Nouvelles guerres justes,nouvelles guerres saintes

Holy wars and just wars are two distinct categories regarding their justification. The first claims that God himself commands and supports war or, at least, that God is the ultimate legitimization. On this side of the world, two types of holy war have existed: the crusade and the jihad. By contrast, the just war is justified by the need to deploy an awareness of uncertainty, because that war intends to be after all a prudent decision. The challenge is to class brutality under a moral action and to place war under both the criteria of legitimacy and a less inhumane violence. Totalitarianism of the twentieth century has continued holy war, even if religions have been replaced by justificatory idéologies. Today, the wars waged on behalf of human rights and under international law, such as the war in Kosovo, may be recognized as new'holy wars' conducted on behalf of an unwavering certainty: they are of a Manichean type; while a'just war' in the contemporary context is one that belongs to a particular decision, such as the American war in Iraq, and thus submitted to the uncertainty and debate, and assuming the consequences of the decision.     

Nouvelles guerres justes et nouvelles guerres saintes: la rhétorique du bellicisme

From Cicero to St. Thomas, from Erasmus of Rotterdam to Grotius and Pufendorf, the concept of ‘just war’ is used to state the conditions under which the rhetoric of belligerence can meet the standards of both rationality and morality to justify going to war. The classical humanism and the philosophy of law will try in the Renaissance, especially with the beginning of a retreat of the divine in public affairs, to formalize and even humanize the war. Not only does the ideal of justice require honorable motives (jus ad bellum) for the use of weapons to be acceptable, but also how to behave in hostilities should also observe a certain restraint inspired by morality (jus in bello). Even Erasmus, the pacifist par excellence, admits that one must defend oneself against the Turks. On the other hand, the concept of ‘holy war’, used in the three major monotheistic religions, offers a different sound when going to war. Then the reference becomes abstract and absolute, so no argument can occur, no debate can be tolerated, because we face the divine plan. People of Yahweh, the disciples of Allah or the Children of the victorious Jesus Christ, all are refusing the opportunity to discuss the foundations of the war, hence an intangible reality which is conducive to a total violence. However, these two types of war are not reducible to one another, because one is based on a reasonable discussion, the other on the basis of Revelation on which nothing can be said. However, the boundaries between them become blurred when the stronger pretends to be the defender of a just cause and wants to impose its law over all opposing voices. In this case, the discourses of legitimacy become unbearable and confusing.     

Hakk or Right: A Veblenian Narration of the Differences between the Justice Notions in Western Europe and Turkey

Using Veblen's status emulation theory in the background, but essentially engaged in theoretical debates on the transition to capitalism and modernity, this paper attempts to provide a comparative account of different forms of domination in Western European feudal society and the Ottoman Empire. In contrast, an individualistic representation of reality gained prevalence in social conflicts in Western Europe, precisely because forms of exploitation associated with European serfdom were far more severe and un‐tempered than was true for the Ottoman Empire. Due to being short of a legitimate claim to genuine nobility, Western European feudal aristocracy was driven into an insatiable hunger for luxury and waste. In the absence of a powerful central authority, members of this class “turned inward” for their ever‐increasing exploits and waged war against their servants, living and working under their private jurisdictions. The peasants, both free and serf, not only revolted repeatedly, but also ran into the cities to have “fairly secure property rights” so that they would be “the lord” or “dominus” of their own lives and morality. Out of this, a new justice notion had grown, that of natural rights law, which equated all human individuals within one single concern, that of “the right to self‐preservation,” eventually dragging the whole social fabric into heightened self‐centeredness. The Ottoman ruling class could not turn inward and wage an open class war against its servants. This was the land of peace, dar‐al Islam. All people, Muslim and non‐Muslim lived, or were supposed to live, in peace and harmony under the supreme order of Hakk. The transition to an individualistic justice notion along the lines of natural rights law was on the whole clogged in Turkey.     

Listening to the Otherness of the Other: Envisioning Listening Based on a Hermeneutical Reading of Lévinas

The aim of this article is to elucidate the essence of listening through a hermeneutical reading of the works of philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. This research is grounded in the human scientific caring tradition that is founded on an ethical order and explicitly theoretical framework. Listening as an ethical bearing is interpreted as a desire to follow the inner essential decision to take human responsibility seriously, to put oneself at risk, and as a promise to serve the vulnerable and unique Other in his or her otherness. Listening invites the individual to see and to respond to the Other's address and thereby to welcome the holy and the infinite in a world where all human beings are tied together into a common humanity.     

