Acta Politica, 2003, 38, (187–190)

r 2003 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 0001-6810/03 $25.00

www.palgrave-journals.com/ap

Book Review

Sovereignty, Rights and Justice: International Political Theory Today

C. Brown
Polity Press, Cambridge, 2002, 296 pp.
ISBN 0 7456 2303 4, d16.99,
ISBN 0 7456 2302 6, d55.00.

Acta Politica (2003) 38, 187–190. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500009

Chris Brown, professor of international relations at the London School of

Economics and Political Science, is certainly not a newcomer to the field of
international political theory. Everyone who is interested in the normative
dimensions of international relations has probably read at least one of the
numerous articles and books he has written on the topic. His work can be seen
as an ongoing attempt to give distinctive meaning and shape to the discourse of
international political theory; however, most of his books remain, unfortu-
nately, at an introductory level. In the early 1990s, he published International
Relations Theory: New Normative Approaches, which contained an analysis and
evaluation of the debates that were generated by the then new normative
theories of international relations. This book was followed in 1997 by
Understanding International Relations (revised edition 2001), which tried to give
an overview of the state of international relations theory. According to Brown,
his latest book Sovereignty, Rights and Justice (2002) can be seen as comple-
mentary to Understanding International Relations. The former examines a
number of roads not taken by the conventional discourses of international
relations that are described in the latter and might therefore be of more interest
to political theorists.
Although not formally divided, the book contains two quite distinctive parts.
Chapters 2–4 present a historical outline of the development of international
thought. The second chapter starts out with an analysis of the modern states-
system or Westphalia System and its ‘origin’ in the Treaties of Münster and
Osnabrück that ended the Thirty Years War in 1648. It examines two types of
discourse that are normally associated with this system, that is the ‘law of
nations’ and the ‘society of states’. Both types of discourse are connected with
four basic norms that are constitutive of the Westphalia System: (1) sovereign
states and not individuals are the actors in the system, (2) states are legally
equal and are guided by the norm of non-intervention, (3) states have a right to
defend themselves but are normally not aggressive, and (4) the only binding
rules that exist between states are of a procedural kind and apply mainly to the
practice of diplomacy and the making of treaties (p. 35). These four norms can
 Book Review
188

be seen as the background against which Brown builds his argument. One of
the main purposes of the book and also a core objective of international
political theory in general is to show that there is no clear-cut divide between
domestic politics and international relations, and there never truly has been. In
effect, the Westphalia System as such was never deeply statist or sovereignty-
oriented (pp. 212, 247). The third chapter examines the international thought
of Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment theorists such as Kant, Hegel, Mill
and Bentham. Most well known is probably Kant’s cosmopolitan attempt to
ground international relations on the idea of human rights in Perpetual Peace
and The Metaphysics of Morals. In one way or another, most thinkers of the
Enlightenment period have criticized the Westphalia System. Despite these
critiques, however, the system of independent states still survived. Brown tries
to examine why. Chapter 4, finally, is devoted to the two strands of thought
that have dominated 20th-century international thought: on the one hand, the
‘liberal internationalist’ doctrine with its emphasis on the so-called democratic
peace thesis and, on the other hand, ‘the realist’ and ‘neo-realist’ school of
people like Morgenthau, Carr and Waltz, who criticize the liberal view that
national interest can always be reconciled and stress the fact that international
relations are mainly about conflicting interests and the exercise of power.
Chapters 5–12 give a more thematic overview of the current problems and
theories in the field of international relations. They cover a wide range of
interconnected issues that are of central importance to late 20th-century
international relations, such as the legitimacy of the norms of non-intervention
and self-determination, the ethics of war and coercion, the origin and
development of the current human rights regime, cultural diversity, global
justice and the establishment of the International Criminal Court. The
principle that guides the discussion of these general issues is an examination
of the various manifestations of the main problem of international political
theory. This problem, according to Brown, can be seen as a ‘clash between, on
the one hand, the inherited norms of the Westphalia System, most of that
privilege the particularistic values associated with the state, or nation-state,
and, on the other, the more recently established norms which appear to
promote universal values, most obviously in the area of human rights [y]’’ (p.
76). Brown gives an interesting and familiar example of this clash at the
beginning of the book. If we take a look at what wealthy liberal democracies
have done in the last half-century to relieve global poverty or bring an end to
egregious violations of human rights, we notice that they all have foreign-aid
programmes and present themselves as protagonists of the international
human rights regime. However, if we compare the amount of money that is
spent on foreign aid to the amount that is spent on the redistribution of wealth
between the rich and the poor on the domestic level, then we notice that the
first is only a very small fraction of the second. We seem less willing to help
Acta Politica 2003 38
 Book Review
189

