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Good international citizenship:
a third way for British foreign policy*
International Affairs , () –
NICHOLAS J. WHEELER & TIM DUNNE
Within days of being voted into office, the new Foreign Secretary Robin Cook broke with tradition by announcing ‘a global foreign policy’ for Britain which was to be guided by the goals of security for all nations, prosperity, protection for the environment and ‘an ethical dimension’.^ In the preceding fifty years, there had been no public articulation of a conceptual framework for understanding the means and ends of foreign policy. Even during the Thatcher era—the most self-consciously ideological period in postwar British politics— there was no systematic attempt to chart a course for Britain’s conduct in international relations. It was apparent from the newspaper headlines the following morning that the most controversial aspect of New Labour’s mission statement for ‘British Foreign Policy’ was the priority given to the ethical dimension.^ In stirring language, the Foreign Secretary announced that the Labour government ‘does not accept that political values can be left behind when we check in our passports to travel on diplomatic business’. Robin Cook made a link between the ethical dimension to Labour’s foreign policy and the Blair government’s idea of a ‘third way’.^ To date, the third way has been developed primarily as a political strategy for transcending the
- (^) In the course of writing this article we have received valuable assistance and constructive advice from a number of colleagues: Ken Booth, Chris Brown, Ian Clark, Michael Cox, Mervyn Frost, Fred Halliday, Marianne Hanson, Richard Wyn Jones, Andrew Linklater, Colin McInnes, Len Scott, Steve Smith, Ben Tonra, Geoff Wiseman. We would also like to thank the editor and the anonymous referees for their
comments.^ An early version of this article was presented to the Aberystwyth Humanitarian Forum. The Rt Hon. Robin Cook MP (hereafter Robin Cook), ‘British foreign policy’, May . Unless stated otherwise, all references to speeches/interviews by the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Tony Blair MP (hereafter Tony Blair), have been down-loaded from the FCO website
available at http://www.fco.gov.uk. The headline in the Daily Telegraph the following morning gives a flavour of the ‘spin’ put on the ethical dimension by the media: ‘Cook to lead the Foreign Office on moral crusade’ ( Electronic Telegraph , May
). Cook, ‘British foreign policy’. Cook’s phrase makes a nice contrast with R. J. Vincent’s reflection that human rights ‘taken in a foreign minister’s baggage on a world tour,... might, as I once heard one of them say, spoil the whole trip’: R. J. Vincent, Human rights in international relations (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press^ ), p.^ . ‘Interview: Robin Cook’, by Steve Richards, New Statesman and Society , May .
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dualism between the old left and the new right.^ As a guide to political economy, it tries to avoid both the injustice of the free market and the inefficiency of public ownership.^ One of Labour’s leading gurus, Anthony Giddens, argues that in order to further our thinking on the third way we need ‘to develop a framework that could be contrasted point by point with the two rival doctrines’.^ On this point Giddens is surely correct. But it is noticeable that neither the government nor its gurus have begun to think through the implications of the third way in foreign policy. To date, most of Cook’s refer- ences to a third way relate to one aspect of the process, that of human rights diplomacy. Despite repeated public statements about the need to put human rights at the heart of foreign policy, the government has not elucidated a conceptual framework for deciding the priority and consistency of the various principles contained in the mission statement.^ In the main body of this article, we offer such a conceptual rationale, enabling us to evaluate the ethical dimension of the Blair government’s foreign policy. In reflecting on previous attempts to promote human rights in the hierarchy of foreign policy goals, commentators look back to US President Jimmy Carter’s attempt in the late s. This proved to be a short-lived experiment which foundered on the deterioration in East–West relations. We think that the experience of Australian foreign policy in the late s and early s provides a more constructive lesson for Britain. In the first instance, there are clear parallels between the social democratic values pursued by our Labour government and those of the Australian Labor governments under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Second, Australia’s foreign minister from to , Gareth Evans, came into office at a time when the constraints of the Cold War which had so inhibited Carter were loosening. This opened a space for leadership and innovative thinking which Evans supplied in the form of his concept of ‘good international citizenship’ which was subjected to a critical analysis by academics, policy-makers and activists. For Evans, good international citizenship departs from the traditional realist approach to foreign policy because it rejects the assumption that the national interest always pulls in the opposite direction to the promotion of human rights. Moreover, in contrast to idealism, which sees an underlying harmony of moral principles, advocates of good international citizenship recognize that ‘terrible moral choices have sometimes to be made’.^ The belief that it is poss- ible to transcend the traditional rival doctrines is entirely consistent with the
(^) Recent examples of the way in which this ‘philosophy’ is informing Labour thinking include Tony Blair’s speech in The Hague, when he sought to persuade Europe to adopt the ‘third way’ (Tony Blair, ‘A modern Britain in a modern Europe’, The Hague, January ) and his speech to the French National
Assembly on ‘The third way’, Paris,^ ^ March^ . Will Hutton,^ The state we’re in^ (London: Jonathan Cape,^ ). Anthony Giddens,^ ‘After the left’s paralysis’,^ New Statesman and Society ,^ ^ May^ . Interestingly, Cook has hinted that one of the virtues of the third way is that ‘it offers a conceptual guide
to our principles and objectives’:^ ‘Interview: Robin Cook’. Hedley Bull, Justice in international relations (Hagey Lectures), University of Waterloo, Ontario, , p. .
