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INTERNATIONAL
INTERVENTION
IN THE
POST-COLD WAR
WORLD
(�) Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Croup
http://t.,...,.i<>dff�IS.Com
INTERNATIONAL
INTERVENTION
IN THE
POST-COLD WAR
WORLD
Moral Responsibility
and Power Politics
�
EDITORS
Michael C. Davis,
Wolfgang Dietrich,
Bettina Scholdan,
and Dieter Sepp
�} Routledge
� � Taylor & Francis Group
Notices
No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to
persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or other wise,
or from any use of operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas
contained in the material herein.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and
knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or
experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should
be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for
whom they have a professional responsibility.
International intervention in the post-Cold War world: moral responsibility and power
politics / Michael C. Davis, Wolfgang Dietrich, Bettina Scholdan, and Dieter Sepp, editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7656-1244-5 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Humanitarian intervention. 2. World politics-1989- I. Davis, Michael c., 1949-
II. Dietrich, Wolfgang. III. Scholdan, Bettina. IV. Sepp, Dieter.
JZ6369.I58 2003
341 .5'84-dc21
2003042791
2. "Humanitarian Intervention"
A Misnomer?
Peter R. Baehr 23
3. Legitimacy and Lawfulness of Humanitarian Intervention
Tania Voon 40
4. Human Rights and the Question of International
Criminal Courts and Tribunals
Robert Cryer 60
Part II. The International Politics of Intervention
5. Problematizing Sovereignty
Relative Sovereignty in the Historical Transformation of Interstate
and State-Society Relations
Victoria Tin-bor Hui 83
6. Weak States, State Making, and Humanitarian Intervention
With a View from the People's Republic of China
Mark D. Evans 1 04
7. Humanitarian Intervention
The Interplay of Norms and Politics
Hiroki Kusano 123
v
vi
Index 319
About the Editors and Contributors
Franca D' Agostini, a native of Turin, Italy, completed her doctorate in phi
losophy at the University of Turin and teaches contemporary philosophy at
the Faculty of Engineering (Politecnico). She is the author of Analitici e
continentali ( 1 997), Breve storia della filosofia nel Novecento ( 1 999), Logica
del nichilismo (2000), and Disavventure della veritii (2002) and contributes
to the newspapers la Stampa and il Manifesto.
vii
viii ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
publications include the article two book chapters "Implementing the Head
line Goals: Institutional Aspects and Consequences," in J. Krause, A. Wenger,
and L. Watanbe (eds.), Unraveling the European Security and Defence Co
nundrum (2003), and "Democratic Accountability of Military and Police
Ooperation in the EU," in Hans Born and Heiner Hangii (ed.) Defining the
Democratic Deficit (2003), and the book NATO 's "Peace-Enforcement" Tasks
and "Policy Communities, " 1990--1999 (2003) and a variety of articles on the
European security and defense theme.
Confrontation in Hong Kong ( 1 990) and editor of Human Rights and Chi
nese Values ( 1 995). His publications on such topics as the political economy
of human rights, human rights and political culture, humanitarian interven
tion, constitutionalism, and global order have appeared in a wide range of
journals. He has degrees from the Ohio State University, the University of
California, and the Yale Law School.
Wolfgang Dietrich is a professor of political science at the Institute for Po
litical Sciences, University of Innsbruck, where he has been a member of the
faculty since 1 986 . He has also served on the faculty of the International
Center for Peace and Development Studies at the University of Castellon in
Spain since 1998. He is the academic director of the Austrian Institute for
Latin America and program director of the Master's Program for Peace, De
velopment and International Conflict Transformation at the University of
Innsbruck. He is the author of eight books and numerous papers, including
Periphere Integration und Frieden im Weltsystem-Ostafrika, Zentral
amerikaund Sudostasien im Vergle ich ( 1 998) .
Mark D. Evans is an analyst with the New Zealand Ministry of Defence. He
was previously a lecturer in international relations at the Faculty of Interna
tional Studies, International Pacific College, Palmerston North, New Zealand,
where he chaired the local branch of the New Zealand Institute of Interna
tional Affairs. His publications to date have focused on China, India, and the
English School of International Relations. He received his master's degree
from Griffith University, Australia. Under a Claude McCarthy Fellowship
and a University of Waikato Postgraduate Scholarship, he completed his
doctorate with the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. The
views expressed in his chapter are his own and do not represent those of the
New Zealand Ministry of Defence.
Victoria Tin-bor Hui is an assistant professor in political science at the
University of Illinois. She has a forthcoming book, War and State Fonnation
in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. After receiving her doctorate
with distinction from the political science department at Columbia Univer
sity, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies
at Harvard University and at the Center for International Security and Coop
eration at Stanford University. In pursuing her graduate studies, she received
dissertation fellowships from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and
the Institute for the Study of World Politics.
Daniela Ingruber is a freelance researcher in the field of civic education
and foreign affairs and works as a researcher in the field of mediation and
participation at the Austrian Society for Environment and Technology. Since
2000, she has been teaching at the Institute of Political Science, University
of Innsbruck, Austria, and at various universities and academies in the former
Soviet Union. Her publications incl ude Friedensarbeit in El Salvador
x ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Bettina Scholdan is head of the Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and
Asylum Research and Documentation (ACCORD), which is affiliated with
the Austrian Red Cross. She has published articles on minority rights juris
prudence and critical race theory, the impact of international administration
on postconflict societies, as well as refugee protection and development aid
in the European Union, and has conducted human rights research and report
ing on sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan, and the fonner Yugoslavia. Since
1 999, she has been the coeditor of the ACCORDIUNHCR European Coun
try of Origin Infonnation Seminar Series. In 1 997 and 1 998, she was a visit
ing scholar at Columbia Law School. She is currently completing her doctorate
in political science at the University of Vienna, exploring the impact of U.S .
legal culture on minority politics.
promoting democracy and human rights in Africa at the 1 999 Human Rights
Research Committee Conference and was instrumental in hosting a workshop
for the present proj ect. Currently, he is doing a documentation project with
an Austrian software firm specializing in securities trade. He has written
several articles on human rights and democratization in Africa.
This book grew out of a workshop in Vienna, Austria, in August 200 1 held
under the auspices of the Human Rights Research Committee of the Interna
tional Political Science Association. This workshop brought together a di
verse group of scholars specifically interested in the relationship between
morality and power politics in international intervention actions. We sought
to explore often-neglected i ssues in respect of the growing practice of mili
tary intervention for humanitarian purposes. Subsequent collaborative ef
forts have enabled us to further develop arguments initiated in the Vienna
workshop. These ongoing discussions have allowed us to sharpen our argu
ments to present a challenge to the mainstream discourse and tease out the
common theoretical issues and foundations reflected in the chapters of this
book. While our views remain diverse, we are hopeful that we have raised
some serious challenges in respect of state practices in this area.
At this stage, we would like to thank the sponsors and organizers of our
Vienna workshop. At the top of our list in this regard is the Austrian Political
Science Association that, with the great efforts of coeditors Wolfgang Dietrich,
Bettina Scholdan, and Dieter Sepp, hosted the Vienna workshop. Funding
support for the workshop was provided by the Renner-Institut, the Austrian
Federal Ministry for Sciences and Art, the Municipality of Vienna, the Cham
ber of Labour, the British Council, and the Istituto Italiano Cultura di Vienna.
