When Anarchy Spills Across Borders.

• Author: Marks, Edward

Title: When Anarchy Spills Across Borders

Text:

Editor's Note: American Diplomacy Journal asked several foreign policy commentators to address the significance of growing chaos in many parts of the world, as failed and failing states are increasingly unable to perform the fundamental functions of the sovereign nation-state. This is one of five articles looking at those concerns.

The first two decades of the 21st century have seen explosive international terrorism, accelerating climate change, degradation of the oceans, expansion of illegal narcotics production and consumption, and a deadly worldwide pandemic. None of these respects national borders. All of them cause terrible human suffering, weaken national governments, undermine cultural integrity, and threaten peaceful relations between states.

We have not seen such widespread anarchy in the West since the Thirty Years War in Europe half a millennium ago. Out of that experience came the development of the nation-state, an institution required to fulfill two functions: to project authority over its territory and peoples and to protect its national boundaries. Now, the legitimacy of the Westphalian nation-state system is being challenged, as is the current international system which is its descendent.

National sovereignty was the foundation of the Westphalian system, and it is still sacrosanct in our international system. Governments that fail to protect their populations are nothing new in history, and for hundreds of years, the risks of intervening in the affairs of nation states generally outweighed the benefits. Today, however, what happens in one country--intentionally or by accident--increasingly affects immediate neighbors, more distant nations, continents and international human intercourse. This is destabilizing and can lead to international conflict. To mitigate that destabilization, the international community needs to become more active and adept at intervening with sovereign states to resolve anarchic pressures before they spill across national borders. The international community does, more than ever, have a "responsibility to protect."

The current epidemic of failure and abuse is also occurring in an international environment that has seen some significant changes in the past one hundred years. A world community, operated by consensus, was initiated with the League of Nations and continued with the United Nations. The UN charter includes references to human as well as national rights, and new international agreements address individuals as well as governments. These developments have gradually impinged upon the long-standing principal of national sovereignty and the prohibition of any interference in the internal affairs of independent states.

Three developments in international law and mores are significant: the League of Nations Trusteeship system, the United Nations peacekeeping authority and the United Nations "Responsibility to Protect" mandate.

Trusteeship

The international Trusteeship System was invented by the League of Nations in the 1920s to address the 19th century European colonial system doomed by the First World War. The League authorized specific...