Robert Jackson’s The
Global Covenant is one of the most
important books in international studies of the last generation. In it Jackson
develops an “international society” approach that does not get the recognition
in academic circles that it deserves. Here, in the introduction, he distills
the procedural and prudential norms of “the global covenant.” (2122 words)
The expression 'the global covenant' is . . . intended to
emphasize that contemporary international relations is far more than a narrowly
defined Machiavellian world of 'power politics' but is also far from an
expansively defined Kantian 'community of mankind'. It is an intermediate world
between these extremes: a world of dialogue between separate but recognized
political others. The global covenant constitutes the only standards of
political conduct which apply around the world and are acknowledged as such. It
connects human beings everywhere through their membership in a sovereign state
and regardless of any particular characteristics they disclose regarding their
domestic way of life. . . .
The basic procedural norms of the global covenant are
specified by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in
the 'Helsinki Decalogue' to which signatories of the Helsinki Final Act (1975)
committed themselves. They are listed by the OSCE in the following order: (1)
sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty; (2)
refraining from the threat or use of force; (3) inviolability of frontiers; (4)
territorial integrity of states; (5) peaceful settlement of disputes; (6) non-intervention
in internal affairs; (7) respect for human rights; (8) equal rights and
self-determination of peoples; (9) co-operation among states; (10) fulfilment
in good faith of obligations under international law. These norms, especially
the most important ones, are procedural in that they lay down ways and means of
conducting inter-national relations that restrict activities. They are typical
liberal-constitutional norms of a political world based on the principle of
independent states, of international freedom.
These procedural norms are by no means confined to the
states of Europe and North America that belong to the OSCE. On the contrary,
they are at the heart of the global covenant and are prominent in the UN
charter from which they were derived. Their order of presentation indicates the
procedural hierarchy of international society that states are willing to commit
to. It is evident that the six most important norms all pertain to the sanctity
and preservation of equal state sovereignty and the regulation of armed force
and peaceful settlement of disputes between states. Human rights became
prominent in international discourse in the second half of the twentieth
century but they have not achieved the same standing as the procedural norms of
state sovereignty. The global covenant also incorporates additional significant
norms, including peacekeeping, peace enforcement, international aid, and
environmentalism, among others. Although they can only be mentioned in passing
at this point, these latter norms may give an indication of where to look to
discern the directions that international society might take as we move into
the twenty-first century. But as yet these latter norms do not have the same
standing as the basic procedural norms listed above. One could of course refer
to many other procedures, such as those which pertain to the use of force in
armed conflict as contained in the Geneva Conventions and other bodies of
international law: jus in bello. . .
.But the foregoing were the main procedural references for justifying
international relations at the onset of the twenty-first century.
The cornerstones of this procedural arrangement are the
doctrines of state sovereignty and non-intervention which express the
underlying normative pluralism of modern international society. The most
important procedural norm—grundnorm--of
the global covenant is clearly expressed by Article 2 of the UN charter.
Article 2(4) lays down the fundamental principle of state sovereignty: “All
members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use
of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any
state.” That underlines the importance of the norm of uti possidetis juris according to which existing international
boundaries are the pre-emptive basis for determining territorial jurisdictions
in the absence of mutual agreement to do otherwise. Article 2(7) proclaims the
companion principle of non-intervention: “Nothing contained in the present
Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are
essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”
The security and survival of states, and the society of
states, is strongly evident in the basic procedures that apply to international
peace and security. Chapter VI lays down articles for the 'pacific settlement
of disputes' between states. Chapter VII gives the Security Council authority
to employ armed force to defend international peace and security if it is
threatened by any aggressor state. A central normative feature of the present
international society is acquisition by the Security Council of many of the
state's traditional rights to employ armed force across international boundaries
otherwise than in self-defence. According to Article 24, member states “confer
on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of
international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties
under this responsibility the Security Council acts in their behalf.” And they
likewise pledge “to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council”
(Article 25). Chapter VII of the charter contains the articles which specify
the responsibilities of the Council 'with respect to threats to the peace,
breaches of the peace, and acts of aggression'. The only right of war that
remains in the hands of independent states is the 'inherent right' of
self-defence (Article 51): 'Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the
inher-ent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack
occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has
taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.' That is
an affirmation of the moral and legal sanctity of states as the building blocks
of modern international society. These procedures define the jus ad bellum of post-1945 international
society: the basic rules governing the resort to armed force in the relations
of sovereign states. . . .
The foregoing procedural dimension of the global covenant is
as interesting for the norms that are absent as it is for those that are
present. There are several important norms of classical international society,
noticeably present in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
that were either restricted or abolished in the twentieth century under the
auspices of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Most noticeable is
the absence of an expansive set of discretionary sovereign state rights
regarding the international use of armed force: the right of war and
intervention, the right of conquest, and the right of colonization.