Nicholas J. Wheeler & Tim Dunne
doubtful’.^ One year after New Labour came to office, five related factors suggest, contra Martin and Garnett, that there has been a marked shift in the content and conduct of British foreign policy.
Projecting a different identity for Britain
Prior to the Thatcher era, British foreign policy had become preoccupied with the question of decline, and how a former imperial power should adjust to the ‘reality’ of life outside the premier league of states. As the well-worn phrase has it, Britain had lost an empire and was struggling to find a role. From onwards, one of Margaret Thatcher’s ambitions was to rid the country, and more directly the Foreign Office, of this defeatist ethos. One of the Conser- vative government’s often repeated aims was to put the ‘great’ back into Great Britain. The apotheosis of this patriotism was reached in after the Falklands conflict. In the following passage, the former Prime Minister exhi- bited the imperialist undercurrent of her policy of national rejuvenation: ‘We have ceased to be a nation in retreat. We have instead a new found confidence—born in the economic battles at home and tested and found true , miles away... Britain found herself again in the South Atlantic and will not look back from the victory she has won.’^ Although this belligerence was tempered during the Major years, it resurfaced at times in the debates over the prospects for a common foreign and security policy in the European Union. New Labour’s view of British identity is quite different. In the first instance, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is aware of the need to project a more forward-looking image of Britain on the international stage. Crucially, this image is not based on our imperial past, or on our present military strength, but in the values of a confident, creative, tolerant and inclusive society.^ The contrast between the s and s was put starkly by Cook: ‘I want our people to be proud of our country. Not proud because other countries are afraid of our might.’^ Cool Britannia is in, rule Britannia is out.
A new language of international relations
A significant departure from the foreign policy pursued by the previous government concerns the language used by Robin Cook and Tony Blair in key foreign policy speeches. As Mervyn Frost notes, the mission statement is almost wholly unrecognizable when looked at through traditional realist-cum-
(^) Ibid. , p. . (^) Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street years (London: HarperCollins, ), p. . (^) As the Rt Hon. Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary, robustly argued, it is highly unlikely that the national interests between major powers would converge. ‘EMU would end nationhood, insists Rifkind’,
^ Electronic Telegraph ,^ ^ March^ . Robin Cook,^ ‘Panel^ ^ launch: opening statement by the Foreign Secretary’,^ ^ April^ . Robin Cook, ‘Britain’s new approach to the world’, speech to the Labour party conference, Brighton, October .
Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy
pragmatist lenses. There is no talk of sovereignty, of which we heard so much from the previous administration, no mention of ‘threats’ to national security, no elevation of the principle of non-intervention in Britain’s domestic affairs; in their place, one finds ‘internationalism’, ‘promoting democracy’, ‘promotion of our values and confidence in our identity’, ‘a people’s diplomacy’ and so on.^16 Critics of New Labour will argue that language is merely ephemeral; what matters are the actions themselves. But this view of language as instrumental has become increasingly discredited by philosophers and sociologists who point to the constitutive aspect of language in the production of meaning. The consti- tutive role that language plays in international relations can be seen from the fact that other governments take seriously what is said to them and about them. All governments recognize the need to justify their actions and this presupposes a shared language within which these actions are endorsed or contested. This dialogue of states changes over time, but in every epoch it is central in shaping the range of permissible actions. ‘International debate’, as Cook argued, ‘is shaped by speeches by foreign secretaries and the rhetoric they use’.
