. Upon discovering a ‘conscience-shocking situation’ such as genocide, states are expected to cry alarm and ‘call upon the competent organs of the UN.’Footnote 71 The Security Council operates as the first port of call,Footnote 72 and it is expected to act in order to alleviate the situation. The collective responsibility, however, remains valid. Like in the fire department example, until the fire department arrives, or if it never arrives,Footnote 73 the people close to the fire are expected to do what they can within reasonable limits. Similarly, there seems to be an implication in the responsibility to protect that members of the international community would not be relieved of their responsibilities by simply informing the Security Council, especially in cases where the Council fails to act for some reason.Footnote 74

On the other hand, the fire department analogy fails on many accounts. Most importantly, the Security Council enjoys hardly a similar status at the international level as fire departments in domestic circumstances. Moreover, the Council has been provided neither with standing, properly equipped personnel ready to fight the flames at the sound of alarm nor could it simply jump to a mission, even if it had such personnel.Footnote 75 There are certain procedures, provisions, and requirements that must be met before the Council can act, and when it acts, it issues a resolution leaving the execution to the member states or regional organisations. The Security Council's role, however, is highly important in co-ordinating and legitimising action.

Exactly because the international responsibility to protect is not institutionalised like the domestic responsibility to fight fires, there is a need for criteria for co-ordinating efforts and dividing the burden of fulfilling the responsibility, especially in the event that the Security Council fails to act. In sum, it is a question of distributing the collective responsibility among the members of the collective. In the remainder of this article, I provide a model, which illustrates one possible set of criteria for the division of collective responsibility. I call this model ‘Varying Degrees of Responsibility’, and it builds on the understanding that the international collective responsibility in relation to grave humanitarian crises could be considered to function similarly to the collective responsibility in the analogy with the development of fire departments.

‘Varying degrees of Rresponsibility’ model

In the discussion above, it has been mentioned several times that it is the international community who shares a responsibility in relation to grave humanitarian crises, if such a responsibility exists.Footnote 76 The international community is often equalled with all sovereign states, members of the UN, or the ‘West.’Footnote 77 Most definitions revolve around sovereign states as the members of the international community. In many ways, this is justified. States are privileged actors in the international sphere, and they are also the only actors capable of effectively intervening in other states. Regional and other kinds of governmental organisations are usually subsumed under this heading, because they are often no more than the sum of their parts; they are a collection of states acting for a common goal. Alternatively, the UN, the largest inter-governmental organisation, and especially the General Assembly, is often considered to be the ‘embodiment’ of the international community.Footnote 78

To favour all states equally, however, as the only possible kinds of members of the international community, at least in relation to the responsibility in grave humanitarian crises, seems unjustified. For one, not all states are capable of effectively intervening to alleviate, for example, genocide, and some non-state and non-governmental organisations may in fact possess better capabilities and experience in dealing with grave humanitarian crises than most states. In addition, although the use of legitimate force remains in the hands of states, some grave humanitarian crises might not require the use of force, and even if they did, not all problems can be solved with force. Also, concerted action between state and non-state actors might be the best solution sometimes. Furthermore, some non-state actors exist for the sole purpose of alleviating human suffering. It would seem odd to discount such actors in a discussion about grave humanitarian crises.

Thus, for the present purposes, the international community is constituted of states, inter-governmental organisations, regional organisations, international civil society, international non-governmental actors, the international media, and other international actors that might be relevant to the fulfilment of the responsibility to protect and the alleviation of human suffering. These are the actors that share the collective responsibility, but their individual allocation of the responsibility is unequal. In what follows, I explain the criteria used for determining the degree an actor shares in the collective responsibility. Rather than being a formal, mathematical model, the criteria are a way to think about the collective responsibility and the expectations regarding it.Footnote 79

Various actors

One should differentiate among the members composing the international community, because the responsibility-holder (the international community) is not like a corporation. Yet, it is a collective entity, to which responsibility is assigned. As mentioned, the international community is considered to be composed of different kinds of international actors. Some actors differ in their formal status. Sovereign states enjoy a more privileged position than non-governmental actors. Other actors differ despite their formal equality: Although the US and Iceland are formally equal as sovereign states, there is little doubt about their practical inequality. These differences in the kind of actor should be taken into consideration when distributing responsibility.

