Responsibility to Protect from Words and Deeds: Sovereignty, Vulnerability, and Entrepreneurial Politics

26 Pages Posted: 12 Oct 2012

Date Written: March 1, 2012

Abstract

Reconciling the individualist rights of free speech and press with measures to reduce the likelihood of violent reactions to what may be said and published has an analogue in the new international doctrine, “responsibility to protect” — R2P. In both cases, a sovereign subject asserts the right to autonomy, claiming that this right supercedes whatever injuries might result from its exercise. Sovereignty and individualism are related conceptually through their emphasis on agent autonomy and structurally with regard to their foundational role in Western modernity. Their origins are recounted in narratives of minority rights wrested with great effort from dominant groups. This history assures their privileged status as norms and helps to explain why it is difficult to limit their extreme expression by thoughtless or unscrupulous agents. Equal difficulties stem from the collateral damage almost invariably produced by limitation strategies. In this essay, I explore dilemmas and tensions arising from an absolute adherence to the norm of negative sovereignty in the context of the insurgency in Libya, and the unobstructed exercise of what I call "expressive rights" as illustrated by the Danish cartoon controversy. As with much of life, there is no satisfactory “wholesale” resolution to either dilemma, but I suggest “retail” strategies for managing the exercise of autonomy and ameliorating the damages from intervention and failure to intervene.

Keywords: sovereignty, intervention, individual rights, Free Speech, "Responsibility to Protect," Libya, Danish cartoons

JEL Classification: N40, Z10

Suggested Citation

Tétreault, Mary Ann, Responsibility to Protect from Words and Deeds: Sovereignty, Vulnerability, and Entrepreneurial Politics (March 1, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2160379 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2160379

Mary Ann Tétreault (Contact Author)

Trinity University ( email )

San Antonio, TX 78212
United States

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