Juris North so far and Call for Presenters 2015-16

Juris North, a legal and political philosophy discussion group, in collaboration with the Universities of Birmingham, Durham, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, and Manchester Metropolitan.

 

As part of our activities, we have had some discussion sessions this term:

 

The first session with Dr Iain Brassington, the University of Manchester started with his striking question: “allowing at least some cannibalism, would that be so bad a thing?” Indeed, he made clear that “strictly speaking, cannibalism is not currently forbidden by any statute in English law.  A certain kind of cannibalism has even had an outing on mainstream television: in February 1998, Channel 4 broadcast an episode of a programme called TV Dinners […] that featured a couple preparing placenta pâté to serve at a party to celebrate their child’s birth.”

The second session with Dr Jorge Núñez, Manchester Metropolitan University on how to solve sovereignty conflicts such as Ukraine, Falklands and Gibraltar. “The Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty” is the solution for the Crimea case, Núñez proposes, as well as any other sovereignty conflict in which several sovereign States are claiming exclusive and absolute sovereignty over a third populated territory.

The third one with Dr James Pattison, an expert on the ethics of war from The University of Manchester, leading a debate on the ethical issues surrounding the arming of rebels in territories like the Ukraine and Syria.  Professor Pattison said: “Despite its frequency and political importance there has been very little engagement with the ethical issues surrounding the arming of rebels. My new research aims to bridge this gap.” A Press Release about it:

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=14171

The audience: GDL, LLB FT and PT students, PhD students, from both UoM and MMU, staff from Liverpool, LSE, Manchester, and MMU, representatives of the Syrian community, and public in general. According to them:

“A very engaging and comfortable environment where people can come share their thoughts! Looking forward to discussions in the next semester.”

“This initiative is a very welcome development and will surely be appreciated by the cohort of students looking for more stretching intellectual development opportunities.”

And more discussions to come in Semester One 2015-16 between October and November. Until then!

 

Call for Presenters 2015-16

If your current research is on a topic that can be broadly characterised as jurisprudence—i.e. legal and political philosophy, and you would be interested in presenting it to a friendly group, which includes academics as well as lawyers, you are welcome to be a presenter at the Juris North Discussion Group.

The discussions are normally held on Wednesday afternoons. But we can be flexible about the particular days that we meet. Discussions are always informal and very lively since we follow a Rawlsian approach. That means we do not have “Professors” and “Students” but people interested in discussing issues related to legal and political philosophy. So any question is an important question for debate.

If you would like to give a paper as part of our 2015-16 Working Paper Series then please send an abstract, no more than 500 words long and written in English. If you are interested, please contact Dr Jorge Emilio Nunez j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk.

The seminars will have a ‘pre-read’ format: successful applicants will be asked to send a draft paper two weeks in advance of the seminar so that it can be circulated amongst members of the group.

Accommodation and expenses: we will not be able to make any contribution towards accommodation and travel expenses.

Enquiries please contact Dr Jorge Núñez: j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk

Juris North: a legal and political philosophy discussion group [Week THREE, Discussion THREE]

The Juris North Group invites you to attend to the discussion on the following paper this term:

 

Week Three [Wednesday 25^th March 2015, at 3pm, NBS3.13] – Dr James Pattison, Professor, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester, “The Ethics of Arming the Rebels”

 

 

•     The respective papers will be distributed by email before each event (please make sure you are added to the distribution list).

•     To be part of our distribution list, please contact Dr Jorge Núňez j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk

•     There are limited places available (30 in total).