As the editor responsible for coordinating the preparation of this book, I
would like to thank my two research assistants, Elizabeth Lee and Orianne
Dutka, who have assisted at various stages of the editing process. I would
especially like to thank the East Asian Legal Studies Program at Harvard
University and its director, Professor William Alford, for hosting me for one
year at the conceptualization phase of this effort. Finally, we would all like to
express our appreciation to the many participants in our original workshop,
contributors to various seminars where our ideas have been presented, and
the unknown reviewers of our manuscript.
xii
INTERNATIONAL
INTERVENTION
IN THE
POST-COLD WAR
WORLD
(�) Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Croup
http://t.,...,.i<>dff�IS.Com
1
Michael C. Davis
There have been at least two distinct kinds of war in the post-Cold War
period, each of which brings its own set of challenges to human rights and
global institutions.l The first, humanitarian intervention, came earlier in the
form of military responses to humanitarian crises. For these crises, the United
Nations' (UN) framework has sometimes proved inadequate. The second,
wars primarily based on claims of national defense-evident in Afghanistan,
Iraq, and the so-called war on terrorism-has grabbed our attention since
September 1 1, 200 1 . Such wars, though claimed to be sanctioned by the
right of self-defense under UN Charter Article 5 1, sometimes in combina
tion with a UN Security Council initiative under UN Charter Chapter VII,
have spawned expansions of the notion of self-defense in ways that severely
challenge the charter regime.2
The human rights focus of each of these two types of war is somewhat
different. Humanitarian intervention is primarily about protecting entire popu
lations of people against ethnic cleansing and genocide and holding indi
vidual elites accountable for such crimes. The current crop of defensive wars
and their offshoots have primarily focused human rights attention on the
changing character of war, expansive notions of self-defense, the applicabil
ity of international standards for belligerents in the fields of battle, and the
sources and boundaries of terrorism, though humanitarian concerns are also
generally implicated.
In spite of these differences, both cases have common foundations in com
munal conflicts and both have arisen out of similar circumstances. Among
these two pressing areas of human rights concern, this book focuses prima
rily on the former, though the interconnectedness between the two will some
times bring our attention back to the latter.
Humanitarian crises of vast proportions, often brought on by communal
or ethnic conflicts, have been among the defining events of the post-Cold
War world order. The cries of human anguish caused by these events have
3
4 MICHAEL C. DAVIS
captured our global media and our political debate. We have, however, in
herited an international regime that, in its current state of practice, often
appears inadequate to the task of coping with these events. International re
sponses to humanitarian crises are often too late or nonexistent, and when
they do occur, they are often inadequate. These kinds of events are sure to
repeat themselves. How this debate will shape the instruments of world peace,
especially the use of intervention to avert humanitarian crises, is a matter of
great concern in the post-Cold War era.
A variety of conceptual questions are involved in the debate over humani
tarian intervention, including issues of moral responsibility, strategic con
cerns, appropriate standards for intervention, the nature of the modern state,
and the like.3 Practical factors that shape global attitudes toward these issues
include the prevalence of ethnic domination and the intractability of ethnic
disputes, principles respecting self-determination and rights of seceession,
classic doctrines of sovereignty and nonintervention, the importance of de
mocracy, individual and collective responsibility in international law, and
the global-strategic implications of intervention actions. A compelling con
cern is that military intervention only be a last resort after a variety of non
military forms of intervention, such as sanctions, humanitarian assistance,
legal prosecutions, and so on, have been exhausted. These issues admit no
easy answers. It is not surprising that the UN Security Council often cannot
agree on an adequate response to such emerging crises. Despite that diffi
culty, crafting a shared understanding of the appropriate standards for global
or regional behavior is vital to alleviating existing humanitarian disasters
and averting new ones in the future.
The post-World War II vision of global security was aimed at the preven
tion of another World War II. The UN Charter thus saw future conflicts as
interstate in character, leading to the charter 's emphasis on sovereignty and
nonintervention. Contrary to the UN Charter vision, in the post-Cold War
era, conflicts giving rise to humanitarian crises and questions of intervention
often arise out of domestic politics, internal wars, and communal conflicts.
The technology of war and global strategic changes in international politics
have contributed to the escalation of internal ethnic conflicts and humanitar
ian disasters in ways that call the classic nonintervention principle into ques
tion. In a global age, humanitarian crises almost always have dramatic external
effects that countries in the region and beyond ignore at their peril.
At the same time, global strategic political differences have often made
cooperation in dealing with humanitarian crises difficult. This has been es
pecially evident in the frequent immobility of the UN Security Council. These
debates entangle law and morality and confront a rapidly changing political
landscape. So far, the legal side of this equation has generally remained com
mitted, in some formulation, to a principle of nonintervention. But the moral
side has presented us with arguments to waive this principle when confronted
with humanitarian crises of vast proportions. Efforts to resolve this tension
THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER 5
The twentieth century witnessed the evolution of a global treaty regime for
peace that in many ways tracks the highest hopes for the institutions re
flected in the previous debate. The rights and obligations of those affected
by war have been specified in numerous agreements that aim to better achieve
a peaceful order. In the mid-twentieth century, the UN Charter appeared to
capture both wings of this debate, simultaneously offering a defense of sov
ereignty and a federation of free states with a human rights commitment. 17
The UN Charter now serves as the basic constitution of this regime, but there
is considerable debate surrounding its character and requirements. Many
contemporary legal interpretations of the UN Charter appear to track the
classic legal positivist view, upholding sovereignty and restricting the use of
force to self-defense or actions controlled by the UN Security Council. 18 The
current moral debate concerning h umanitarian intervention finds this woe
fully inadequate.
In its dual commitment to international peace and fundamental human
rights, the UN Charter appears to reflect a contradictory commitment to the
exclusive sovereignty of the state and international protection of human rights.
It appears to leave open the question of sovereignty and nonintervention
versus human rights, as well as the question of the status of the humanitarian
intervention concept. Mainstream legal positivists see maintaining peace under
a regime of exclusive state sovereignty and nonintervention as the UN's pri
mary purpose. As discussed later in this book, China, a permanent UN Secu
rity Council member, is a prominent proponent of this· view, weighing in
firmly on the statist side of the debate.19 On the other hand, liberals have
worried that the UN Charter's emphasis on sovereignty is too much a prod
uct of the World War II-era belief that future conflicts would continue to
be interstate in character. Kofi Annan argues that this has not been the case
and pleads for a regime design under the UN Charter that acknowledges
the serious threats posed by internal conflicts.20 For Annan, the UN Charter
takes up the Kantian mission of a federation of republics committed to
international peace.
10 MICHAEL C. DAVIS
new ICC, while they have permitted ad hoc tribunals.28 These battles are
sometimes fought over questions of so-called soft or hard interventions short
of military force.
The international practice regarding communal conflicts deserves special
mention here due to its contribution to humanitarian crises. Numerous recent
humanitarian crises have been the outcome of state suppression of commu
nal groupS.29 The international law and practice in this area, in supporting
both sovereignty and self-determination, offers a contradiction that tends to
encourage the escalation of communal conflicts. International law advances
the values of self-determination and related rights, while discouraging the
exercise of such rights by communal groups within established states-so
sovereignty trumps self-determination and secession is not favored.3D Clas
sic legal principles regarding intervention on behalf of insurgents in civil
wars bear this out, requiring nonintervention until the insurgents have taken
substantial territory by armed rebellion and thus acquire belligerent status.
