are there ways to get political accountability on an international scale, should we

Great Debates
1

One of the major problems when it comes to war and human rights abuses has been lack of accountability on the part of those who make the decisions.

Hopefully this will not descend into a Bush bashing thread, but who knows. I realize in alot of people’s eyes Bush is a huge criminal, so you might as well apply this thread to him, but also apply it to other leaders like the leaders of Myanmar, North Korea or Uzbekistan.

Now, the point is that w/o accountability political leaders feel free to do whatever they want. Stalin, Mao, Kim, Pol Pot, etc. Stalin died in a mansion the size of a hospital from old age. Hitler spent 12 years in charge and only died because he lost a war. Pol Pot wasn’t stopped until war happened. Many dictators of the 20th century died of old age.

So what all methods, if any, exist to hold political leaders accountable to either prevent abuses to hold them accountable for past abuses. Should we hold leaders accountable?

It seems that most accountability methods only affect the people. Things like sanctions don’t affect leadership. Maybe sanctions can lead to instability, making running a regime more stressful which will lead to reforms out of fear of revolt though.

So what else is there? Is there the thread of assassination, the threat of kidnapping/arrest and trial, the threat of ‘if you do that we’ll overthrow you through subterfuge and funding your enemies and let your political enemies deal with you’, the threat of all out war, the threat that if they travel internationally (like Pinochet) that they’ll be arrested, using information to give the population an idea of what the outside world is like. There have to be other methods though.

I know that some will say ‘its not up to outside governments to interfere with internal problems of other countries’ which I disagree with. That is like saying the police have no right to interfere in affairs inside of a home, even if they involve physical or sexual abuse. Some governments do not listen to the will of thier people and are only run by a dictator who forced his way into power through violence and as a result are somewhat illegitimate, making the idea of ‘internal affairs’ somewhat meaningless. Mingling in a free democracy however is a little different as that kind of government more closely represents the will of the people. But this thread isn’t really a debate on that. Its a debate on accountability.

2

Global police force/court. No asylum against them, but they can only collect evidence and help plan ways to extract and take the individual to court.

Would be a much better solution to have spy police working in each nation ready to kidnap Saddam Hussein or other murderers and take them to court than the current system where you have to kill all the army and overtake the country first. Of course if the initial extraction fails, the UN troops would need to come in and do that–but you’d at least have a firm legal basis for such action.

Simple laws:

  1. No genocide
  2. No pedophilia
  3. No nuclear/biological weapons
  4. No assassination
  5. No war
  6. No resisiting arrest
3

And yes, we should.

Screw “We should diddle in other peoples ponds” if they’re committing genocide there. But we need to have proof that will stand in court. And taking those responsible to court should be viewed as the ultimate goal.

4

If you are worried about a government lacking accountability, wouldn’t a ‘world government’ be the ultimate in lacking accountability? You’d have no higher authority to appeal to, and if the citizens of any one country are oppressed they’d have to appeal to their oppressors.

Look how well the U.N. has worked out in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Rwanda… Blue helmeted soldiers have been accused of routine rapes of locals, embezzelment, etc. The U.N. heirarchy is embroiled in a large-scale corruption investigation involving oil for food and other scandals. On a practical level, the U.N. is used as a political tool by some countries to hammer others they don’t like. More resolutions have been passed against Israel than any other country, I believe, and Israel isn’t even in the top 50 when it comes to human rights abuses.

World government is a horrible idea. The only good thing about the U.N. is that it is ultimately toothless without the consent of a couple of large countries which in turn are answerable to their constituents.

As for other countries holding governments accountable for atrocities, isn’t that what the U.S. did with Saddam? He’s currently sitting in a jail cell with a U.S. soldier outside the door.

5

Actually, your analogy is a bad one. The police do have authority to interfer in your home if a crime is being committed. Few would argue that the police should turn a blind eye to crime just because it happens in someone’s home. You’re confusing victimless, bedroom type crimes with crimes that actually cause harm to people.

But I do think your overall idea has some merit. Not in the sense of world gov’t or some international court system, but in a way for the UN to reward those countries which foster democracy and human rights and to punish those that don’t. Maybe even forget about the punish part and just focus on the reward. As toothless as the UN is, we still need some sort of body to handle international issues. Giving the UN some means to differentiate between good governments and bad ones would give it a bit more bite, but not so much so that countries would lose any sovereignty.

6

In a way all governments lack accountability. That is why we have democracies and constitutions, you set parameters that cannot be voided (constitutions) and you vote in and out the leaders. It is the only really accountable method of things.

The UN forces, I agree they can get out of hand. But I don’t think that makes the UN automatically at fault. Many UN soldiers come from countries like Pakistan or Nigeria, which don’t value human rights as much. But yeah, the UN can be pretty corrupt and/or inept.

The purpose though is to find if there is some kind of accountability that can be had that actually works. I don’t see that without some massive universal system (aka world government) and right now I actually agree that the world isn’t ready for a world government. As it stands only half the govs. on earth are liberal democracies and I wouldn’t want dictatorships that came to power through violence to have the same power as places like the UK or France.