•     Please find complete details following the link below. RSVP

https://eventbrite.co.uk/event/16138348234/

THE ETHICS OF ARMING THE REBELS

Dr James Pattison

Professor of Politics, University of Manchester

james.pattison@manchester.ac.uk

I. INTRODUCTION

The arming of rebel groups in states where there is severe oppression, low-level conflict, or civil war is one of the most notable ways that states attempt to realise their foreign policy goals. Notorious examples include the US arming, training, and financing of the Nicaraguan Contras against the Sandinista government (including the covert funding of the Contras without Congressional Approval in the ‘Iran-Contra Affair’); the British arming, in contravention of a UN arms embargo, of Sierra Leone through Sandline, a UK-based private military and security company (PMSC) (the ‘Arms-to-Africa Affair’); US arms to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation; and Russian supplying of arms to various pro-Russian separatist rebel groups in former Soviet states (e.g. Ukraine). There have also been numerous cases of the arming of rebels in potentially more morally justifiable cases. These include the supply of arms by the US and Islamic groups to the Bosnian Muslims during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and Soviet and Cuban military support for anti-apartheid forces in South Africa.

The arming of rebel groups was been particularly patent during the Arab Spring. After the uprising in Libya in 2011, various states provided lethal and nonlethal arms to the forces opposed to Gaddafi’s regime. This included material and financial support from the Libya Contact Group, as well as arms from France, Qatar, and the UK. In Syria, the arming of the various parties by external actors became one of the central dynamics of the conflict. It was reported that, on the one hand, Qatar and Saudi Arabia (and others) supplied arms to the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the UK and France provided it with ‘nonlethal support’, and the US and Turkey facilitated and coordinated the supply. On the other hand, Russia and Iran supplied weapons such as missile systems, mortars, and rockets to the Assad regime. In 2012, the UK even secretly drew up plans to train and equip a 100,000-strong Syrian rebel army abroad, which would then strike at Assad in a manner similar to the ‘Awe’ and ‘Shock’ strikes on Iraq in 2003. And, in September 2014, the US Congress approved President Obama’s plan to train and to equip ‘moderate’ Syrian rebel groups.

Despite the centrality of the arming of rebels as a foreign policy option, there is very little, if any, detailed engagement with the ethical issues surrounding this option. There is a growing literature on the ethical issues surrounding civil wars and, more specifically, the conditions for engaging in just rebellion. The focus of this literature, however, is largely on the question of the justifiability of the rebels engaging in civil war and their conduct when doing so, rather than the permissibility of the arming of rebel groups by other agents. There is also a huge literature on the ethics of humanitarian intervention. Within this literature, an often-cited just cause is intervening in support of rebels who are fighting against an oppressive state. However, the arming of rebel groups is only briefly noted as a potential, additional option in this literature, rather than being subject to detailed analysis. Instead, the literature largely focuses on the problems that come with sending troops and/or planes in such cases, such as the worries about collaterally harming civilians with bombing raids.

This paper therefore considers the ethics of arming the rebels. Overall, it argues that arming the rebels should be generally eschewed, but may be occasionally morally permissible. More specifically, the paper seeks to establish that arming the rebels is (a) exceptionally morally permissible, even when the rebels are engaged in unjust wars, but (b) generally impermissible. The former, far more permissive claim will be established in the first part of the paper. The latter, more restrictive claim will be established in the second part of the paper. Here I will also consider what the international law on arming rebels should be. The conclusion will consider the relation between these two claims and its import for Just War Theory (JWT).

Juris North: a legal and political philosophy discussion group [Week TWO, Discussion TWO]

To follow up, the Juris North Group invites you to attend to the discussion on:

Week Two [Wednesday 18^th March 2015, at 3pm, NBS3.13] – Dr Jorge Núňez, Lecturer, Manchester Law School, Manchester Metropolitan University, “A Solution to Sovereignty Conflicts: Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty”

Please find complete details following the link below. RSVP

Event link

An abstract of the article to be discussed next week can be found below for your perusal. See you all on Wednesday!