Furthermore, the members of the international community exist in a territorialised world, where distance and geographic location matter. Some members will always be closer to a given crisis, while other members will remain at the other side of the globe. Similar to the continental duty to rescue, one would expect, and thus assign responsibility, to those nearby. In cases where a nearby actor is unable to act, the expectation would filter wider.

Some actors, however, are global in the sense that they can act anywhere on the globe. The international media, for example, can provide coverage from anywhere to anywhere in the world. Similarly, the US could intervene in a crisis anywhere in the world, if the political will was strong enough. To place such global actors at level with others would discount their special character and their costs for operating globally. In other words, to assign the US an equal share of the responsibility than to a strong state neighbouring a grave humanitarian crisis would fail to recognise the cost the US would have to bear in order to reach the crisis. In an extreme case, the crisis might be situated on the opposite side of the globe to the US. Hence, even in the case of global actors, distance plays a role.

Proximity, though, can be more than simple physical proximity. In this globalised world, one does not have to be physically present in order to have an influence on circumstances far away. Examples of non-physical proximity are special relationships, privileged or other kind of information about a crisis, common history with those affected by a crisis or with those causing it, and other non-physical involvement in a crisis or with its parties. Evidently, one would expect such actors to take on more of the collective responsibility rather than actors who have no ties to or knowledge of the crisis.

Various resources

In distributing the burden of fulfilling a collective responsibility, attention should be given to what the members of the collective can contribute. An obvious point of departure is material capabilities and resources. Intuitively, one would expect the actors with most capabilities and resources to contribute more than the rest, while actors with few capabilities and resources could contribute the least.Footnote 80 Intangible capabilities and resources, however, are equally important. A good example of an intangible resource, which all international actors have, is speech. For example in cases of genocide, it is important not only to stop it but also to condemn it. Moreover, speech can be used in many forms in order to, for instance, rally assistance or distribute information. Hence, resources should be interpreted imaginatively to include tangible and intangible things.

The expectation that members of the international community should contribute some of their resources to a common cause is further determined by particular types of resources, whether a member has an abundance of a specific resource, and whether a certain resource is unique to some members. Thus, one would expect that actors make available relevant resources that they have in abundance, or in which they have special competency or advantage compared to others. In other words, the expectation to pool relevant resources is based on the principle of comparative advantage. As examples, one could consider the following. Only a few militarily powerful states or governmental organisations have global airlift capabilities. A good reputation and important networks may prove crucial in conflict settlement. Experience for example in civilian police training would be most helpful in post-conflict situations. The international media can spread information and raise awareness globally. Transnational movements and non-governmental organisations can mobilise support, strengthen the political will to act, and provide help on the ground, sometimes in places where governments cannot go.

On the other hand, some actors have a leading edge in several fields or types of resources. For example, the US has a multitude of leading competencies and comparative advantages. To expect, however, that such an actor, due to its relative position, would have to take on most of the collective responsibility, most of the time, would effectively transform the collective responsibility into a responsibility of that single actor. In contrast, one could expect that such actors, like the US, would contribute either heavily in one field or lightly across a range of fields.

Moreover, some actors possess resources that provide checks and balances. For example, the international media or the academia might not be able to contribute directly but they are in an advantageous position to observe and monitor the development of a crisis and the international responses to it. Not only can these actors provide special insights, but, for example, they are capable of engaging in a strategy of shaming, something that might be a powerful incentive to improve one's record.

The kind of sensitive focus on various resources and actors as outlined above allows for an evaluation of actors' performance, and hence also the apportioning of praise and blame. A ‘one size fits all’ model, where all actors would be expected to contribute equally, would take into consideration neither the differences in actors nor in the actors' special or relative resources. Instead, the suggested model seems to make sense. For example, one could not expect the international media or states without military forces, such as Costa Rica or Iceland, to contribute troops to a military contingent of a humanitarian operation.Footnote 81 On the other hand, one could blame the media for the coverage, or the lack thereof, it provided of ahumanitarian crisis, or one could question why Costa Rica did not condemn a particular genocide, or why Iceland did not use her voice within NATO.