foreigners than our fellow nationals, ‘they’ have different claims upon us, ‘we’
have different obligations towards them’ (p. 2). Intuitively, there is nothing
wrong with the fact that we are convinced that we have special obligations
towards our family, friends and fellow nations that we donot have towards
people from different cultures or continents. However, on a more abstract level
this implies that national borders can have an ethical significance that might and
will clash with humanitarian principles and our universal obligations of justice.
With this clash between the universal and the particular, we get to the very
heart of the book. Brown is eager to demonstrate that human rights and non-
intervention or global justice and cultural diversity are not discrete subjects as
is often presumed in international relations, but different sides to the same
medal. He tries to accomplish this by analysing the meaning of and the relation
between the three key terms that are at the centre of the current debates and
make up the title of the book. In contrast to conventional international
relations theory and the cosmopolitan viewpoint of theorists like Charles Beitz
and Thomas Pogge, ‘sovereignty’, ‘rights’ and ‘justice’ are not in direct
opposition to each other, but can be reconciled. The rights of states are not
necessarily in conflict with the rights of individuals, nor are the obligations we
have towards our fellow nationals completely different from the obligations we
have towards foreigners. In the last chapter of the book, Brown tries to give a
very rough sketch of what a reconciliation between sovereignty, rights and
justice would look like in post-Westphalia global politics. He introduces the
notion of a strong state. A strong state has an effective state administration
and ‘the ability to shape events in the public interest and to shield one’s people
from the worst consequences of uncontrolled market forces [y]’ (p. 245). Its
main justification lies in the fact that it serves the public interest and protects
the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual. However, strong state
authority does not imply a sovereign state in the Westphalian sense of the
word. The idea of human rights is constitutive of what a strong state might
look like. Although Brown does not really elaborate on the notion of a strong
state and it therefore remains a rather vague concept, it might contain the
beginning of an answer.
There are quite a number of things to say in favour of the book. I will only
mention a few. First of all, it gives a very interesting and comprehensive
introduction to the state of international political theory today. Readers obtain
a good impression of the key issues, debates and theoretical perspectives that
are at stake. Brown is able to trace back highly complex debates to a set of
clear arguments. In addition, Brown has a pleasant and accessible style of
writing. Especially, the second part of the book is a pleasure to read. However,
there is also a small downside to the book. Aside from the minor fact that the
general structure of the book does not always present us with a very coherent
story and Brown sometimes feels the need to share his frustration with the
Acta Politica 2003 38
 Book Review
190

British educational and political system (p. 225), there are some particular
topics and theories in the book that remain underdeveloped. Although this is
quite normal for a book like this and Brown is well aware of this fact (p. 18), it
would have been better if he updated his presentation of certain theories since
the publication of International Relations Theory and Understanding Interna-
tional Relations. To take only one example, the relevance of the work of
German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas to the discourse of
international political theory cannot be reduced to his earlier writings on the
ideal speech theory and the theory of communicative action as Brown
sometimes seems to be doing. The real importance of his work for topics like
the European Union and human rights lies in the discourse theory of law and
democracy that Habermas has presented in his later work. But, in the end, this
is only a minor shortcoming of an overall very good introduction to the field of
international political theory.

Ronald Tinnevelt
K.U. Leuven-Departement Politologie, Leuven.

Acta Politica 2003 38