International society changed fundamentally as a result of the abolition of
these historic states' rights. For example, the abolition of colonialism made
possible the construction of a global society of states. It is surprising how
little attention these important normative changes have received from international
relations scholars.
At their most literally juridical the procedural norms of
the global covenant are embodied in the charter of the United Nations, the
Helsinki Final Act of the OSCE, the Charter of the Organization of African
Unity, and other treaties, protocols, accords, conventions, declarations,
resolutions, and formal undertakings between sovereign states. We might
conclude that the global covenant consists of these international organizations
and especially the UN. That would be an erroneous conclusion. The global
covenant is not by any means identical with the UN. It grew out of historical
practices and institutions that predated the UN by several centuries. It is
properly conceived as the pluralist and anti-paternalist ethics that underpins
the UN: it is the underlying moral and legal standards by reference to which relations
between independent states can be conducted and judged. . . .
* * *
The normative approach of this study can perhaps be
summarized as follows: on the one hand international ethics consists in the
obligation of every state-leader to obey international law. This ethical
requirement is the same for all states regardless of any further particulars
about them: whether they are large or small, rich or poor, powerful or weak;
whether they are located in the northern or the southern hemisphere; whether
their citizens are Christians or Muslims or followers of any other religion;
whether their domestic constitutions are democratic or non-democratic, and so
forth. Procedural international ethics is thus a general ethics which focuses
on rules and largely ignores particular circumstances.
On the other hand, the practical ethics of world politics
cannot ignore the fact that states differ enormously in their particular
characteristics and capacities and allowance must be made for those
differences. States have many distinctive features which are morally relevant
and with which they must come to grips in their relations and transactions. The
territory, population, size, military strength, economic development, culture,
and social structure of every state is different. A great power has fundamental
global capabilities and responsibilities that minor or medium powers do not
have. Every state has its own governmental organization which defines and
structures its highest political offices in its own distinctive way. Each state
has at any one time a particular collection of political leaders who occupy
those offices. Every national leader looks out upon the world from a particular
vantage point—a territorial site—which may be similar to that of other leaders
but is never identical. The view from London is not the same as that from
Washington—even if it is similar on many issues. Every state has its own
history and is thus moving through historical time in its own orbit—even if
that orbit is part of a larger world history.
Every state has its own national interests which flow out of
that particular situation and which may coincide with those of other states but
need not. The national interest is not some kind of impersonal mechanism or
process which automatically asserts itself in the relations of states—as
positivist international relations theory implies. It is a moral idea governing
the conduct of statespeople: the idea that the nation and its population are a
treasure which they have the responsibility to safeguard in the conduct of
their foreign policies. Defending the national interest discloses the virtues
of prudence, patriotism, public-spiritedness, and other civic virtues, which
are the virtues of republicanism and are perhaps most clearly evident in the
political discourse of the United States. . . .
* * *
The procedural and prudential norms of the global covenant
are a response to the fact and implied value of political diversity on a global
scale. They disclose the endeavour to recognize and respect the reality of
different local experiments in political living in different parts of the
world. They represent the quest for unity in diversity.
The society of states solution to the search for unity is
very different from the historically far more usual approach, namely the search
for unity in conformity with the dictates and demands of an imperial state.
Because the global covenant can accommodate human diversity on a world-wide
scale—not without considerable awkwardness—it has proved to be an acceptable or
at least a tolerable basis on which national leaders can conduct relations with
each other from their different locations on the planet. In principle those
leaders represent humanity in its full heterogeneity: all the races, ethnic
groups, nationalities, languages, civilizations, cultures, religions,
ideologies, forms of government, geo-graphical particularities, historical
memories, and the rest. The normative basis upon which they conduct their
relations obviously has to be somehow divorced from that world-wide local
particularism while at the same time respecting it.
The global covenant enables stateleaders to relate to each
other, to co-exist with each other, and to cooperate with each other without
sacrificing their political independence and the domestic values and life-ways
upheld by it.
Thus, as indicated, the global covenant is a response to the
pluralistic reality of the variously constructed and differently lived human
condition around the world: its fundamental underlying ethos is pluralism. It
is positive evidence that human beings across the planet can not only recognize
each other as locally sovereign fellow human beings, and deal with each other
on that basis, but that they have entered into a historical pact with each
other which contains specific standards of conduct to which they all submit by
the act of mutual recognition and reciprocity as sovereign states. Furthermore,
and this is the most remarkable feature, that international arrangement exists
despite the absence of a common underlying culture or civilization comparable
to the one that supported the European society of states in times past. . . .
[A]lthough the global covenant is historically rooted in a
particular civilization, that of post-medieval Europe, it is no longer
associated exclusively with Western civilization as it still was as recently as
1945. It now serves as a bridge between the diverse cultures and civilizations
of the contemporary world. It provides a channel for normative discourse and
dialogue between the approximately 190 independent states that are rooted in
those different cultures and civilizations.