Various crises

The third set of criteria within the ‘Varying Degrees of Responsibility’ model focuses on different kinds of crises. Admittedly, genocide might be the most shocking kind of a grave humanitarian crisis, but what about the enduring suffering from lack of access to sufficient food by over one billion people who suffer from undernourishment?Footnote 82 Or what about the likely spread of diseases after the devastating earthquake in Haiti? In such crises military intervention might not help much in achieving humanitarian ends, but are they not grave humanitarian crises? I do not wish to argue for the gravity of one kind of crisis over another; one should simply note that humanitarian crises come in many shapes and forms.

Different kinds of crises, as well as different instances of similar crises, might require different approaches and solutions. One kind of a crisis might require the rapid deployment of neutral troops, while another would benefit from a long term strategy that addresses the systematic causes. A third kind of crisis might concern only some of the members of the international community, whereas a fourth kind might demand a response from the international community as a whole.

Thus, part of the expectations we assign to those, whom we perceive as responsible to act, is a reflection on what kind of response, or kinds of response, is warranted by a particular crisis. In other words, we ask, ‘What is required to solve a given problem?’ and we expect the responsible parties to live up to the answers we give. Part of those answers is determined by the conceptualisation of the problem, while another part concerns the kinds of actors, strategies, and resources we think would bring about a solution. Both of these parts are informed by our theories about the world. Unfortunately, here the problem is that there is usually no universal agreement over our theories or their effectiveness or appropriateness.

The criteria set out in the last three subsections are the core of the ‘Varying Degrees of Responsibility’ model. Instead of attempting to provide an exhaustive list of all factors that could play a role, emphasis was placed on a way of thinking about the issue of international collective responsibility, on the plurality of dimensions, and on the required sensitivity to details. An exhaustive list might prove impossible; as I have argued, responsibility denotes deliberative action, which in many cases cannot be predetermined. In assigning responsibility, or apportioning praise and blame, the particulars of a given case guide us.

Conclusion

Analogous reasoning was used in this article. For example, the development of fire departments was used to illustrate the institutionalisation of a previously collective responsibility. This same example was later used to think about the responsibility to protect, and it is also behind the ‘Varying Degrees of Responsibility’ model. Analogous reasoning refers to comparing similarities between things that are otherwise dissimilar. Thus, the argument has not been that the evolution of the responsibility to protect is the same as the evolution of fire departments, or that there is something like the fire departments at the international level, ready to relieve humanitarian crises. It was also not argued that there should be something akin to the fire departments at the international level.

The purpose of the analogy was to draw attention to how we seem to think about the two cases in similar ways, and how one has the impression that there are similarities between the two or in their relations with other things.Footnote 83 Interesting in the fire department example was how a collective responsibility first developed, and how the collective responsibility was distributed along some criteria among the members of the community before the institutionalisation of the responsibility. From the international perspective, on the other hand, the R2P report seems to argue for a similar kind of practical collective responsibility mixed with some level of institutionalisation.

The era before fire departments inspired a model for considering the contemporary international situation vis-à-vis grave humanitarian crises. The criteria given in the ‘Varying Degrees of Responsibility’ model emphasises a focus on various actors, various resources, and various crises in determining how to distribute the burden of fulfilling the collective responsibility. The model is more philosophical than mathematical.

The suggested model is not without its faults. There are still no guarantees that any victims of grave humanitarian crises will be saved. There is no plain understanding of what constitutes a grave humanitarian crisis. There is neither a detailed division of responsibility nor an uncontroversial description of the meaning of this particular collective responsibility. Some of these faults cannot be helped, others are due to space restrictions, and the rest require a return to the first part of this article.

While conceptualising responsibility, I argued that part of responsibility is being responsible. Being responsible, on the other hand, implies the capacity to act independently and the use of good judgment. Responsibility was differentiated from duties and obligations exactly because responsibility requires (more) deliberation, whereas fulfilling one's obligations demands only the (blind) following of rules. Thus, since the subject is international responsibility, and not international obligation, the purpose was to imagine how to think about the responsibility, not the establishment of rigid rules.