Such status affords a right to be treated on more equal terms with the state
side of the conflict. Even at such a stage, neutrality would be required unless
others intervene, which frequently is the case. These principles appear to
signal to resisting communal groups the need to escalate violence to a suffi
cient level to kick in this international solicitude.3) Overall, this tends to en
courage armed rebellion since peaceful resistance will gain the insurgents
little international support. And, at the same time, it may encourage violent
state suppression of potential insurgent groups. These twin tendencies have
sometimes produced the very conditions that cause humanitarian crises. Con
trast Tibet with Kosovo or East Timor. While Tibetan leaders in exile, guided
by their own moral compass, have shown little interest in armed rebellion,
the message from the current international regime would tend to promise
higher international dividends from a more militant approach .32 Further com
plicating this problem in strategic terms, Tibet is claimed by a maj or power
that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
Some have tried to give further content to such exceptional case analysis,
arguing that when human rights abuses persist to the point of massive suffer
ing, the sovereignty of the state and the concomitant right of nonintervention
cease to exist.37 Some in the UN and elsewhere favor a narrow, formal re
gime for UN crisis avoidance efforts and intervention. Other scholars sup
port suggestions for Kantian-style alliances of democratic states with a regime
to restore democracy.38 The latter might urge that adequate human rights
protection and democracy be a condition for sovereign protection from in
tervention. States should not be free to abuse their local citizens and then
hide behind sovereignty. Some advocate that states enter into agreements,
perhaps formally supported by communal groups, agreeing to intervention
on the collapse of democratic governance.39 This idea would employ the
existing legal positivist sovereignty regime to create an alternative consen
sual order.
There are a variety of arguments that try to dissolve these competing ten
sions in the mainstream humanitarian intervention debate. Of these, the most
substantial formal effort is the argument for the "responsibility to protect,"
as articulated in the 200 1 report to the UN Security Council submitted by the
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.40 The move
made in this recommendation is to shift the emphasis in the humanitarian
intervention debate to the responsibilities that attach to principles of sover
eignty and nonintervention under the UN Charter regime. This is done by
first emphasizing the responsibility of individual states to protect their own
citizens. It is recognized that only when there is a failure in this respect,
either by the state harming its own people or failing to protect them from
violence perpetrated by others, should the international community become
involved in exercising the responsibility to protect. This international collec
tive responsibility is to be exercised where possible by UN institutions in
accordance with the UN Charter.
It is felt that by elevating the "responsibility to protect" and de-emphasizing
the permi ssibility of intervention, the objectionable quality of humanitarian
intervention may be reduced. But the report does recognize that sometimes
the UN Security Council may be immobilized by the veto power of the five
permanent members. In such cases, the report recommends that the perma
nent members establish a convention to not go against a majority decision of
the Security Council unless the vital interests of one of the permanent
member's are at stake. If this admonition fails to secure an adequate response
to a pending humanitarian crisis, the report acknowledges that a regional re
sponse may be legitimate, but only after first seeking and failing to get UN
Security Council approval. In such regard, the report appears to also open the
door to action first and a subsequent request for approval after the regional
actor has initially exercised its responsibility to protect through intervention.
The report articulates a variety of standards in determining the occasions for
such intervention. By shifting the emphasis from intervention to responsibility,
THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER 13
the report appears to move the argument forward. It is not clear, however, if
this will be enough to satisfy the most ardent objections of countries such as
China and Russia, which seek to defend a strong notion of sovereignty and a
central role for the UN Security Council in this area.
There are other approaches that focus on the possibility of more proactive
regional actions. David Wippman suggests the use of regional treaty-based
intervention that would engage domestic communal groups in agreeing on
principles for outside intervention.41 Accepting a largely legal positivist analy
sis, he stresses the value of the participation of communal groups in making
such a commitment binding in international law. I foresee a much larger
future role for regional agreements in setting the conditions for intervention
and nonintervention. In the absence of agreed international standards to ad
dress the full spectrum of intervention concerns, the likely direction appears
to be a more proactive engagement of regional states and institutions. States
in several regions have increasingly agreed in considerable detail on regional
standards of behavior respecting human rights and their enforcement. Such
agreements may eventually set up regional standards for intervention that
relate intervention to domestic practice, especially the maintenance of de
mocracy and human rights. Soft intervention may more typically be em
ployed, but such agreements may go further, specifying the possibility of
military intervention in the face of humanitarian crises. One may character
ize this as a constitutive approach that frames the conditions for addressing
urgent regional concerns and crises. Such an approach can embody the no
tion of a "responsibility to protect" and specifically address regional standards
for humanitarian intervention when that responsibility is not satisfied. Such
intervention standards may increasingly embody requirements respecting de
mocracy and human rights, as these norms are the contemporary embodiment
of the more classic notion of self-determination that underlies the noninterven
tionist principle. Until significant numbers of states are liberal democracies,
however, such standards will not achieve significant global endorsement.
In conceptual terms, such a move toward regi onal alliances in respect to
humanitarian intervention would combine the idea of responsibility to pro
tect with precommitment strategies that include democracy and human rights.
This combines the Kantian notion of a federation of republics committed to
peace and Mill's commitment to self-determination and nonintervention, with
certain intervention exceptions that j ustice and the j ust war tradition permit.
A community of democratic states will be able to limit principles of nonin
tervention in respect of states that do not maintain basic freedoms and have
committed or allowed atrocities. The responsibility to prevent such crises
before they occur, as highlighted in the UN report, would certainly be aided
by such precommitment strategies. Democracy and human rights can con
tribute measurably to conflict avoidance and nonviolent means of resolu
tion. At the same time, a democratic state with full protection of rights would
be less likely to commit atrocities at home. Local citizens might be deemed
14 MICHAEL C. DAVIS
are obvious. If self-serving actions are not to be the order of the day, then
coherent guidelines are essential to political constraint. In a normative world
that depreciates states and advances emerging Kantia� global norms, how
would such development affect the least powerful states?45 Would they be
left defenseless in the face of international pressure? Should we hold states
and whole societies responsible for genocide or ethnic cleansing or should
we focus on individual accountability? If both, how should these competing
strategies be deployed? Our response to these questions will be shaped not
only by strategic concerns or our views of sovereignty and intervention, but
also by practical political considerations. It seems apparent that a country
resistant to outside intervention will be little attracted to holding leaders in
dividually accountable. The United States, a country that has long supported
ad hoc tribunals to hold leaders accountable for humanitarian crimes, has
been reluctant to concede criminal accountability of its own officials under
the Rome Convention on an ICC. How might the possibility of individual
accountability affect state or multilateral intervention strategies?46
It is apparent that if the countries of the world are to further develop norms
allowing intervention in humanitarian crises, they will do so for a variety of
political and moral reasons. Political arguments will consider changing stra
tegic conditions and domestic perceptions. Moral considerations will be
grounded in the belief that we live in an evolving world where sovereignty is
conceptually changing and where a norm against intervention to prevent
humanitarian crises is no longer morally acceptable. Constrained by global
strategic considerations and power politics, there has been increasing reluc
tance to stand by while humanitarian crises ensue. This is a world where
shared security concerns such as those revealed in the fight against terrorism
are also of increasing significance. The sovereign landscape is, at the same
time, being shaped by a greater commitment to free trade, democracy, hu
man rights, and popular sovereign consent. The integrative character of the
emerging world may make the sovereign paradigm of nonintervention un
tenable in the face of humanitarian crises. This may call us to evaluate the
values that may animate any alternatives or amendments of the traditional
paradigm. Given a growing global consensus around democracy, an attrac
tive way of resolving the tension between sovereignty and intervention may
be to increasingly tie the nonintervention principle, in the context of hu
manitarian crises, to democratic governance in an acceptable form. This may
be combined with some mechanism for dealing with extreme crises. As long
as numerous countries fall short of democratic standards , however, we may
be left in the short run to promoting a democracy-based norm only on a
regional level under those conditions where this is feasible.