The ethical dimension
Perhaps the most over-used phrase of the last eighteen months has been ‘ethical foreign policy’. In fact, it is not a phrase which the Foreign Secretary has ever used; rather, Cook has talked about ‘an ethical dimension’. This is how he described it in the mission statement: ‘Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. The Labour Government will put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy and will publish an annual report on our work in promoting human rights abroad.’ Not surprisingly, this aspect of Labour’s new thinking on foreign policy has attracted considerable attention. While Cook’s predecessors would no doubt have concurred with the priority accorded to the goals of security, prosperity and protection for the environment—even if they would not have been so open in announcing these policy goals—they would definitely not have been comfortable with the clarion call to ‘make Britain once again a force for good in the world’. It is commonplace for this ‘ethical dimension’ to be cited as the principal innovation in New Labour’s approach to foreign policy, implying that previous administrations have not pursued an ethical foreign policy. The inference that ethics have been ‘added and stirred’ into the rest of the agenda underestimates the extent to which British foreign policy has always accommodated a
(^) Mervyn Frost, ‘Putting the world to rights: Britain’s ethnical foreign policy’, paper presented to the
British International Studies Association conference, Leeds, December^ . Robin Cook,^ ‘Foreign policy and human rights’, Foreign Affairs Committee,^ ^ January^ , p.^ . Cook,^ ‘British foreign policy’. Ibid.
Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy
rights reflects the Blair administration’s commitment to development issues more generally. For example, Clare Short’s newly formed Department for International Development jointly produced the annual report on human rights, much of it emphasizing Britain’s role in promoting the right to development.
The policy process: widening and opening
One obvious change in the conduct of foreign policy under the new govern- ment is the relative openness of the process. This is apparent on a number of levels. In the first instance, the FCO has used a variety of different media in order to communicate the ends and means of foreign policy. Promotional videos might help in the attempt to reinvent Britain’s identity abroad, but by far the most significant innovation in this respect is the access to speeches and tran- scripts of interviews, which are immediately ‘posted’ on the FCO website. Since knowledge is a form of power, the greater the diffusion of knowledge the greater the possibility for empowering those who have an interest in (and access to) engaging in the policy process. This openness can become a hostage to fortune, as was illustrated by the controversy triggered by the photograph of Cook shaking hands with Suharto which was published in the human rights report at a time when the former dictator was using force to put down pro-democracy demonstrators. At a conceptual level, it is a bold move since it furnishes journalists, activists and intellectuals with the information necessary to hold the government account- able for its actions. It is perhaps worthy of note that three leading academics working in international relations in the UK have already contributed to the debate about ethics and foreign policy. A second element in the attempt to ‘open’ the corridors of power to public debate and scrutiny concerns Cook’s attempt to include non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the formulation and implementation of British foreign policy. An immediate signal of this intention is evident from the commitment to hold an ‘NGO Forum’ prior to all multilateral conferences.
Good international citizenship as a strategy of the third way
The question whether Britain is pursuing a new ethical foreign policy under Labour can be located within a broader debate about the moral responsibilities which derive from membership of an international community or international society.^ Should state leaders follow a realist ethic which privileges the security
(^) Booth, ‘Exporting ethics’; Brown, ‘Mutual respect?’; and Mervyn Frost, ‘Putting the world to rights:
Britain’s ethical foreign policy’. Cook,^ ‘Human rights into a new century’,^ ^ July^ , p.^ . We are using the terms ‘international community’ and ‘international society’ interchangeably. The former is the term employed by politicians, diplomats and journalists; academics generally use the latter, following in the footsteps of Martin Wight and Hedley Bull.