On the other hand, the model has its merits. Not only does the model demonstrate a way to think about collective responsibilities, but it also addresses the expectations we have of the members of the collective, and on what basis we have those expectations. Moreover, the model provides criteria for the apportioning of praise and blame, as well as some concrete suggestions how individual members can meet their share of the collective responsibility. Some of the suggestions showed that there are low-cost ways to contribute, a point which will hopefully lower the threshold for contributing and have a positive impact on the political will to react. Furthermore, the model identifies the members of the collective. Lastly, the model attempts to bridge the conceptual level with the level of practice. After all, responsibility is a practical question in the sense that we aim to establish responsibility in a given situation and not in any given situation.

References

1 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001).

2 UN General Assembly, ‘World Summit Outcome’ (A/RES/60/1, 2005). para. 138–9.

3 Also the composition of the international community is left elusive. It is possible, and perhaps even likely, that these aspects were consciously neglected in the document, thus allowing for better evolution of the concept(s) through use.

4 See fn. 3.

5 Evans, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come … And Gone?’, International Relations, 22 (2008), pp. 283–98.

6 Although I suggest which actors compose the international community within the context of this article, I forgo an extensive discussion. For those who are interested, I discuss international communities in detail here: Peltonen, ‘Of Systems, Societies, and Communities: Some Thoughts for Northeast Asian Peace Studies’, Peace Forum, 24 (2009), pp. 1–16.

7 The influence of ‘good’ casuistical thinking is evident in this article. See for example, Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (London: University of California Press, 1989).

8 See for example, Lewis, ‘Collective Responsibility’, in May and Hoffman (eds), Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 23.

9 For an excellent taxonomy of responsibility, see for example, Cane, Responsibility in Law and Morality (Oxford: Hart, 2002).

10 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), para. 2.15.

11 Also Evans does not address this issue. See fn. 5.

12 Lucas, Responsibility (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 5. See also Lewis, ‘Collective Responsibility’, in May and Hoffman (eds), Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), pp. 22–3.

13 Erskine, ‘Making Sense of ‘Responsibility’ in International Relations: Key Questions and Concepts’, in Erskine (ed.), Can Institutions Have Responsibilities? Collective Moral Agency and International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2003), p. 8.

14 Kratochwil, ‘Of False Promises and Good Bets: A Plea for a Pragmatic Approach to Theory Building (the Tartu Lecture)’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 10 (2007), pp. 1–15, p. 3.

15 The following common uses of the word ‘responsibility’ are taken from Soanes and Stevenson (eds), The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford Reference Online: Oxford University Press, 2006).

16 Pennock, ‘The Problem of Responsibility’, in Friedrich (ed.), Responsibility (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), p. 13.

17 Soanes and Stevenson (eds), The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford Reference Online: Oxford University Press, 2006).

18 Pennock, ‘The Problem of Responsibility’, in Friedrich (ed.), Responsibility (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), p. 12.

19 Ibid., p. 9. Some might argue that also duties require deliberation much like all rules require interpretation. While a valid point, some rules (like duties) require much less interpretation than others. The point of differentiating between responsibilities and duties is exactly that duties require significantly less deliberation. An example could come from traffic rules where it is one's duty to stop at a red light (if there is one at a crossroads) and proceed only once the light has turned green. Arguably, there is room for interpretation even in this rule. Yet, it is a different situation from one's responsibility to drive safely, a responsibility that is much more indeterminate and context dependent (Is it raining? Are there other drivers on the road? Should one answer one's mobile phone while driving?).

20 Erskine, ‘Making Sense of ‘Responsibility’ in International Relations: Key Questions and Concepts’, in Erskine (ed.), Can Institutions Have Responsibilities? Collective Moral Agency and International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2003), p. 8. See also Cane, Responsibility in Law and Morality (Oxford: Hart, 2002).

21 This is an example used in Pennock, ‘The Problem of Responsibility’, in Friedrich (ed.), Responsibility (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1960), p. 7.

22 Ibid.

23 Note here also the above example of claiming responsibility and vicarious responsibility or liability. On vicarious responsibility, see for example, Cane, Responsibility in Law and Morality (Oxford: Hart, 2002), pp. 175–7.

24 Rylands v. Fletcher, L. R. 3 H. L. 330 [1861–73], 1868.

25 Woodside, Silbersakc, Fliehman and Fleichtner, ‘Why Absolute Liability under Rylands v. Fletcher Is Absolutely Wrong!’, The University of Dayton Law Review, 29 (2003), pp. 1–35.