The Kosovo model . of regional response has in many respects already
been accepted or at least tolerated. But a variety of constraints still limit our
evolving options. Some degree of multilateral response or consensus ap
proving a single-state response appears important (Australia in East Timor).
16 M ICHAEL C. DAVIS
Notes
1 . Both of these types of wars have historical antecedents. See K. J. Holsti, "The
Coming Chaos? Armed Conflict in the World's Periphery," in T. V. Paul and John A.
Hall, eds., International Order and the Future of World Politics (New York: Cam
bridge University Press, 1 999), pp. 283-3 1 0, 29 1 , 294. The claim here is merely that
they have taken on new characteristics and have become defining phenomena in the
current post-Cold War era.
2. Mike Allen and Barton Gellman, "Preemptive Strikes Part of U.S. Strategic
Doctrine 'All Options' Open for Countering Unconventional Arms," Washington Post,
1 1 December 2002, p. A I .
3 . Jack Donnelly raises a concurring argument regarding the importance of three
factors-law, morality, and politics-in respect to the evolving humanitarian inter
vention norm. See Jack Donnelly, "Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention," Jour
nal of Human Rights 1, no. 1 (March 2002): 93-109.
4. Jeffrey T. Checkel, "The Constructivist Tum in International Relations Theory,"
World Politics 50, no. 2 ( 1 998): 324-348; Andrew Moravcsik, "Taking Preferences
Seriously: A Liberal Theory ofInternational Politics;' International Organization 5 1 ,
no. 4 (Autumn 1 997): 5 1 3-55 3 ; Peter Katzenstein, ed., The Culture ofNational Secu
rity: Norms and Identity in International Politics (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1 996); Michael W. Doyle and G. John Ikenberry, eds., New Thinking in Inter
national Relations Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997); Alexander Wendt, "An
archy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics," Interna
tional Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 3 9 1-425 .
5 . Checkel, "Constructivist Tum in International Relations Theory," pp. 324-
348; Thomas Risse, '''Let's Argue ! ' : Communicative Action in World Politics," In
ternational Organization 54, no. 1 (Winter 2000): 1-39.
6. See Victoria Tin-bor Hui, chapter 5, in this volume; Franca D' Agostini, chap
ter 8, in this volume; Nathalie Karagiannis, chapter 9, in this volume.
7. Editorial Comments, "NATO's Kosovo Intervention, Kosovo and the Law of
THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER 17
criminal behavior know that frontiers are not the absolute defense; if they know that
the Security Council will take action to halt crimes against humanity, then they will
not embark on such a course of action in expectation of sovereign immunity."
2 1 . UN Charter, Articles 33, 39.
22. Note that this does not allow one to get around the problem of providing ad
equate standards in the jus in bello (justice in war) branch of this field as provided in
the Geneva Conventions. The higher Geneva Conventions standards regarding the
treatment of noncombatants apply only to international armed conflict, though recent
war crimes trials do indicate that many of these standards are now thought to apply to
internal armed conflict by way of customary international law.
23 . UN Charter, Chapters VI, VII. Note that there is an exception allowing use of
armed force under the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense under UN
Charter, Article 5 1 .
24. UN Charter, Articles 52-54 allow for regional actions, but again explicitly
require prior UN Security Council approval. In the face of UN Security Council im
mobility, this may increasingly be honored in the breach.
25 . The UN Charter, Article 53 requirement that the UN Security Council autho
rize regional enforcement actions may be ignored, as it was in respect to Kosovo.
26. See Rebecca R. Moore, chapter 1 1 , in this volume; Giovanna Bono, chapter
1 2, in this volume; Rasheed Akinyemi, chapter 14, in this volume. With little devel
opment of regional collective actions, Asia has been the weakest actor in respect of
regional commitments, though the Association of Southeast Asian Nations may some
day join this club of regional actors . See Michael C. Davis, chapter 13 in this volume.
27. See Lori Fisler Damrosch, Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in In
ternal Conflicts (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1993). The Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Commission on Security and Coop
eration in Europe [CSCED process has likewise sought to enforce this democracy
requirement, declaring democracy and other human dimension concerns to be legiti
mate matters of international concern, "not belonging too exclusively to the internal
affairs of the state concerned." See "Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Con
ference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE," October 3, 199 1 , p. 2 .
2 8 . See Robert Cryer, chapter 4 , i n this volume.
29 . See David Wippman, ed., International Law and Ethnic Conflict (Ithaca, N.Y. :
Cornell University Press, 1998).
30. At tire same time, on the other side of the equation, there has evolved a degree
of international solicitude for rights and sometimes autonomy of such groups, espe
cially for indigenous populations under the rule of dominant groups that control the
state. See Daniel Weinstock, "Constitutionalizing the Right to Secede," Journal of
Political Philosophy 9, no. 2 (200 1 ): 1 82-203.
3 1 . See Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-states: Sovereignty, International Relations and
the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 15 1 - 154. Ex
amples where militant resistance pays have been legion, including the creation of
B angladesh, the breakup of key parts of the former Soviet Union, and the breakup of
the former Yugoslavia.
32. Michael C. Davis, "The Future of Tibet: A Chinese Dilemma," Human Rights
Review 2, no. 2 (200 1 ) : 7- 17.
33. Editorial Comments, "NATO's Kosovo Intervention," pp. 824-862, 847-857
(Falk), 857-860 (Franck).
34. Editorial Comments, "NATO's Kosovo Intervention," p. 853 (Falk).
35. Editorial Comments, "NATO's Kosovo Intervention," p. 859 (Franck).
THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER 19
International
Legal Foundations
(�) Taylor & Francis
Taylor & Francis Croup
http://t.,...,.i<>dff�IS.Com
2
"Humanitarian Intervention"
A Misnomer?
Peter R. Baehr
The only exception to this rule is the use of force on the demand of the UN
Security Council or by way of individual or collective self-defense. 12
In recent years, the classic situation described earlier has been undergo
ing important changes. Often, in the case of gross and systematic violations
of human rights, a call for "humanitarian intervention" is being heard. This
term refers to "coercive action by states involving the use of armed force in
another state without the consent of its government, with or without the con
sent from the United Nations Security Council, for the purpose of putting to
a halt gross and massive violations of human rights or international humani
tarian law."13 "Gross and massive violations" are violations, instrumental to
the achievement of governmental policies, perpetrated in such a quantity
and in such a manner as to create a situation in which the rights to life, to
personal integrity, or to personal liberty of the population as a whole or of
one or more sectors of the population of a country are continuously infringed
on or threatened. 14
The most important examples of gross and massive violations are crimes
against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. These include the following
violations as the most important ones: enslavement, arbitrary and summary
executions, torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,
rape, mass deportations, involuntary disappearances, and ethnic cleansing. IS
In such circumstances, it is often argued that humanitarian intervention by
another state or other states is allowed as a last resort, with or even without
prior consent of the UN Security Council. In this chapter, this argument is
examined and an answer is sought as to whether the term "humanitarian
intervention" is properly used or should be rejected as a misnomer.