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and welfare of their own citizens over claims of common humanity? Or should ministers recognize that their moral responsibilities do not stop at the water’s edge? The problem traditionally has been that the dominant rules of membership—sovereignty and non-intervention—have silenced the promotion of human rights abroad. The post- world, however, has witnessed a sea-change in the principles of international legitimacy. Within liberal states, it has become increasingly difficult for state leaders to claim that human rights abroad are of no concern to them. On the other side of the same coin, it is no longer acceptable for states to claim that the way they treat their own citizens is excluded from international scrutiny or censure. Rather, as R. J. Vincent put it in , international society exposes ‘the internal regimes of all the members... to the legitimate appraisal of their peers’. Irrespective of the pressures on liberal foreign ministers to advance human rights in foreign policy, realists like Henry Kissinger warn them that they cannot afford the luxury of propagating their own values in an uncertain and dangerous world. Instead, they should be guided by hard-headed security interests and commercial considerations. The implication is clear: governments which bring human rights into the diplomatic dialogue risk weakening the security of the particular national community which they are entrusted to protect. Realists point to the fate of those, like Jimmy Carter, whose human rights policies could not stand the collapse of superpower detente, degener- ating into the inconsistencies which Stanley Hoffmann labelled ‘the hell of good intentions’.^ There is an inescapable tension between national security and human rights in foreign policy-making, and governments pursuing a realist course will always steer clear of any temptation to take the moral high ground. Set against this, there is another viewpoint which argues for a mutual interdependence between the provision of national security, the strengthening of international order and the promotion of human rights, and this is the concept of good international citizenship. In a series of speeches in the late s Gareth Evans developed this idea by arguing that Australia had to promote an internationalist agenda on global challenges such as peacekeeping, peace enforcement, arms control, the environment, drugs and refugees. These issues, Evans argued, could be addressed only through international cooper- ation. Good international citizenship moderates the realist struggle for power by strengthening the rules and norms of international order, and he pointed here to Australia’s commitment to the UN, and multilateral institutions more generally.^ In justifying the concept of good international citizenship, the Australian foreign minister argued that this is not ‘the foreign policy equivalent of boy scout good deeds... [it is] an exercise in enlightened self-interest: an
(^) Vincent, Human rights and international relations , p. . (^) Stanley Hoffmann, ‘The hell of good intentions’, Foreign Policy , winter ‒. (^) Gareth Evans, Making Australian foreign policy , Australian Fabian Society Pamphlet (Canberra, ), p. .
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The vision of good international citizenship brings together domestic politics and foreign policy, since the latter springs from the principles of democracy, human rights and good governance. This leads to two conclusions. First, a government which espouses these values abroad must have a good track record on these issues at home. Evans recognized that Australia will not have much credibility in arguing for human rights internationally ‘if in our national policies on Aboriginal affairs, immigration or the like we are seen to be indulging in double standards’.^ States which speak the language of good international citizenship will be mistrusted if they do not uphold principles of democratic governance at home. The second conclusion he drew is that states which practise good governance at home are likely to behave in the same way abroad. In this sense, good international citizens have a long-term security interest in promoting human rights in their foreign policies. Realists argue that states will always manipulate the language of internation- alism to cloak selfish ends, while cosmopolitan critics point to the corrupting rather than civilizing power of the state in foreign policy-making. Good international citizenship seeks to transcend these polarities by mapping out a third way which tames the element of brute power, and looks to the recon- ciliation of order and justice in world politics. Formulated in these terms, good international citizenship can clearly be placed within the international society tradition or English School.^ However, this tradition is divided on how far human rights concerns should penetrate diplomacy, with the ‘pluralist’ wing of the tradition arguing that to promote human rights in a culturally divided world threatens the foundations of international order, while ‘solidarists’ maintain that state leaders ‘are burdened with the guardianship of human rights everywhere’.^ We would argue that meeting this commitment is the litmus test for judging Britain as a good international citizen. The British Foreign Secretary has not explicitly acknowledged the influence of good international citizenship on his thinking, but there are considerable similarities between the goals he has set and the conceptual rationale employed by Evans. There is the same commitment to reinforcing the rules of inter- national society, and to working within multilateral security institutions. However, Britain and Australia occupy very different positions in the hierarchy
(^) Evans, Making Australian foreign policy , p. . (^) We are not positing an automatic connection between democratic values on the inside and good behaviour on the outside, but we would argue that there is a strong relationship between how states treat their citizens and how they treat the citizens of other states. This link was emphasized by Evans when he stated that ‘in the longer term, the evolution of just and tolerant societies brings its own international returns—in higher standards of international behaviour, and in the contribution that internal stability
makes to international stability and peace’: Evans,^ Making Australian foreign policy , p.^ . For a conceptual history of the English School, see Tim Dunne, Inventing international society: a history of the
English School^ (London: Macmillan,^ ). Hedley Bull, ‘The Grotian conception of international society’, in Martin Wight and Herbert Butterfield, eds, Diplomatic investigations : essays in the theory of international politics (London: Allen & Unwin, ), p. . For an elaboration of pluralist and solidarist international society theory in the context of Hedley Bull’s work, see Nicholas J. Wheeler and Tim Dunne, ‘Hedley Bull’s pluralism of the intellect and solidarism of the will’, International Affairs : , January .
Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy
of states: Britain is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it possesses significant military capabilities, including nuclear weapons, it is the leader of the Commonwealth and a major player in the EU, and it has considerable prestige around the world.^ These attributes provide Britain with considerable diplomatic influence, and a key question to be explored in the remainder of the article is how far Britain is using this to further the principles of good international citizenship. A commitment to strengthening the pillars of international order is an obligation which follows from being a member of the society of states. As Cook put it in his Locarno speech, ‘If every country is a member of an international community, then it is reasonable to require every government to abide by the rules of membership.’^ As we discuss below, the Blair government has threatened to use military force against Iraq to uphold the authority of the United Nations. However, the most striking feature of the Locarno speech is Cook’s proposition—in keeping with our definition of good international citizenship—that the ‘rules of membership’ are set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The clear implication is that states which abuse human rights forfeit the right to be treated as a legitimate member of the international community, and should become the subject of international scrutiny and censure.
Good international citizenship in practice
In this section we examine how far Britain has lived up to the standard of good international citizenship. We begin by looking at Britain’s role in upholding UN authority in the face of Iraq’s non-compliance with Security Council Resolution . In the latter stages, we evaluate its human rights diplomacy with Indonesia, China and Algeria.
A ‘perfect peacekeeper’: the Gulf crisis
A discussion of Britain’s handling of this crisis reveals the difficulties of applying good international citizenship in practice. Since the end of the Gulf War in April , Iraq has engaged in a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with the UN’s Special Commission on Weapons Inspection (UNSCOM) which has responsibility under Resolution for dismantling Iraq’s capacity to produce chemical and biological weapons. There had been a series of confrontations since between Iraqi officials and the UN team, but on each occasion a
(^) This cluster of factors implies that Britain is a major power, unlike Australia which is a middle power. Kim Richard Nossal has argued that an internationalist foreign policy ‘comes easily’ to middle powers such as Australia and Canada: ‘Middle power diplomacy in the changing Asia-Pacific order: Australia and Canada compared’, in Richard Leaver and James L. Richardson, eds, The post-Cold War order: diagnoses and prognoses (Sydney:^ Allen & Unwin,^ ), p.^ . Robin Cook, ‘Human rights into a new century’, July .
Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy
did not carry the international community with it. The problem was that the Anglo-American stance of threatening force against Iraq was perceived by many Security Council members as undermining the authority of the UN, in whose name the resort to force was being justified. The key issue centred on whether Anglo-American military strikes could be launched without a new Security Council Resolution. The Americans took the view that Resolution , which had authorized the use of force against Iraq in the Gulf War, was not superseded by the ceasefire agreement in Resolution , and therefore provided a continuing legal basis for military action. Set against this, other members of the Security Council, notably France, Russia and China, argued that any use of force required a new resolution, and that diplomatic efforts to resolve the inspection crisis should be given more time. What is important about this debate is that the United States and Britain could have defended the use of force on legal grounds, but such an action would have lacked legitimacy in the international community. The absence of consensus seems to have constrained the United States from resorting to force, and this opened up space for exploring imaginative diplomatic solutions to the crisis. The British government did not publicly argue for a new Security Council Resolution, but it played an important role behind the scenes in persuading the United States not to use force without the backing of the other permanent members. Furthermore, Britain sought to mediate between the conflicting positions in the Council, enabling the Secretary-General to go to Baghdad with a mandate which brought an end to this phase of the crisis. How, then, should we assess Britain’s credentials as a good international citizen in relation to this crisis? On his return from Baghdad, the UN Secretary-General praised Britain and the United States as ‘perfect peacekeepers’, stating that ‘we taught our peacekeepers that the best way to use force is to show it in order not to have to use it’.^ The implication here is that the Secretary-General would not have been able to secure a deal with the Iraqi leadership in the absence of the threat to use force. Nevertheless, Britain’s strategy of threatening force alongside America was a risky one for two reasons. First, had diplomacy failed and force been used, Britain would have found itself defending actions to which other members of the Security Council were opposed. The tension between the British government’s ethical imperative of stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction and its commitment to strengthening the authority of UN Resolutions would have been ruthlessly exposed had the United States decided to use force against the
(^) Cook claimed in a House of Commons debate that ‘Britain has taken the lead in drafting work at the UN’, Hansard , February . This is supported by an editorial comment in the Guardian : see ‘A deal that can satisfy’, Guardian, February and ‘US public readied for war’, Guardian, February . For a more critical view of Britain’s efforts, see ‘He doesn’t want a war: neither do they’, Observer,
February^ . ‘UN chief praises Clinton on return from Iraq’, Reuters, February .
