War, the International, the Human

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War came the inauguration of a new conception of war, one that sought to invoke humanity in its justifying discourses. The very construction of this form of war as “liberal” attaches to it a certain normative meaning; that war, when undertaken by particular states, is a progressive force globally.² Intervention in distant lands would from henceforth be undertaken for the protection of other populations, those under threat from their own kinsmen and governments, requiring protection and rescue in the name of international responsibility and human rights. From the First Gulf War, to subsequent actions against Iraq, to the interventions in the Balkans, to Sierra Leone, Somalia, and then, in the post-September 11^th context, Afghanistan and Iraq, the “rescue” of populations has been at the forefront of discourses of legitimisation around war. In wars that made a significant shift away from self-defence as the primary legal basis of war’s justification, this moral imperative rendered human rights a constitutive element of war and the political processes surrounding questions of intervention.

Why isn’t anything going on in the senate? Why are the senators sitting there without legislating? Because the barbarians are coming today.

What’s the point of senators making laws now? Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.

C.P. Cavafy¹