In the past in international law, the doctrine of nonintervention was the rule,
which was based on the maintenance of stability in international relations
and the prevention of states from taking the law into their own hands. When
this did happen, nevertheless, it was called "aggression," which under the
rules of international law was not permitted (and still is not permitted). 16 The
often quoted Article 2, paragraph 7 of the UN Charter reflects this principle,
"Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations
to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction
of any state."17
Meanwhile, however, the idea has been generally accepted that the pro
motion and protection of human rights is a matter of concern to all states and
that, in reverse, states that violate human rights have no recourse to the doc
trine of nonintervention. For instance, the 1 993 "Final Declaration of the
World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna" states explicitly, "The pro
motion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms must
be considered as a priority objective of the United Nations in accordance
26 PETER R. BAEHR
railroad bridge, which killed twelve civilians; the attack on April 23, 1 999,
on the headquarters of Serbian State Television and Radio, causing the death
of sixteen civilians; and the missile attack on the Varvarin bridge in May
1 999 that killed eleven civiliansY Its sister human rights organization, Hu
man Rights Watch, which is based in the United States, also reported a num
ber of civilian deaths and criticized the use of cluster ammunition by NATO,
commenting on "weapons that are indiscriminate in effect-the equivalent
of using antipersonnel landmines."32 NATO has responded to such criticisms
by referring to unintended but unavoidable "collateral damage" to civilians
and the circumstance that the Serbs themselves had inflicted far more dam
age to civilians.33
A lack of codification carries the danger that military action for humanitar
ian purposes is performed on an arbitrary basis whenever it suits the foreign
policy goals of any particular state or group of states. This may lead to the
action itself becoming the object of political controversy, rather than the
HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 29
violation of human rights or international humanitarian law that was the rea
son for the humanitarian intervention in the first place.
Newly formulated legal criteria may not be needed.36 The UN Charter pro
vides such legal criteria, leaving the responsibility to act to the Security Coun
cil. What are needed at this point are political guidelines to help governments
to make up their minds whether to act or not to act. In the end, decisions on
humanitarian intervention will be taken on a case-by-case basis.
Proposing formalized legal criteria may have a counterproductive effect
on states that are skeptical of the wisdom of engaging in humanitarian inter
vention to begin with. Humanitarian intervention in the absence of UN Se
curity Council authorization would be j ustified on moral and political grounds
only, "as an 'emergency exit' from the existing norms of intemational law."37
30 PETER R. BAEHR
Table 2.1
(a) The i ntervening states should not themselves be in any way involved in
the grave violations of fundamental h uman rights or international h u manitarian
law that the action/intervention is designed to combat.
(a) The situation must be one i n which fundamental human rights are being or
are likely to be seriously violated on a large scale and there is an urgent need
for intervention.
(b) Large-scale violations of fundamental human rights can also be comm itted
by non-state actors and can thus constitute grounds for h umanitarian
intervention.
There would be a high risk that attempts to modify existing rules would
exacerbate differences of view over these highly sensitive matters and have
a destructive rather than a constructive impact on the possibility of averting
victimization of civilian populations.38
(b) The h umanitarian intervention must not itself constitute an even greater
threat to international peace and security than the situation it is meant to
prevent or to end.
(4) When and in what way should states end their humanitarian intervention?
(b) The intervening states must end thei r intervention when its objective,
namely the cessation of violations of h u man rights or i nternational
humanitarian law, has been attained.
(d) The states engaging in h u man itarian intervention must report to the
Security Council i mmediately and i n detail with the reason for the
operation , its scale, its progress, and its likely duration.
organizations such as the UN; regional organizations like the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of American States, or
the Organization of African Unity; nongovernmental organizations such as
Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch; or reliable private sources.
It should be the case that the government of the state concerned is unwill
ing or unable to take adequate remedial action, or is itself responsible for the
violation(s). As in the case of the International Criminal Court, the primary
responsibility for the maintenance of human rights and international humani
tarian law rests with the state concerned.39 Only if that state does not meet its
responsibilities is external action of a diplomatic, legal, economic, or mili
tary nature warranted.40
There should be a clear urgency to act. There must be evidence that hu-
32 PETER R. BAEHR
man lives are at stake or that grave violations of human rights are already
taking place or due to take place in the very near future. Gross violations of
fundamental human rights include not only extermination by means of sum
mary executions and deliberate armed or police attacks on arbitrary civilian
targets, but also torture, the taking of hostages, rape, involuntary disappear
ances, and other grave infringements of human dignity, such as humiliating
treatment.
The use of force should be the last resort. Other means of a nonmilitary
kind should be exhausted before military intervention takes place. These
include attempts to end the humanitarian crisis with support from civil soci
ety in the state concerned, as well as other measures of an international kind.
The late Evan Luard, a British diplomat and scholar, has provided by now a
classical list of such possibilities.41 They include the exertion of pressure
through diplomatic channels, either bilaterally or in multilateral bodies. The
effectiveness of taking economic sanctions has been widely debated.42 They
may be counterproductive or hit the wrong persons or groups. The granting
or withholding of development aid as an instrument of human rights policy
is also of dubious value. The Dutch government has used this instrument in
the case of its former colonies of Suriname and Indonesia, with at best mixed
results. Indonesia, for its part, decided to end the development relationship
with the Netherlands on its own initiative, rejecting "the reckless use of de
velopment assistance as an instrument of intimidation or as a tool for threat
ening Indonesia."43 Such nonmilitary measures, however, should be seriously
considered before military action is taken.
The primary purpose of the intervention should be to stop the violations.
This means, of course, that once the violations have been brought to an end,
the intervention should be stopped. The intervening states should suspend their
actions as soon as the state concerned is willing and able to end the large-scale
violations of human rights by itself or the Security Council or a regional orga
nization acting with Security Council authorization takes enforcement mea
sures involving the use of force for the same humanitarian purposes.
Preferably, the available evidence suggests that those for whom it is in
tended support the action. This will not always be easy to establish and may
involve "public relations wars," as took place during the military operations
in Kuwait and the bombing of Iraq by allied forces, and also during the Kosovo
air strikes. If the potential or actual victims of the human rights violations do
not favor the military action, however, one may well ask what is the point of
undertaking it in the first place.44
The action has a reasonable chance of success at acceptable costs. These
costs pertain both to the affected population and to the intervening forces.
"Success" means putting an end to the human rights violations that initiated
the military action.
The action must not in itself constitute an even greater threat to interna
tional peace and security. This may raise the following dilemma: the use or
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"I hope you can fly vun of these thins," said Dyann, lashing the
secret policeman to a recoil chair.
"I hope so too," said Urushkidan.
Dyann stood over her prisoner. "Vere is Ray Ballantyne?" she asked.
"The Earthman who vas arrested off the liner a few days ago."
"I don't know," he gasped.
Dyann drew her knife, smiling nastily.
"Camp Muellenhoff, you savage! Outside the city, to the north. You'll
never make it. You'll kill us all."
The cradle rumbled forward to the hangar airlock. Urushkidan took
the pilot chair and strapped himself in and relit his pipe with nervous
boneless fingers. Dyann whistled tunelessly between her teeth. It
was dark in the airlock chamber as the pumps evacuated it.