I think assassinations, coups, sanctions (to destabalize the regime), information broadcasts to totalitarian dictatorships, international arrests and domestic kidnappings of leaders (like the US did in Somalia) are the only things we have that will work right now.

John Mace - What I meant was the idea that there is a sanctuary where you can commit massive violent crimes is a bad idea. Fifty years ago crimes in the home were largely ignored by the police (at least in the US) because the home was considered above alot of the laws. Nowadays things are different. The same analogy applies to international intervention.

7

I need a cite before I’d believe that. My impression is that police powers have been curtailed over the years rather than expanded (eg, Miranda rights). If you’re talking about spousal abuse, that might be true since the sexes weren’t really considered equal 50 years ago. But that had nothing to do with the sanctity of the home, but rather it might have been somewhat more acceptable to smack your wife around a little bit 50 years ago whereas now it’s not. This had nothing to do with the home being considered “above the law”.

8

The real problem is that even the liberal democracies have their own interests, and a ‘world government’ or international court or other worldwide legal body rapidly becomes a tool through which one country attempts to exert influence on another. So rather than everyone getting together for peace and justice, you have this bloc of countries using the court as a tool to apply pressure to the other bloc of countries. And such entities are ultimately dependent on the member countries for troops and support, so everything just breaks down anyway. The U.N. can issue a sanction against Israel for occupying Gaza or building a wall, and completely ignore Russian atrocities in Chechnya. It all depends on which direction the political wind is blowing.

The great trend in human rights is to take power away from the unelected and the unaccountable and to give it to the people and by extension to their proxies in the form of elected officials. The OP claims that George Bush is held unaccountable, but he’s not. He’s going to be out of office in another three years, and was almost out of office in the last election. Had he been able to run for another term, what do you think the odds are that he’d win again?

But officers of an international court are not elected. The U.N. bureaucracy does not represent the wishes of any body politic. World government is a return to the bad old days of unaccountable officials insulated from the desires of the people by layers of bureaucracy and indirection. Put power in the International Criminal Court, and how do you take it away once it runs amok? Especially if it runs amok in a way that suits the leaders of the most powerful nations?

9

Aren’t these mostly issues with the UN, and not really an issue of whether or not there should be some way to hold governments accountable?

Certainly the UN may not be the best outfit upon which to base some sort of international system–and indeed maybe a “government” framework to lead international policy may not be the way to go–but saying that we shouldn’t have any system set up where we can enter another country and stop genocide, and where that isn’t a matter of the US unilaterally deciding to do such, or the US having the option to not go in to stop it, doesn’t seem reasonable. I would much rather an unaccountable UN than genocide.
And given a sufficiently short list of global crimes which did not step on local social beliefs (like women’s rights or such), I don’t see that anyone would really have much ability to argue against such policy.

10

Not all of them. Any international police force designed to bring down powerful political leaders is going to be the subject of various “blocks” of interest. You’ll see some atrocities basically getting ignored because enough blocks of interest don’t want the police to interfere. I don’t see how it would be possible but let’s just say such a police force wasn’t beholden to any group of nations. How would they be controlled if they abuse their powers?

Logistically how are they suppose to arrest rogue leaders? You couldn’t just rush in and arrest Saddam, Pol Pot, or Hitler you would have had to go to war to capture them. So how exactly does the police force secure the peace?

Well heck, anyone against your proposal must be pro-genoide! Have you stopped beating your wife? I’m as big a fan of genocide as the next guy but that doesn’t mean I think an international police force is a good idea or even viable.

Marc

11

It had a lot to do with the sanctity of the home. Many people believed that the threshold between a private and a public matter was the same threshold a man carried his wife over after their marriage.

Cite

I think this is perfectly analogous to the argument that a sovereign nation’s problems are her own.

12

As with all things, the Mass Media would of course be the reason we could be sure that the police were paying attention to the right areas. Tax payers would still pay their bills–even if that money travelled internationally.
And why don’t the police in the US just go about serving the blocks of interests of their superiors? Probably they do–just that even when doing so, 90% of the time you’re still going to be tracking down random murderers and thiefs. Simply, having your own private policeman doesn’t do one any good 90% of the time. And what is the policeman going to do the rest of the time except his job?

What power do they have to abuse? They get a warrant from a judge, get issued some fake passports and communications gear and dropped in a foreign country to try and infiltrate the bad guys. Eventually they send back some proof, the judge looks over it and sends back a warrant. Then the guy looks for a time when the criminal could be snatched up (if possible.) If not possible, the warrant is issued and unless the person does not turn himself in, no country can act against the criminal and even then, the goal will be to apprehend the criminal, not to war.
And why should countries do that faithfully? Why should they submit to any law? Yet they do.

Might come to war. But at least it has to come to war and that’s not something that’s arbitrary or emotional. He broke the law, and is resisting arrest. He is merely a criminal. It’s just the same as some cult holing up in a bunker–if they’re killing people and you have proof and a warrant–you go in and arrest them and don’t leave them to murder more people.

Anyone ever tried it? All the arguments you make could just as easily have been said when the constitution was drawn up centralising the government, or now as Europe federalizes.