N e w s & E v e n t s
Accountability and democracy in the case of using force under international auspices
C·A·P-Forum
Discussants:
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Dr. Charlotte Ku, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of The American Society Of International Law
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Dr. Andreas Paulus, Assistant professor at the Institute for Public International Law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University
28.06.2002 - Bertelsmann Forschungsgruppe Politik
Nicole Schley introduces the panel: Andreas Paulus, Bob Hugins (Chairman,
U.S. Consulate General), Charlotte Ku.
Recently, Dr. Charlotte Ku completed a study dealing with international society and international law. Her inspiration was the question: Does the US have difficulty adhering to international obligations due to complicated domestic politics and a complicated domestic system? From this question she derived a thesis, formulated a tension in international law: It is the international community who makes the decision about the employment of troops, yet it is the national government who send the employment.
The problem of international decision making and national deployment is not a new one, claims Dr. Ku. This problem can be seen at the turn of the 20th century as the reason the League of Nations was rejected by the US.
The theme of the study was the use of military forces under the auspices of international institutions, namely NATO and the UN. Based on 5 criteria: monitoring and observation, traditional peace keeping opeations, peace keeping and state building, force to ensure compliance and enforcement, Dr. Ku found that the use of violence (under the UN and NATO) has, interestingly enough, increased since the end of the Cold War, which is also partly due to the complexity of operation.
Consequently, five other areas: international authorization, national authorization, civil control, civilian responsibility to military and responsibility to comply to norms (performance of troops on the field and the question whether or not the international law covenenants apply to them) were put against the use of force to create a matrix.
The study showed that informal factors such as media, leadership, budgetary constraints and public opinion played a large role in influencing national institutions when acting on international decisions. When functioning under international mandate, state security interest is not always clear at first, and public opinions fickle. This is where the media steps in and plays a large role in stabilizing the public opinion.
In the international arena, the United Nation Security Council plays a key role in enforcement, whereas the national government plays a large role in supplying the troops. And as Dr. Ku stated, the motto of "our boys will not serve under foreign flags" that speaks for most nations, is just one element that adds to the complicated nature of military operations under the auspices of international operations.
So, do domestic requirements make international obligations impossible? No, says Charlotte Ku emphatically. Sometimes decisions will be debated. But democracy, as Ku claims, means debate.
Dr. Andreas Paulus, in response to Ku's presentation, cited this time as being a "time of crisis," that the US was at war and that Germany was caught in a position needing to decide on how to support this fight against terror. He expressed the fear that crises were neither good for democracies nor for the control of power. To support his argument he gave the example of the Bundeswer being a "parlamentary army." But how far does this parlamentary control go? In time s of crisis, he claimed, there is no space for parlamentary approval. One need only to take the example of Afghanistan, where quick reaction is key.
In this manner Ku's project, according to Paulus, was well done since it did not only go to the official institutions, but to the unofficial institutions as well, such as the media. In times of crises, the unofficial so called "public control" may be more effective than the standard official legislative control.
Dr. Paulus sees the problem as a lack of parlamentary influence on the international level and not just the democratic accountability. How can the national parliament exercise control within the spirit of world order. Paulus stated that "all politics are local". And added that, "Democracies are more local than other politics".
Contact
For general information contact:
Nicole Schley
E-Mail: nicole.schley@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
For the study forthcoming in autumn please contact:
Chalotte Ku at The American Society of International Law
E-Mail: cku@asil.org