"Why bother wit tis Ballantyne?" asked the Martian. "What claim has
he on us? It will need all our luck and my genius for us to escape
with our own lives."
"We need his luck too, maybe," said Dyann shortly.
The outer valve swung open and they trundled over the rails to the
surface of Ganymede. Behind them, the dome covering the city rose
against a background of saw-toothed mountains and dark, faintly
star-lit sky. A dwarfed sun lit the spaceport field with pale cold
luminance. There were not many vessels in sight, no liner or freighter
was in and the military ports were elsewhere. One lean black patrol
ship stood not far off.
"They vill be out after us soon," said Dyann. "Vat can you do about
that boat there, huh?"
"We will see," said Urushkidan. He touched studs, levers, and
buttons. The engines thuttered and the little vessel shook.
"Let's go!"
The rocket stood on her tail and climbed for the sky. Urushkidan
brought her around, the gyros screaming at his clumsy management,
and lowered her on her jets directly above the patrol ship. An atom-
driven ion-blast is not good for a patrol ship.
"Now," said Dyann as they took off again, "you, my policeman friend,
vill call this Camp Muellenhoff and tell them to release Ballantyne to
us. If you do that, ve vill set you down somevere. If not—vell—" She
tested the edge of her knife on his ear. "You may still be a police, but
you vill not be very alive."
"You can't escape," said the Jovian with a certain hollow lack of
conviction. "You'd better throw yourself on the Leader's mercy."
Dyann knocked a few teeth loose.
"You savage!" he gasped. "You cruel, murdering—"
"I tought you Jobians were always talking about te glories of war and
te rutless superman," snickered Urushkidan. "Also destiny and tings.
Better call te camp as she says."
A few minutes later the ship lowered into the walled enclosure of
Camp Muellenhoff. It was a dreary place, metal barracks lying harsh
under the guns of the watchtowers, spacesuited prisoners clumping
to work through the thin chill air of Ganymede. A detail hurried up
and shoved an unarmed, suited form into the airlock.
Their leader's voice rattled over his helmet radio of the ship's
telereceiver, "Major, sir, are you sure they want this man in the city
now? We just got an alert to look out for a couple of escaped
desperadoes."
Dyann slammed the outer valve in his face by the remote-control
lever and the little ship stood on her tail again and flamed skyward.
A somewhat battered Ray Ballantyne crawled out of his suit and
blinked at them. It had been a rough two or three days, though they
hadn't gone very far with him. The truth drugs must have satisfied
them that he was not an intentional spy, and thereafter they had
simply held him until orders for his execution should come. He
swayed into Dyann's arms.
"Oh, my poor Ray," she murmured. "My poor, poor little Earthlin."
"Hey, wait a minute," he began weakly.
"Just lie still, I will take care of you."
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. Lemme go!"
They sat down again on a remote mountaintop, gave the policeman a
spacesuit, and kicked him out of the ship. He was still wailing about
barbarous and inhuman treatment. He said something too about wild
beasts.
"And now," said Dyann, "let us get back to Earth before the Yovians
find us."
"This crate'll never make Earth," said Ray. "I've flown 'em—let me at
those controls, Urushkidan."
They heard it as well, the ominous sizzling and knocking from the
engine-room shields, and felt the ship tremble with it.
"Is tat te carboning te man was talking about?" asked the Martian
innocently.
"I'm—afraid—so." Ray shook his head. "We'll have to land
somewhere before the rockets quit altogether. Then it'll take a week
for the radioactivity to get low enough so we can go back there and
clean them out."
"And all the Yovian army, navy, police, and fire department out chasin
us by now," said Dyann. Her clear brow wrinkled. "I fear that Ormun
is offended because I left her amon the heathen back there. I am
afraid our luck is runnin' low."
"And," said Ray bleakly, "how!"
IV
They used the last sputter of flame to sit down in the wildest and
remotest valley they could find. Looking out the port, Ray wondered
if they hadn't perhaps overdone it.
Beyond the little ship there was a stretch of seamed and gullied
stone, a rough craggy waste sloping up toward the fang-peaked
razorback ridge of the hills, weird flickering play of shadows between
the looming boulders as the thin wind blew a veil of snow across the
deep greenish-blue sky. Jupiter was an amber scimitar low on the
northern horizon. They were near the south pole with a sprawling
panorama of sharp stars around it fading out near the tiny sun. Snow
lay heaped in drifts beyond the wind-scoured rocks, and the far green
blink of glaciers reflected the pale heatless sunlight from the hills.
Snow—well, yes, thought Ray, it was snow of a sort. All the water on
Ganymede was of course solid ice. So were the carbon dioxide and
ammonia. But the temperature often dropped low enough to
precipitate methane or nitrogen. The moon's atmosphere what there
was of it, consisted mostly of argon, nitrogen, methane, and vapors
of the frozen substances—not especially breathable.
The colonists used the standard green-plant air-renewal system,
obtaining extra oxygen from its compounds and water from the ice-
strata, and heated their dwellings from the central atomic-energy
units. Ray hoped the ship's equipment was in working order.
There was native life out there, a few scrubby gray-leaved thickets, a
frightened leaper bounding kangaroo-like into the hills. The
biochemistry of Ganymede was a weird and wonderful thing which
human scientists were still a long way from understanding, but it
involved substances capable of absorbing heat energy directly and
releasing it as needed. The carnivores lacked the secretions,
obtaining them from their prey, and had given the colonists a lot of
trouble because of their fondness for the generous supply of heat a
human necessarily carried around with him.
"And now what do we do?" asked Ray.
Dyann's eyes lit with a hopeful gleam. "Hunt monsters?" she
suggested.
"Bah!" Urushkidan snaked his way to the small desk bolted to the
cabin floor and extracted paper and pencil from the drawers. "I shall
debelop an interesting aspect of unified field teory. Do not disturb
me."
Ray looked around the ship. Behind the forward cabin, which held
bunks and a little cooking outfit as well as the controls, there was a
larger space cluttered with assorted physical apparatus. Beyond that,
he supposed, were the gyros, airplant, and misbehaving engines. "Is
this a laboratory boat?" he inquired.
"Yes," said the Martian. "I chose it because tey are always kept ready
to go out for gibing field tests to new apparatus. Get me a table of
elliptic integrals, please."
"Look," said Ray, "we've got to do something. The Jovians will be
combing this damned moon for us, and it's not so big that we have
much chance of their not finding us before we can clean out those
tubes. We've got to prepare an escape."
"How?" Urushkidan fixed him with a bespectacled stare.
"Well—uh—well—maybe get ready to flee into the hills."
"How long would we last out tere?" The Martian turned back to his
work and blew a cloud of smoke. "No, I will debote myself to te
beauties of pure matematics."
"But if they catch us, they'll kill us!"
"Tey won't kill me," said Urushkidan smugly. "I am too baluable."
"Come on, Ray," said Dyann. "Let's go monster-huntin."
"Waaah!" The Earthman blew up, jumping with rage. In the low
gravity, his leap cracked his head against the ceiling.
"Oh, my poor Ray!" Dyann folded him in a bear's embrace.
"Let me go! Damn it, I want to live if you don't!"
"Be serene," advised Urushkidan. "Look at it from te aspect of
eternity. You are one of te lower animals and your life is of no
importance."