Promoting human rights in the era of globalization and interventions: the changing spaces of struggle

A new cartography of geopolitical and corporate interests is reshaping the international order after September 11, calling into question the state's ability to secure fundamental rights for its citizens and to preserve participatory democracy. If civil society tends, among human rights activists, to be the preferred venue to articulate human rights concerns against the state and other powerful entities, one may wonder whether civil society has not become an arena dominated by consumerism or the pursuit of security. With the weakening of social forces for human rights in civil society as a buffer between the state and the private realm, how can we protect individuals from deepening incursions by the state and the globalized market in our age of war against terror? This article considers these issues, by placing them in historic context. More specifically, it examines how selected events since the Second World War have transformed the spaces which support and shape campaigns for human rights struggle.     

论国家对未成年人监护的公权干预——以保障留守儿童的合法权益为视角

加强国家对未成年人监护的干预力度,是有效保障留守儿童合法权益的需要。在当前国际社会呈现未成年人监护公法化的发展趋势下,考察国家对未成年人监护公权干预的理论基础和社会基础,分析我国现行立法对未成年人监护公权干预之不足有重要意义。同时,可以借鉴法国、德国、日本、瑞士四国未成年人监护公权干预立法情况,提出区分亲权和监护、设立国家公权监护主体、设立未成年人监护监督机构等建议,以期完善我国未成年人监护的公权干预制度。     

美以武力解决伊核问题的合法性与可行性

发展核武器虽符合伊朗致力于成为地区大国的战略逻辑,但受到国际国内压力,伊朗未必能够突破红线,军事打击伊朗难以具备足够的合情理性和合法性。伊朗核设施具有数量多、防攻击能力强等特点,其核能力趋于成熟,其民族国家建构亦比较成功,无论是定点清除,还是全面战争,均难以达到彻底解决伊核问题的目标。军事打击还可能导致石油市场崩溃和全球经济危机,并将遭到中俄等国家的强烈反对,美以不得不有所顾忌。尽管战争的可能性始终不能排除,但遏制伊朗以及提供延伸威慑已逐渐成为美国对伊政策的重点,美伊关系有可能陷入长期低烈度但可控的冲突。     

Framing and counter-framing a Peace March in Russia: the use of Twitter during a hybrid war

ABSTRACT

Framing is vital to the capacity of social movements to enlist popular support and sustain contentious collective action. Using the case of a Peace March held in Moscow on 21 September 2014, the article examines how antiwar activists and their opponents framed a protest against Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. The study argues that different interpretations of patriotism underpinned divergent evaluations of the conflict and the construction of opposing identities. An analysis of Twitter posts on the eve of the march shows that peace activists positioned themselves as citizens with high moral standards and a healthy dose of patriotism, criticized the Russian government for military intervention in Ukraine, and called for a peaceful conflict resolution. In turn, opponents of the march considered themselves as real patriots and their adversaries as national traitors, denied Russia’s military presence in Ukraine, and fomented an attack on critics of Russian foreign policy. The study contributes to social movement literature by analyzing the framing of antiwar activism on a social media platform in the midst of a hybrid war, marked by a great deal of ambiguity and deception about causes, dynamics, and consequences of military operations by state and non-state actors.     

Not Just about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Call for Military-Centric Social Work

Most warriors do not get PTSD but can still be affected by war. The “military gestalt,” defined as the complex myriad of “all things military” including the functions, processes, and human elements related to combat, is seriously impacted by the warrior-in-combat construct that is reflective of the person-in-environment construct. Thus, it suggests that problems within the gestalt can be understood and addressed from a military-centric social work perspective and approach. The situation is so insidious that it requires a call to action from all disciplines but, most important, for the social work profession to take the lead.     

Cultures of Denial: Avoiding Knowledge of State Violations of Human Rights in Argentina and the United States

Why and how do individuals distance themselves from information about their government's participation in torture and other human rights violations? Such citizen (non)response implicitly legitimates and thus facilitates the continuation of abusive state actions. Drawing on a model of socially organized denial, we explore how sociocultural contexts and practices mediate individuals’ avoidance, justification, normalization, silencing, and outright denial of human rights abuses in two sites: Argentina during the last military dictatorship (1976–1983) and the United States during the “war on terror” post September 11, 2001. The study is based on 40 in‐depth interviews with members of diverse civic, religious, community, and political organizations in both countries (20 in each site). Comparing the political circumstances of a dictatorship and an electoral democracy, the analysis shows the roles of patriotic and national security ideologies and practices of silence and talk as organizers of cultures of denial.     