26 Thus, in the example of me cutting down the tree and as a consequence you injuring yourself, the question of my liability would be determined within the existing law. A decision on this case would most likely take into consideration the sufficiency of my warnings, whether I had taken adequate precautions, and so on.

27 Donald C. Macpherson v. Buick Motor Company, Court of Appeals of the State of New York, 1916.

28 Winterbottom v. Wright, Court of Exchequer, 1842.

29 See also for example, Lewis's doubt that moral responsibility can ever be transferred in Lewis, ‘Collective Responsibility’, in May and Hoffman (eds), Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 26.

30 Goldberger and Zipursky, ‘The Moral of Macpherson’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 146 (1998), pp. 1733–847, pp. 1749–50.

31 Ibid., p. 1769.

32 It is worth noting that a similar transition is yet to take place with regard to duty of rescue in the Anglo-American common law systems, where such a general duty does not appear to exist. See for example, Denton, ‘The Case against a Duty to Rescue’, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 4 (1991), pp. 101–32. On the other hand, it seems that the no-duty tradition is based on historical decisions that no longer represent good law. See for example, Lake, ‘Bad Boys, Bad Men, and Bad Case Law: Re-Examining the Historical Foundations of No-Duty-to-Rescue Rules’, New York Law School Legal Review, 43 (1999), pp. 385–450.

33 On conceptualisation and its problems, see for example, Davis, Terms of Inquiry: On the Theory and Practice of Political Science (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).

34 Jonsen and Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (London: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 27–8.

35 Miller and Makela, ‘The Collectivist Approach to Collective Moral Responsibility’, Metaphilosophy, 36 (2005), pp. 634–51, pp. 634–5. Emphasis in original. See also for example, May, ‘Collective Responsibility, Honor, and the Rules of War’, Journal of Social Philosophy, 36 (2005), pp. 289–304, p. 297.

36 Lewis, ‘Collective Responsibility’, in May and Hoffman (eds), Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 32.

37 Cooper, ‘Collective Responsibility’, in May and Hoffman (eds), Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 45.

38 Downie, ‘Collective Responsibility’, in May and Hoffman (eds), Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), p. 47. Emphasis in original.

39 Feinberg, ‘Collective Responsibility’, Doing and Deserving (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).

40 McGary, ‘Morality and Collective Liability’, The Journal of Value Inquiry, 20 (1986), pp. 157–65.

41 See for example, Held, ‘Can a Random Collection of Individuals Be Morally Responsible?’, The Journal of Philosophy, 67 (1970), pp. 471–81. See also Velasquez, ‘Why Corporations Are Not Morally Responsible for Anything They Do’, Business and Professional Ethics Journal, 2 (1983), pp. 1–18.

42 Bates, ‘The Responsibility of ‘Random Collections’’, Ethics, 81 (1971), pp. 343–9. See also French, ‘The Corporation as a Moral Person’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 16 (1979), pp. 207–15. Erskine, ‘Assigning Responsibilities to Institutional Moral Agents: The Case of States and “Quasi-States”’, in Erskine (ed.), Can Institutions Have Responsibilities? Collective Moral Agency and International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2003).

43 Cane, Responsibility in Law and Morality (Oxford: Hart, 2002), p. 165.

44 UN General Assembly, ‘World Summit Outcome’ (A/RES/60/1, 2005), para. 139.

45 Curiously, though, some delegates to the UN 2008 budget committee argued that the responsibility to protect concept was never adopted by the General Assembly. See Evans, ‘The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come … And Gone?’, International Relations, 22 (2008), pp. 283–98, p. 288.

46 Cane's primary thesis is that responsibility should be analysed in relational terms, namely in terms of the role responsibility plays in practical reasoning and regarding how we should behave toward others. See Cane, Responsibility in Law and Morality (Oxford: Hart, 2002).

47 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), para. 2.29; 2.31.

48 Ibid., para. 2.31.

49 Ibid., See also para. 2.32.

50 Ibid., para. 2.14; 2.15.

51 Ibid., para. 2.14.

52 Clearly, one is still required to alarm the fire department, and do what one can without risking oneself, or others, before the fire department arrives.