"You octopus! You conceited windbag! If I needed any proof that
Martians are inferior, you'd be it."
"Temper, temper!" Urushkidan wagged a flexible finger at Ray. "Be
objective, my friend, and if your philosophy is so deficient tat it will
not prove a priori tat Martians are always right—by definition—ten
consider te facts. Martians are beautiful. Martians habe an old and
peaceful cibilisation. Eben physically, we are superior—we can libe
under Earth conditions but I dare you to go out on Mars witout a
spacesuit. I double-dog dare you."
"Martians," gritted Ray, "didn't come to Earth. Earthmen came to
Mars."
"Certainly. We had no reason to bisit Earth, but you, of course, came
to Mars to admire our beauty and wisdom. Now please fetch me tat
table of integrals."
"There is nothin ve can do to help ourselves," said Dyann, "so ve
might as well go huntin. Afterward ve can make love."
"Oh, no!" Ray grunted. "If I had that damn interstellar drive I'd get
out of this hole so fast that—that—that—"
"Yes?" asked Dyann.
There were two of the monsters moving toward the boat. They
looked like thirty feet of long-legged alligator, but the claws and
beaks had ripped metal in earlier days of colonization. Dyann lifted
her rifle and fired.
A dragon screamed, thin and faint in the wispy atmosphere, and
turned his head and snapped. Dyann laughed and bounded closer.
Another shot and another....
Something hit her and the gun flew from her hand. The dragon's tail
smote again and Dyann soared skyward. As she hit the ground the
two monsters leaped for her.
"Ha, Ormun!" she yelled, shaking her ringing head till the ruddy hair
flew within the helmet. She crouched low and then sprang.
Up—over the fanged head—striking down with her sword as she went
by. The monster whirled after her, greenish blood streaming from the
cut and freezing.
Dyann backed against a looming rock, spread her feet and lifted the
sword. The first dragon struck at her, mouth agape. Dyann hewed
out again, the sword a leaping blaze of steel, the blow smashing
home and exploding its force back into her own muscles. The
dragon's head sprang from the neck. She rolled under the lashing
claws and tail to get free. The headless body struck the other dragon
which promptly began to fight it.
Dyann circled warily about the struggle, breathing hard. The live
dragon trampled its opponent underfoot, looked around, and charged
her. The ground shuddered under its galloping mass. Dyann turned
and fled.
The dragon roared hollowly as she went up the long slope of the
nearest hill. She saw a high crag and scrambled to its top, the dragon
rampaging below her.
"Nyaaah!" She thumbed her faceplate. "Come and get me."
The monster's dim brain finally decided that the ship was bigger and
easier prey. Turning, it lumbered down the hillside. Dyann launched
herself into the air and landed astride its neck.
The dragon hooted and snapped after her. She climbed higher,
grabbed its horn with one gauntleted hand, and hung on for her life.
The steed began to run.
Hoo, bang, away over the hills with the moonscape blurring in speed.
Wind shrieked thinly about Dyann's helmet. She bounced off her seat
and came down again, a landslide rumbled behind her. The dragon
zoomed up the ridge, leaped from a bluff, and started across the
cratered plain beyond. Dyann dragged at the horn, turning its head,
fighting the monster into a circular stampede. "Ha, Ormun!" she
yelled. "Ha, Kathantuma!"
In an hour or so the dragon stopped and stood gasping. Dyann slid
stiffly to the ground, whirled her sword over her head, and
decapitated the monster. Then she skipped home, laughing.
"Dyann!" cried Ray as she came through the airlock. "Dyann, we
thought you were dead—"
"Oh, it vas fun," she grinned. "Fix me a sandvich." She sat down, got
up rather quickly, and opened her arms to Ray. He retreated
nervously toward the lab. Urushkidan snickered and slammed the
door in his face.
Ray started the new engine. They could accelerate all the way back
and use the brake to stop almost instantly—it shouldn't take long. "All
set," he called, and the rising note of power thrummed behind his
words.
"Giddap!" yelled Dyann. She swung the ship around and slammed the
main drive switch home.
Ray looked out at the weirdly distorted heavens. "There should be
some way to compensate for that aberration," he murmured. "A
viewplate using photocells, with the electron beam control-fields
hooked into the drive circuit—sure. Simple." He floated back to the
lab and began assembling scattered apparatus. In a few hours he
emerged with a gadget as uncouth as the engine itself but there was
a set of three telescreens which gave clear views in three directions.
Dyann smiled and pointed to one of them. "See, now Avalla—the
Victorious-warrior-returnin-from-battle-vith-captive-man-slung-across-
her-saddle-bow—is taking shape," she said.
"That," said Ray, "is Ursa Major. You Varannians have a fantastic
imagination."
A blue-white giant of a sun flamed ahead, prominences seething
millions of miles into space. Dyann's eyes sparkled and she applied a
sideways vector to the star drive. "Yippee!" she howled.
"Hey!" screamed the Earthman.
They whizzed past the star, playing tag with the reaching flames
while Dyann roared out a Centaurian battle chant. Ray's subconscious
mind spewed forth every prayer he had even known.
"Okay, ve are past it," said Dyann.
"Don't do such things!" he said weakly.
"Darlin," said the girl, "I think we should spend our honeymoon flyin'
through space like this."
The stars blurred past. The Galaxy's conquerors looked at the
splendor of open space and ate cold beans out of a can.
"I think," said Dyann thoughtfully, "ve should go first to Varann."
"Alpha Centauri?" asked Urushkidan. "Nonsense. We are going back
at once to Uttu and cibilised society."
"Ve may need help at Sol," said the girl. "Ve have been gone—how
long—about two veeks? Much could have happened in that time."
"But—but—it's not practical," objected Ray.
Dyann grinned cheerfully. "And how vill you stop me?"
"Varann—oh, well, I've always wanted to see it anyway."
The Centaurian began casting about, steering by the aspect of the
sky. Before many hours, she was slanting in toward a double star
with a dim red dwarf in the background. "This is it," she said. "This is
it."
"Okay," answered Ray. "Now tell me how you find a planet."
"Hmmm—vell—" Dyann scratched her ruddy head.
Ray began to figure it aloud.
"The planets—let me see, now—yeah, they're in the plane of the two
stars. They'd have to be. So if you go out to a point in that plane
where Alpha A, your sun, seems of about the right size, and then
swing in a circle of that radius, you should come pretty close to
Varann. It has a good-sized moon, doesn't it, and its color is
greenish-blue? Yes, we should be able to spot it."
"You are so clever," sighed Dyann.
"Hah!" sneered Urushkidan.
At a mere fraction of the velocity of light—Ray thought of the
consequences of hitting a planet when going faster than light, and
wished he hadn't—the spaceboat moved around Alpha A. It seemed
only minutes before Dyann pointed and cried joyously, "There ve are.
There is home. After many years—home!"
"I would still like to know what we are going to do when we get
there," said Urushkidan.
He was not answered. Dyann and Ray were too busy bringing the
vessel down into the atmosphere and across the wild surface.
"Kathantuma!" cried the girl. "There is my homeland. See, there is
the mountain, old Mother Hastan. There is the city Mayta. Hold on,
ve're goin down!"
VI
Mayta was a huddle of thatch-roofed wooden buildings at the foot of
a fantastically spired gray castle, sitting amid the broad fields and
forests and rivers of Kathantuma with the mountains shining in the
far distance. Dyann set the ship down just outside the town, stood
up, and stretched her tigress body with an exultant laugh.