A Solution to Sovereignty Conflicts: the Egalitarian Shared Sovereignty

by Jorge Emilio Núñez

“Crimea is Russia’s” some argue. “[…] [T]he United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for the crisis” others maintain. Yet some go even further and announce apocalyptically a new Cold War. Leaving aside these and other opinions, the fact is that in early 2014 Crimea became the centre of a crisis with Russia and Ukraine as leading actors in the conflict. President Yanukovych was driven from power, Russia seized control of Crimea, and a referendum followed. Ukraine and most of the Western world considered the measures invalid. In addition to the Crimean “local” crisis in which we may recognise three agents−i.e. Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia−it is also a reality that this dispute has larger repercussions geographically, politically, and culturally speaking not only for the region but potentially with regards the globe.

While it is true that there is a crisis in the Crimean peninsula, and tension is evident between Russia and Ukraine, there is also a fair share of rhetorical argumentation adding unnecessary considerations within legal and political sciences that do not seem to offer any tangible way out. Given that the Crimean crisis is but one of many other sovereignty conflicts currently existent around the world, why not thinking of this particular dispute as an example towards peaceful multilateral understanding through dialogue and negotiations?

We are used to seeing and accepting as fact that in one territory there is one population governed by an ultimate authority, with a common legal bond or system of norms. What would happen if that one territory and population had two ultimate and hierarchically equal sovereigns (legally speaking) and, at the same time, two valid sets of norms? Would it be possible, for instance, that Israel and Palestine had sovereign authority at the same time over Jerusalem? Would it be possible that Argentina and the United Kingdom were at one time sovereign over the territory and population of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands? What about Russia and Ukraine having the same degree of sovereign power over Crimea? If the answer was positive, what would the consequences be—in terms of territory, population, government and law?

There are many cases that can be characterised as sovereignty conflicts in which international agents (namely, two sovereign States and the population of the third territory under dispute) claim sovereign rights for different reasons over the same piece of land. Crimea is but one amongst many other sovereignty disputes around the globe.  Besides, these conflicts have a particular feature: their solution seems to require a mutually exclusive relation amongst the agents because it is thought that the sovereignty over the third territory can be granted to only one of them. Indeed, sovereignty is often regarded as an absolute concept—i.e. exclusive, and not shareable.

In light of this obsession with absolute, and rejection of shared sovereignty, long-standing disputes still continue to be presented around the world as a zero sum game, with many negative outcomes of different sorts (e.g. social struggle, bad governance, inefficient exploitation of natural resources, tension in international relations, and threat to local and international peace). Thus, while these conflicts are in principle confined to specific areas and start with negative consequences primarily for the local population, they tend quickly to expand to the regional and—even—the international level (e.g. effects on international price of oil, arms trafficking, terrorism, war).

International relations and legal and political scholarly literature offer various potential remedies that one could use to solve the problem. These include independence, self-determination and free association—to name a few. Although these remedies are useful in certain conflicts, they are futile in several others. Hence, these conflicts remain unresolved and in a legal and political limbo.

The challenge is to present the agents with a solution that can acknowledge their individual claims without disregarding those of their competing parties. However desirable, such a solution may seem Utopian.  I propose to see these conflicts from a different yet broad perspective rather than as conflicts between separate and independent rights. Therefore, I view the problem as a distributive justice issue following the work of Rawls. That is because distributive justice principles are a particularly appropriate tool to address sovereignty issues, just as they have previously been applied in assigning rights and obligations in other social institutions. As a consequence, reviewing different theories (e.g. ‘first come, first served’; just acquisition; the principle of equality) may help us to resolve the problem. This article aims to explore if a solution that certainly is desirable can also be possible and may offer a peaceful way of solving sovereignty conflicts through the use of principles of distributive justice.

In the following sections I will leave aside the particular features of the Crimean crisis and embark on a theoretical exercise. The main reason to proceed in this manner is to eliminate any possible bias that otherwise may interfere with a peaceful solution.

UK IVR 2015 Annual Conference

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS for the UK IVR Annual Conference in October 2015, hosted by the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast.

The three keynote speakers are: Professor Saskia Sassen (Columbia University), Professor Maeve Cooke (UCD), and Professor George Letsas (UCL).