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Iraqi regime.^ Second, resorting to force risked UNSCOM’s mission, leaving open the probability that Iraq would emerge with its stockpile of chemical and biological weapons intact. In a House of Commons debate on February, Robin Cook stated that ‘we have taken great care in our targeting plan to ensure that we do not hit such completed weapons’. The fear was that were Allied planes to hit operational weapons, there was a risk of releasing deadly toxins into the atmosphere, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Instead, the government planned to interdict points in the supply chain. Given that the primary justification for using force was to stop Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction, the British government’s proposed targets highlighted the gap between means and ends in this aspect of its ethical foreign policy. But whatever risks Britain and the United States courted in threatening force, it is hard to believe that Iraq would have backed down in the absence of such threats. Support for the authority of the UN as a peacekeeper and peace enforcer is without doubt an important part of acting as a good international citizen. As both Evans and Cook have argued, the moral responsibility of states should also include giving a central position to human rights. For Cook, the badge of membership in the international community is conditional upon observance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If every state were a good international citizen in this respect there would be no gap between adherence to the rights stipulated in the Declaration and compliance with them. Unfortunately, as NGOs remind us daily, the majority of states fall below this standard; and a minority do not merely fall below, they ‘grotesquely violate human rights’,^ as Cook graphically put it in his Locarno speech. In the paragraphs below we will discuss three states that have repeatedly been cited as being gross violators of basic rights and have found themselves under Cook’s ethical searchlight.
Guardianship of human rights
Indonesia is an important case for a number of reasons. On the one hand, Britain is Indonesia’s biggest arms supplier, with sales accounting for per cent of
(^) As Kofi Annan prepared to fly to Baghdad with the Security Council’s mandate, the US Ambassador to the UN, Bill Richardson, claimed that the US reserved ‘the right to disagree’ with the outcome of the UN Secretary-General’s visit if it ‘is not consistent with Security Council resolutions and our own national interest’ (emphasis added). See ‘The diplomatic deal that may be the last card’, The Age
(Melbourne)^ ^ February^ . Cook, Hansard , February . It is possible that the United States would have targeted sites where it suspected that Iraq had operational chemical and biological weapons, but it seems highly likely that the same fear which deterred the British from planning such strikes would have influenced US target plans. In a speech to the Pentagon on February , President Clinton admitted that a ‘military operation cannot destroy all the weapons of mass destruction capacity’, suggesting that the United States intended to desist from targeting operational weapons. See ‘Remarks by the President on Iraq to Pentagon
personnel’,^ White House press release for^ ^ February^ . Cook, ‘Human rights into a new century’.
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coming before rights.^ The clear lesson to be drawn from this example is that if a state has to derogate from its obligation to be a guardian of human rights because vital security interests are perceived to be at stake, it is necessary explicitly to justify accommodation on these grounds; otherwise, as in the case of Australia, governments leave themselves exposed to the charge that narrow commercial advantage is driving foreign policy. The British government’s policy on arms exports to Indonesia has provoked similar criticism. Even the most ardent defenders of the decision not to revoke export licences for military equipment (authorized by the previous admin- istration) must have felt uncomfortable at seeing images of pro-democracy demonstrators being beaten by equipment ‘made in Britain’.^ In a radio interview, Robin Cook claimed that the new guidelines for arms sales would not have permitted the export of equipment ‘that will be used in internal repression’.^ Yet whatever assurances the importing country provides to the contrary, there are no guarantees that it will not use such weaponry against its civilian population. The matter of arms sales to Indonesia raises a difficult question concerning what constitutes a legitimate right to self-defence and what armaments are required for that end. Robin Cook defended the sale of additional Hawk ‘trainer’ aircraft on the grounds that Indonesia needed them for external defence, and he buttressed this claim by refuting the charge that these aircraft had been repeatedly used against the East Timorese people.^ We would argue that good international citizens recognize that while states have a legitimate right to self-defence, governments that are ‘gross violators’ should be denied arms irrespective of their declared usage. By linking external protection to good governance, strong incentives are created for states to act as guardians of human rights in the domestic sphere. In the debate in the House of Commons on arms exports to Indonesia, it was the Liberal Democrat MP Menzies Campbell who spoke for good international citizenship when he argued that the past practices of certain governments ought to rule them out as recipients of any military hardware. Britain has failed to be a good international citizen in its relations with Indonesia because it has placed selfish economic advantage above getting tough with the Suharto government over human rights. In its bilateral relations with
(^) The closest he came to making this defence can be found in his book Australia’s foreign relations , where he claims that prior to the policy of engagement with Indonesia, minor disputes all too often began to assume ‘an unwarranted prominence and seriousness’, implying the potential for a spiral of insecurity to develop. See Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia’s foreign relations in the world of the s (Melbourne:
Melbourne University Press,), p.^ . The government admitted in the House of Commons that among the licences granted in the past year, some equipment included riot control gear, small arms and armoured goods. Lord Avebury, the human rights campaigner, alleges that Scorpion tanks are still finding their way into Indonesia in ‘kit’
form: Rupert Cornwell,^ Independent ,^ ^ May^ . Transcript of interview by the Foreign Secretary, BBC Radio^ ^ Today^ programme,^ ^ May^ . Ibid. The Rt Hon. Menzies Campbell MP, Hansard , October . Emphasis added.
Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy
China, the good international citizen calculus is more difficult given that security interests are paramount. How should Britain balance the competing values of security and human rights in the diplomatic dialogue with China? In his own contribution to defining the third way in foreign policy, the Foreign Secretary claims that he is mapping a course between the ‘row’ and the ‘kow-tow’.^ He rejects the low priority the previous government accorded to human rights, but argues that more will be achieved through ‘dialogue’ than through public confrontation. A genuine ‘dialogue’ is not an occasion for lecturing or hectoring, as realist critics have contended;^ rather, it is an opportunity for an ‘open exchange of views’.^ Instead of shying away from defending his com- mitment to dialogue in relation to specific cases, the Foreign Secretary makes the bold claim that his approach of establishing a dialogue with China on human rights has achieved more in the last year than the Conservative government achieved in the previous ten. Britain’s commitment to dialogue with China is part of a wider EU policy which was revived in October as a response to the failed attempt collectively to censure China’s human rights practices at the annual session of the UN’s Human Rights Commission in Geneva.^ Since the EU– China dialogue began, there have been four rounds of talks (three more are scheduled for ) culminating in the first EU–China summit in London in April . Derek Fatchett, Minister of State at the Foreign and Common- wealth Office, noted in a speech to the House of Commons that the Blair government had taken every opportunity to raise human rights matters with the Chinese government, citing nine specific instances, including the Foreign Secretary’s discussion of human rights issues during his short visit to Beijing in January . The government acknowledges that a dialogue with China on human rights is a long-term process, but ministers point to the following concrete achieve- ments: a declaratory commitment by China to the universality of human rights; the release of the prominent Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng; the signa- ture and proposed ratification of the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights; a commitment to sign the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; China’s agreement to extend an invitation to Mary Robinson, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights; reporting of Hong Kong human rights issues to the UN; and finally, China’s consent to a visit by the EU troika to Tibet.
(^) ‘A ferret in charge of the Foreign Office’, Daily Telegraph , November . (^) See Robin Cook, ‘The first year’, Mansion House, April . (^) Robin Cook and the Rt Hon. Clare Short MP, Secretary of State for International Development, Annual
Report on Human Rights ,^ April^ . Edited transcript of an interview by Robin Cook, BBC Radio^ , London,^ ^ April^ . The split was primarily caused by France’s decision to give lucrative business contracts with China
priority over human rights concerns.^ ‘Dissent on China damages EU’,^ Electronic Telegraph,^ ^ April^ . Hansard ,^ ^ April^ . ‘Blair hails new dawn in co-operation with China’, Guardian , April .
Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy
remains unclear how far China has genuinely accepted that human rights should be part of the diplomatic dialogue, and how far it is using the language of human rights as a foreign policy instrument designed to deflect Western criticism of the regime. Despite the traditional Chinese argument that human rights are a form of cultural imperialism, by signing the Vienna Document and promising to accede to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, China has made it harder to claim that human rights are simply Western cultural preferences. China’s growing entanglement in the diplomacy of human rights provides important arguments for Western states seeking to hold China accountable to internationally agreed standards. It may be that by eschewing a row over individual high-profile cases, Cook’s third way might, in the longer term, strengthen the legitimacy of those fighting for human rights in China. Even if Britain were persuaded by the arguments of human rights activists of the need to ‘get tough’ with China, there are powerful constraints to bear in mind. The most significant of all concerns Britain’s obligations to the people of Hong Kong. This was made crystal clear by Robin Cook in his testimony to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. In his words, ‘the prime consideration of British foreign policy in relation to China must be because we have a duty of care to the six million residents of Hong Kong.’ The second constraint upon putting human rights at the centre of the government’s China policy is that Britain has vital security interests in terms of both Asia–Pacific stability and the broader need for Chinese participation in multilateral security institutions. As we saw in our discussion above of the Iraqi inspection crisis, enforcing the rules of the society of states against ‘rogue’ states depends for its legitimacy on consensus within the Security Council, and crucial to this is cooperation among the five permanent members. Any attempt to isolate or coerce China on human rights risks jeopardizing this consensus. Given India’s and Pakistan’s decision in May to flout non-proliferation norms by testing nuclear devices, China’s support will be crucial to any future moves to strengthen global non-proliferation norms.^ The dilemma is that the West needs China if there is to be any enforcement of international rules on the outside, but this precludes any possibility of enforcing the rules against China for its violation of human rights on the inside. As argued above, Britain fails the test of good international citizenship in relation to Indonesia. In the case of China, the conflict between human rights and security is posed at its starkest. Critics of Britain’s China policy recognize that vital security interests are at stake but argue that these would not be jeopardized by a more assertive human rights policy. The charge that the Blair
(^) Cook, ‘Foreign policy and human rights’, p. . (^) Recognition of the importance of securing Chinese cooperation in strengthening global security can be seen in the Clinton administration’s strategy of ‘cooperation, not conflict’. An example of this was the decision to sell nuclear reactors to China in October at a time when the administration was under fire from domestic critics for ignoring China’s human rights abuses: ‘US to end China sanctions’, Guardian , October .
Nicholas J. Wheeler & Tim Dunne
government is being overly timid in its belief that there is no alternative to dialogue underestimates the willingness of China to tolerate international condemnation, let alone the imposition of negative sanctions. We would argue that although there are clear continuities with the way in which preceding Conservative governments tried to balance human rights and security con- cerns, what marks out the new government’s approach to China is the fact that it publicly defends its policy on human rights grounds. This establishes a clear standard by which critics can hold the government accountable, and to be persuasive, Robin Cook has to make the case that Britain’s vital security interests would be undermined if the government adopted a more critical diplomacy of human rights. We have seen how security concerns are a constant intrusion into the formulation of Britain’s human rights policy towards China. By contrast, the case of Algeria poses a quite different challenge in so far as human rights and security are to some extent de-linked. In other words, coercive measures— from sanctions to armed humanitarian intervention—could be deployed without putting at stake either national security or wider international peace and security. Algeria also poses an important challenge because it has refused to engage seriously in a dialogue about human rights, despite the initiatives taken by Robin Cook on behalf of the EU. This raises the question at which Cook hinted in his Locarno speech: what do you do with states which are beyond ‘rational persuasion’ but do not present a threat to international peace and security? The Algerian crisis has been unfolding for the past six years. Since there has been a state of emergency in place, a response by the government to the ‘threat’ posed by the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front. In the ensuing civil conflict as many as , people have been killed.^ The violence escalated at the turn of the year: in the first few days of , , people were reported to have been killed. Robin Cook used the vehicle of the EU presidency to raise the concerns felt by the EU, leading to a proposal that a ‘troika’ of ministers visit Algeria ‘to get a clearer picture of the situation on the ground’.^ After some dispute with the Algerian government over whether the delegation would be allowed into the country, a visit took place in mid- January, led by Derek Fatchett—who admitted to being frustrated by the restricted access the team were given to non-official sources. The delegation’s report was considered by the meeting of European foreign ministers on January. The ministers published a muted joint statement urging greater dialogue but admitting that the EU could do little to end the six-year war. In Cook’s words: ‘Europe is willing to do anything it can to help end the suffering
(^) Cook, ‘Human rights into a new century’. (^) Algeria: programme of action to end human rights crisis: open letter to all governments from the Secretary General of
Amnesty International ,^ Amnesty International Report ,^ ^ February^ . Statement by the Foreign Secretary on behalf of the EU presidency, January .
