CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

any state with the ability to intervene and readiness to commit the necessary resources,
will invariably have wider interests in mind. We have largely dealt with this in the
foregoing discussion of just cause and right intent and, as Monbiot acknowledges, there
are occasions when an intervention for mixed or flawed motives is better than no
intervention at all. The second objection is that intervention will only ever be directed
against the weak. This is the argument that asks ‘why intervene to protect Kosovars
from Serbia but not Chechens from Russia or Tibetans from China?’ The answer, of
course, is that being unable to improve everything hardly requires that we improve
nothing. For Monbiot, however, as for most commentators on intervention, the hardest
argument to address is the third:
that as soon as we accept that an attack by a powerful nation against a weak one
is legitimate, we open the door to any number of acts of conquest masquerading
as humanitarian action. … …
… To accept that force can sometimes be a just means of relieving the suffering
of an oppressed people is to hand a ready made excuse to every powerful nation
that fancies an empire. To deny it is to tell some of the world’s most persecuted
peoples that they must be left to rot. 159
Monbiot concludes that the dilemma can be solved only by a new UN Charter that
‘permits armed intervention for humanitarian purposes, but only when a series of
rigorous tests have been met, and only when an overwhelming majority of all the
world’s states have approved it. We need a charter that forbids nations with an obvious
interest from participating.’ 160
There are difficulties, however, with the ideal Monbiot proposes. Firstly, an important
practical issue: Monbiot demands that those ‘with obvious interest’ be barred from
involvement in the intervention. The reasoning behind this suggestion is clear; it gets us
over the hurdle of cynicism and mixed motive. Practically, however, it is bound to be
unworkable. Could we really expect the disinterested to expend the resources and risk
their soldiers’ lives? Could we expect sufficient investment of political will, and would
the public of disinterested nations lend their support? We must also ask whether those
states which are powerful enough, rich enough and sufficiently militarily competent to
intervene are ever really disinterested anywhere. Moreover, even if we could find
sufficiently capable and willing disinterested states then they would almost inevitably
be from outside the region of concern. Thus we might also expect them, however well-
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