53 There have been some calls to form an international ‘911’ to respond to humanitarian crises. Perhaps the most sophisticated of these proposals is the SHIRBRIG. See Multinational Standby High Readiness Brigade at {http://www.shirbrig.dk}. On the Security Council's responsibilities, see for example, Article 24 of the UN Charter.

54 UN General Assembly, ‘World Summit Outcome’ (A/RES/60/1, 2005), para. 139.

55 Hoe, ‘Intervention, Hailed as a Concept, Is Shunned in Practice’, New York Times, 20 January 2008. See also fn. 44.

56 The responsibility to protect is not only about intervention for humanitarian purposes, but the likely possibility of some form of intervention being necessary, as has been the case historically, is a central part of the argument.

57 See for example, Ragazzi, The Concept of International Obligations Erga Omnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 17.

58 Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company Limited, International Court of Justice, 1970, pp. 33–4.

59 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).

60 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, International Court of Justice, 1996, p. 23.

61 See for example, Ragazzi, The Concept of International Obligations Erga Omnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 96.

62 ‘Dissenting Opinion of Judge Kreća’, para. 101, pp. 765–66 in Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, International Court of Justice, 1996.

63 ‘Declaration of Judge Oda’, para. 4, p. 626 in Ibid.

64 This is not to say that the responsibility to protect is an obligation erga omnes.

65 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’ (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001), para. 2.14. See also Foundation A. in ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Core Principles’ in the same report.

66 Ibid., para. 2.29.

67 Ibid., para. 6.28.

68 Note in this context how also the Security Council has the primary but not the sole responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. See Article 24.1 in UN, Charter of the UN (1945).

69 Right Authority F. in ‘The Responsibility to Protect: Core Principles’.

70 Ibid.

71 See for example, Article 8 of UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).

72 See fn. 66.

73 Also fire engines can break down. This is obviously a small possibility which is minimised with there being multiple fire engines in a department and several departments in a city.

74 Note also how under the UN Charter, the right of self-defence remains unimpaired until the Security Council has taken necessary measures. See Article 51 in UN, Charter of the UN (1945).

75 The UN Charter envisioned that member states would make available the necessary personnel, equipment, finances, and other assistance at the call of the Security Council. The reality has been much different, though. See Articles 43, 45, and 47 in Ibid.

76 Some would object, because there is no clear legal responsibility. Instead of entering that debate, the purpose has been to build on the R2P report and the 2005 World Summit Outcome, which both acknowledge the existence of an international responsibility to protect victims of grave humanitarian crises. Thus, it is assumed for heuristic purposes that the responsibility exists, whether as a moral, political, or other kind of responsibility. See also fn. 44.

77 For a number of definitions, see ‘What Is the International Community?’, Foreign Policy, September–October (2002), pp. 28–46. But see also for example, Buzan and Gonzalez-Pelaez, ‘International Community' after Iraq’, Foreign Affairs, 81 (2005), pp. 31–52; Ellis, ‘On the Possibility of ‘International Community’, International Studies Review, 11 (2009), pp. 1–26.

78 See for example, Annan, ‘Problems without Passports’, Foreign Policy, September–October (2002), pp. 30–1. But for contrasting arguments, see also Peltonen, ‘Of Systems, Societies, and Communities: Some Thoughts for Northeast Asian Peace Studies’, Peace Forum, 24 (2009), pp. 1–16; Ellis, ‘On the Possibility of ‘International Community”’, International Studies Review, 11 (2009), pp. 1–26.

79 One should note that there is no difference in the ‘weight’ or preference among the criteria in the current context. Thus, at this point the criteria serve to demonstrate what should be taken into consideration at the minimum as well as the higher argument that the collective responsibility can be practically shared among individuals. Further research would be required to ‘formalise’ the model or to consider which criteria should be given priority.

80 Note here for example the logic used for determining the UN membership payments that focuses mainly on a member's ability to pay by taking into consideration a number of economic factors.

81 It is laudable that Iceland has participated in peacekeeping operations despite not having standing armed forces.

82 Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, ‘1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth of Humanity Undernourished – More Than Ever Before’ (Rome 19 June 2009). Accessed 8 February 2010 at {http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/20568/icode/}.

83 Again, this is not to argue that the evolution has been the same in both cases, or that the international level is at a same point in the evolution as fire departments.