The State as Viewed by the Forerunners of the Renaissance:-
It was at this time that man began to assert his own freedom and to challenge the power of rulers who held key positions in the state. The democratic spirit was afoot in the land, and absolute rule was being effectively beaten in many places.
Part – I, can be read from here – Click Here
Part – II, can be read from here – Click Here
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Indeed, everywhere the spirit of freedom was breaking through the heavy crust of the Middle Ages, and man was struggling to become a true individual and obtain some power to rule himself. Added to this was the growing feeling of nationalism evident on all sides.
Groups of individuals with common language, customs, and traditions began to appear and to assert themselves over against other such groups. But there was opposition to all such nations on the part of the Church, which saw its world domination threatened.
Thus, a struggle ensued out of which gradually developed the nations of the modern world, large groups of individuals with a common concern and a growing desire to establish themselves as units. In addition, the individual began to assert his own independence of thought, and to believe that human reason was superior to authority.
Slowly the idea took form that truth was a thing to be reached by the operation of human reason and not something handed down by an authoritative Church. All these movements tended to weaken the power of the Church and place the individual man, both as an individual and as a member of a political group, in the center of the stage.
In this setting philosophers began to dream of a perfect social group in which ideal conditions would exist An example of this trend is the City of the Sun, a Utopian treatise by TOMMASO GAMPANELLA. In this volume Campanella sketches the outline of a socialistic state similar to that found in Plato’s Republic, a state in which knowledge is the governing force and power.
Everyone in this state is equal since there is only one class. However, Campanella does make distinctions between men on the basis of their knowledge. The philosophers, who are also priests, are the rulers. In making this assertion, he shows his desire to effect a compromise between the Church and the growing national feeling of the times.
In his state there was to be a sort of papal monarchy, a religious unity as the basis for political unity. Campanella’s work is typical of the preliminary work toward thinking through a new theory of the state and its relations with its citizens. However, the general trend of the times was away from the authority and dominance of the Church, a trend in the direction of political independence.
Machiavelli’s Conception of the State:-
The most violent attack upon the Church and its hitherto generally accepted dominance over the state was made by NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI. His ambition was to establish a united Italian nation wholly independent of the Church.
He took as a model for this state the old political forms established by Sparta, Rome, and Venice. Since the general situation of his day was one of corruption, Machiavelli argued that such a state could be established only by a strong and absolute despot. Although such a political structure would destroy civic freedom, Machiavelli thought of this as a necessary intermediate stage out of which man could eventually work as he became less corrupt.
His ideal was a free, independent nation in which civic rights would be cherished and the independence of each individual guaranteed. To accomplish his ends, the prince or ruler had the right to use any means necessary, even force, deceit, or breach of the moral law. He had to fight trickery with trickery, deceit with deceit.
Grotius, Hobbes, and Other Thinkers of the Renaissance:-
Another thinker of the period, JEAN BODIN, taught that the state is founded upon a contract which the people make with their ruler. The fundamental article of this contract is one which gives over to the ruler all authority and which permits the people under no circumstances to take it back.
JOHANNES ALTHUSIUS attacked this position, holding that the people could never give away their authority. Rather, he argued, the contract which the people make with their ruler lasts only so long as the ruler fulfills his part of the bargain. When he violates the contract he may be dethroned and executed and another ruler set up in his place by the people.
HUGO GROTIUS, a leader of the aristocratic party in Holland, developed the theory of absolutism in great detail and with many cogent arguments. He taught that man has certain natural rights which are rooted in his very nature and which even God cannot change or destroy. But these natural rights may be limited, and indeed are limited by the positive law which results from man’s voluntary agreement to live in groups.
We give up the privilege to exercise certain natural rights in order that we may live together as members of a state. Thus, the state is a result of the free agreement among its members. Consequently, at no time can man give up his natural rights unconditionally. But, he may delegate these rights to a ruler forever.
Therefore, during this early modern period the tendency was toward absolutism. The ruler had power which, though originally given him by the people, was more or less absolute from then on. Of course, there was opposition to this point of view.
When the practice of more or less absolute sovereignty reached its climax in the reign of Louis XIV in France, a climax expressed in his famous saying, “I am the state,” there was sufficient opposition to effect an overthrow of the whole position and to begin building the more modern idea of democracy.
But that is getting ahead of our story. The materialist, THOMAS HOBBES, based his theory of the state upon the fundamental principle that man has the natural right to do anything which he pleases. The most primitive urge of all men is that of self-preservation. To accomplish this end, man may use any means he deems necessary. In this state of nature man may invade the rights of others with the result that chaos reigns.
Man is, then, fundamentally a ferocious animal, one who engages in war and pillage, seeking always his own gain. But, in such a state no man can be strong enough to preserve himself for long. Each man will destroy the others and he in turn will be destroyed by others.
Thus, to escape from this inevitable end, man creates a society in which he voluntarily gives up his rights in many matters. This is a contract which men make with each other by which they give up certain rights in order to obtain others which they desire. To insure this mutual contract, men transfer power to one ruler or an assembly. After the ruler has been set up and given power, men must obey.
It is true, Hobbes recognizes, that at times the ruler will be unjust and will wreak hardships upon men. But they have no right to rebel. Hobbes justifies this position by holding that even at their worst, the injustices of a ruler are never so bad as the original state of man before power was given to the ruler. Hobbes believes that the absolute monarchy is the best form of government.
But, there are certain things that even the king cannot force men to do. Among these are suicide, murder, or the confession of crime. These the king has no right to impose upon any man. Hobbes argued further that the king was God’s representative on earth and that God spoke through him. Thus, freedom of religion cannot be tolerated. The religion of the king must be the religion of all the people.
This theory of Hobbes is actually an attempt to defend philosophically the power of the English king and the general structure of the English monarchy. The defense led to the theory of the “divine right of kings’ and to the position that the king can do no wrong. So long as the king can protect the people he is absolute and no one has the right to challenge his authority.
To be Continued…
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The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.