Posttraumatic Psychological Distress and Resettlement: The Need for a Different Practice in Assisting Refugee Families

Social work practitioners are increasingly confronted with couples and families who have come from war-torn countries. Refugees may have experienced genocide, organized violence, ethnic wars, displacement, and losses of various kinds. Such experiences will often be carried through the post-migratory period and obscure legitimate individual and family processes that are often evaluated through a psychopathology lens. In this context, there is a pressing need to be attentive to refugee situations around the world and to issues related to forced migration and its impact on families. In an attempt to fill the gap in the literature on intervention with refugee families, this article presents two of the most compelling aspects of the refugee experience that can have a lasting impact on families and couples: premigration traumatic events and their potential impact on the refugee resettlement experience, and postmigration social and psychological experiences. The concept of “trauma” is presented within the context of resettlement of asylum seekers and refugees. Key stressors documented as having an impact on the long-term well-being of individuals, families, and communities who have been touched by war and conflict are outlined. Multiple-family group intervention is discussed as one of the promising approaches for helping families cope with pre- and postmigration trauma.     

Gunning for rural England: The politics of the promotion of military land use in the Northumberland National Park

The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) on behalf of the armed forces owns substantial areas of land in the UK. Interest in the use and management of this land - the defence estate - has grown in the 1990s following changes in land use as a consequence of the restructuring of the armed forces. This paper examines the portrayal of military land use by the MoD, using a conceptual framework informed by theories of discourse and the social construction of rurality. Empirical evidence is drawn from a 1997 public inquiry into developments proposed by the MoD to the Otterburn Training Area in the Northumberland National Park. The paper examines how military training in a national park is constructed as a legitimate use of this space, with reference to discourses of conservation and environmental protection. The paper goes on to examine the ways in which the landscape of the training area is portrayed with reference to discourses about the appearance and consumption of the countryside. The paper concludes by looking at the effect of discourses of defence and national security in shaping the Otterburn debate, and in shaping the claims of the armed forces as defenders of the natural environment.     

The lawyers’ war: states and human rights in a transnational field

While torture and assassination have not infrequently been used by states, the post 9/11 ‘war on terror’ waged by the US has been distinguished by the open acknowledgement of, and political and legal justifications put forward in support of, these practices. This is surprising insofar as the primary theories that have been mobilized by sociologists and political scientists to understand the relation between the spread of human rights norms and state action presume that states will increasingly adhere to such norms in their rhetoric, if not always in practice. Thus, while it is not inconceivable that the US would engage in torture and assassination, we would expect these acts would be conducted under a cloak of deniability. Yet rather than pure hypocrisy, the US war on terror has been characterized by the development of a legal infrastructure to support the use of ‘forbidden’ practices such as torture and assassination, along with varying degrees of open defence of such tactics. Drawing on first-order accounts presented in published memoirs, this paper argues that the Bush administration developed such openness as a purposeful strategy, in response to the rise of a legal, technological, and institutional transnational human rights infrastructure which had turned deniability into a less sustainable option. It concludes by suggesting that a more robust theory of state action, drawing on sociological field theory, can help better explain the ways that transnational norms and institutions affect states.     

Cosmopolitan militaries and dialogic peacekeeping: Danish and Swedish women soldiers in Afghanistan

Feminist security studies (FSS) scholarship advocates the analysis of women’s war experiences and narratives to understand conflict and military intervention. Here we add a non-great power focus to FSS debates on the gendered discourses of military interventionism. We zoom in on Danish and Swedish women soldiers’ reflections on their involvement in the ISAF operation in Afghanistan. Their stories are deconstructed against the backdrop of their states’ adoption of a cosmopolitan-minded ethic on military obligation. Both states employed women soldiers in dialogic peacekeeping in Afghanistan to establish links with local women and to gather intelligence, tasks that were less frequently afforded to male soldiers. However, feminist FSS scholarship locates military intelligence gathering within racial, gendered and imperialist power relations that assign victimhood to local women. This feminist critique is pertinent, but the gendered and racial logics governing international operations vary across national contexts. While such gender binaries were present in Danish and Swedish military practice in Afghanistan, our article shows that dialogical peacekeeping offered an alternative to stereotypical constructions of women as victims and men as protectors. Dialogical peacekeeping helped to disrupt such gendering processes, giving women soldiers an opportunity to rethink their gender identities while instilling dialogical relations with local women.     

Cosmopolitanism: The Foundational Ground for a More Inclusive Understanding of Belonging to Protect the Human Rights of North Korean Stateless Women

In this article, I will examine the use of the notion of cosmopolitanism to address the exclusionary nature of citizenship. Citizenship is a contemporary social norm that privileges citizens and discriminates against others, leading to consequent human rights violations experienced by stateless populations. I will use the case study of North Korean stateless women who reside in China and who are victims of human trafficking as an example of stateless people who lack legal guarantees for human rights. By uncovering the way citizenship operates as a social structure that deprives people of their human rights, I will argue for Seyla Benhabib's notion of cosmopolitanism, which pursues a more inclusive notion of belonging and necessitates institutional changes. These include the juridical implementation of improved immigration policy and citizenship law, involving the cooperation of the global society, to recognize the dignity of the stateless and protect their human rights.     