"Home!" she cried. "Gravity!"
"Uh—yeah." Ray tried to lift his feet. It went slowly, with some strain
—half again the pull of Earth. Urushkidan groaned and wheezed his
painful way to a chair and collapsed all over it.
"Let's go!" Dyann snatched up her sword, set the helmet rakishly on
her bronze curls, and opened the airlock. When Ray hesitated she
reached and yanked him out.
The air was cool and windy, pungent with a million scents of earth
and growing things, tall clouds sailing over a high blue heaven, and
even the engineer was grateful for it after the stuffiness of the boat.
He looked around him. Not far off was a charming rustic cottage. It
was like a scene from some forgotten idyll of Earth's old past.
"Looks good," he said.
A four-foot arrow hummed past his ear and rang like a gong on the
ship's hull.
"Yowp!" Ray dove for shelter. Another arrow zipped in front of him.
He whirled at a storm of contralto curses.
There were half a dozen women pouring from the charming rustic
cottage, a battle-scarred older one and five tall young daughters,
waving swords and axes and spears. A couple of men peered
nervously from the door.
"Ha, Ormun!" yelled Dyann. She lifted her sword and dashed to meet
the onslaught. The oldest woman caught the amazon's blow on a
raised shield and her ax clanged off Dyann's helmet. Dyann
staggered, shook her head, and struck out afresh. The others closed
in, yelling and jabbing.
Dyann's sword met the nearest ax halfway and broke across. She
stooped, picked the woman off her feet, and whirled her over her
head. With a shout, she threw the old she-warrior into two of her
nearest daughters, and the trio went down in a roar of metal.
Centaurian hospitality, thought Ray.
A backhanded blow sent him reeling. He looked up to see a yellow-
haired girl looming over him. Before he could do more than mutter
she had slugged him again and thrown him over one brawny
shoulder.
Hoofs clattered down the narrow dirt road. A squad of armored
women riding animals reminiscent of Percherons, but horned and red
of hide, were charging from the town. They swept into the fight,
wielding clubbed lances with fine impartiality, and it broke up in a
sullen wave of red-splashed femininity. Nobody, Ray saw from his
upside-down position, had been killed, but there were plenty of
slashes and the intent had certainly been there.
The harsh barking language of Kathantuma rose on either side.
Finally an understanding seemed to be reached. One of the riders
pointed a mailed hand at Ray's captor and snapped an order. The girl
protested, was overruled, and tossed him pettishly to the ground. He
recovered consciousness in a minute or two.
Dyann picked him up, tenderly. "Poor Ray," she murmured. "Ve play
too rough for you here, huh?"
"What was it all about?" he mumbled.
"Oh, these people vere mad because ve landed in their field, but the
qveen's riders stopped the fight in time. It is only lawful to kill people
on the regular duellin grounds, inside the city limits. Ve must have
law and order, you know."
"I see," said Ray faintly.
How do you equip an army of barbarians still in the early Iron Age to
cross four and a third light-years of space?
A preliminary question, perhaps is, Do you want to?
Ray emphatically didn't, but he had very little choice in the matter. He
was soon given forcibly to understand that men kept their place and
did as they were commanded.
He went to Urushkidan and poured out his sorrows. The Martian,
after an abortive attempt to steal the spaceship and sneak home, had
been given a room in one of the castle towers and was covering large
sheets of local parchment with equations. This place, thought Ray,
has octopuses in the belfry.
"They want to go to Jupiter and fight the Jovians," he said.
"What of it?" asked Urushkidan, lighting his pipe. He had found that
dried bark could be smoked. "Tey may eben succeed. Primitibes habe
often obercome more adbanced and better armed hosts. Read te
history of Eart sometime."
"But they'll take us along."
"Oh. Oh-oh! Tat is different." The Martian riffled through his papers.
"Let me see, I tink Equations 549 trough 627 indicate—yes, here we
are. It is possible to project te same type of dribing beam as we use
in te faster-tan-light engine so as to impart a desired belocity bector
to external objects. Toward or away from you. Or—look here,
differentiation of tis equation shows it would be equally simple to
break intranuclear bonds by trowing only a certain type of particle
into te pseudo-condition. Te atom would ten feed on its own energy."
Ray looked at him in awe. "You," he whispered, "have just invented
the tractor beam, the pressor beam, the disintegrator, and the all-
purpose, all-fuel atomic motor."
"I habe? Is tere money in tem?"
Ray went to work.
The three expeditions from Sol had left a good deal of assorted
supplies and equipment behind for the use of later arrivals. Most of
this had been stored in a local temple, and sacrifices were made
yearly to the digital computer. It took an involved theological
argument to obtain the stuff—the point that Ormun had to be
rescued was conceded to be a good one, but it wasn't till the high
priestess suddenly disappeared that the material was forthcoming.
The Ballantyne-Urushkidan circuits were simple things, once you
knew how to make them. With the help of a few tolerably skilled
smiths, Ray hammered out enough of the new-type atomic
generators to lift the fleet off Varann and across to Sol. He built the
drive-circuits carefully, designing them to burn out after landing again
on Varann. The prospect of the amazon planet's people flitting
whither they pleased in the Galaxy was not one any sane man could
cheerfully contemplate.
The spaceships were mere hulks of varnished and greased hardwood,
equipped with airlocks and slapped together by the carpenters of
Mayta in a few weeks. The crossing would be made so rapidly that
heating and air plants wouldn't be needed. Once the haywired star
drives were installed, a pilot sketchily trained for each vessel, and
every hull crammed with a couple of hundred yelling warriors, the
fleet was ready to go.
They poured in, ten times as many as the thirty ships could hold,
riding and hiking from the farthest of the continent's little kingdoms
to be in on the most glorious piracy of their dreams. Only Dyann
cared much about Ormun, who was after all merely her personal
joss, and only Ray gave a good damn about the menace of Jupiter.
The rest came to fight and steal and see new countries. They were
especially eager to kidnap husbands—the polyandrous system of
Varann worked undue hardships on many women, and Dyann
shrewdly gave preference to the unmarried in choosing her followers.
As to the practicability of the whole insane idea—Ray didn't dare
think about it.
Three hectic months after his arrival at Centauri, the barbarian fleet
left for Sol.
Dyann put her foot on his head and pushed him against the floor.
"Oh, well," he said. "Trough te incredible generosity of myself, ten, te
secret is made freely abailable—"
"Ready to record?" asked Ray tightly.
"I said your humor is in very bad taste," said the official, and
switched off with an ugly scowl.
Ray blinked weakly at the set for a while. Then he tuned in on Earth
broadcasts until he caught a news program. Jupiter had declared war
a month ago, defeated the U.N. navy in a running battle off Mars,
seized bases on Luna, and was threatening atomic bombardment of
Earth unless terms were met. "Oh, gosh," said Ray.
"Such an inbasion could only be launched, on a shoestring," said
Urushkidan. "Te U.N. still has bases closer to home, it can cut Jobian
supply lines—"
"And meanwhile poor old Earth is reduced to radioactive rubbish,"
said Ray gloomily. "And those gruntbrains in charge won't believe I've
got the decisive weapon to save them."
"Would you beliebe such a claim?"
"No, but this is different, damn it."
"Ganymede dead ahead," shouted Dyann. "Stand by for action! Get
ready to make a landing."
VII
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