Violence against women: the international legal response

Violence against women has only recently become an international legal concern, because human rights law has been directed to protect men in their public lives. The failure of human rights law to protect women from gender-specific violence has occurred because much of the violence against women occurs in private and because cultural assumptions are used to justify the oppression of women. The silent nature of this violence has masked the reality of the international nature of the problem. Also, international law primarily regulates the behavior of states. Women have lobbied for recognition of the problem of violence against women within the UN agencies concerned with crime and those concerned with women's issues. It is illustrative of the marginalization of women's human rights issues that the international instrument which guarantees women's equality, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), was not drafted through the Human Rights Commission. CEDAW's Recommendation 19 directs the attention of states towards the elimination of gender-based violence, but the participation of the 139 states which are party to CEDAW is limited by reservations the states have attached to their participation. Wider commitment to the eradication of violence against women has been sought using other UN bodies, and, in 1993, the Declaration and Programme of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights called for the integration of women's human rights into all UN human rights activities, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and the Security Council of the International Tribunal was established to prosecute offenses committed in the former Yugoslavia, including rape. In 1994, the UN appointed a Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women to provide a continuing focus on gender violence. These calls for the recognition of the human rights of women and girls must be reinforced by the Fourth World Conference on Women. Such international instruments will not change women's lives alone, however. Improvement in the status of women will depend upon education, support services, and training of public officials. While working for social change, activists must also work to insure implementation of the instruments governments have adopted.     

Becoming Unmanned

Abstract

Forty-nine nations currently have UAV (unmanned autonomous vehicle, or unmanned aerial vehicle) technology. Autonomous technology could potentially alter both the conduct of warfighting itself as well as our understanding of war as a gendered activity. Using drones or ‘robots’ could affect the activities of war through outsourcing killing to technology and removing the aggressors’ physical bodies from the battlefield. Drones could also affect the gendered construct of war as the traditional dyad of protector/protected is altered: a system in which men have traditionally protected women and children is replaced by a new system in which machines protect humans. Analysts like Haraway might interpret these developments as an important step towards posthumanity where man-machine as well as gender distinctions are overcome. However, traditional gendered concepts of warfare have a long history and it is not inevitable that new technologies will change gendered activities, relations and views of war. Instead, the discourse of new technologies as expressed by US military planners and technology developers currently reinforces rather than downplays gender distinctions. Robots themselves have been constructed as subordinate, as a new type of nature which is dominated or feminized, while ‘cyborg soldiers’ with technological implants are constructed as hypermasculine.     

The Social Model of Disability Under the Shadow of the Revolution: Ex-combatants Negotiating Identity in Nicaragua

The social model of disability, which defines disability as the product of social discrimination rather than the physical, cognitive, or sensory differences of individuals, became the dominant logic of the international disability field with the 2006 passage of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. As such, grassroots disability associations around the world are advocating for new rights. These campaigns promote a new identity frame of disabled persons as a universally oppressed group. This identity, however, does not benefit all groups equally and actually threatens some. Using qualitative methods, I compare the usage of the disability identity by two grassroots associations in Nicaragua. Ex-Contra soldiers with disabilities use the identity to obfuscate their discredited history as “traitors” and, instead, represent themselves as unjustly discriminated against disabled persons deserving special benefits and human rights protections. Ex-Sandinista soldiers with disabilities also make claims, but only reluctantly as disabled, preferring to self-identify as war wounded. Because of changes in law, however, Ex-Sandinista soldiers are increasingly unable to make claims as war heroes, but must instead access benefits as persons with disabilities “in general.” This case demonstrates how actors strategically use the social model of disability in relation to local political culture and group identity.     

美国应对中东剧变的“奥巴马主义”探析

美国应对中东剧变的政策措施彰显"奥巴马主义",即军事上谨慎用兵,避免直接地面占领或卷入一场针对伊斯兰国家的新战争,而是通过武装反对派推行"阿拉伯人打阿拉伯人",减少人道主义干预的成本;政治上运用所谓美国的"巧实力",让欧洲大国和阿拉伯盟友提出议程设置,充当"急先锋",美国在背后"掌舵",以最廉价的方式延续美国在中东的领导地位;外交上通过议题设置,让联合国人权委员会等国际组织和非政府组织服务于美国政府;经济上运用援助和制裁两手政策来实现政治目标;文化上利用媒体、非政府组织和网络,开展民间外交和网络外交。奥巴马政府试图综合运用军事、政治、外交、经济和文化手段,推动中东反美国家的政权更迭,维护亲美国家的政局稳定。研究表明,无论是主张依靠硬实力的"布什主义",还是主张依靠巧实力的"奥巴马主义",其在中东维持美国领导地位的战略目标,却是一致的。