Moving the EU Forward with a Different Approach. Why the Lisbon Treaty is actually a step forward for Europe’s Security and Sense of Self

The Lisbon Treaty, What is it Good For? 

As of late, there have been numerous attempts by many to categorize the current EU situation as one of disarray and general chaos. While the outlook is not as cheerful as it may have been 10 or arguably five years ago, I'm still rather inclined to believe that the EU has life yet. Certainly, the Treaty of Lisbon has created a basis for the next chapter of EU history to be written, ironically on a subject few have dared to explore in the last 40 years. In this paper, I will argue that the Treaty of Lisbon does very well to advance European Security in three ways; turning the EU into one legal body increasing the efficiency of foreign relations, creating the External Action Service to better place the EU to the rest of the world, and finally putting defense and security in the EU conversation. By putting EU foreign relations and security at a new genesis point, the EU has the potential to craft a new mission of global peace and to preserve the values it has already acquired.

Legal Efficacy; Turning the EU Whole

The treaty itself begins to shape EU foreign policy at the very core of its structural level by condensing all three older pillars of EU governance into one legal body. What this basically means is that up until the Lisbon Treaty, EU foreign policy (CFSP) was considered a separate body from all European Communities, as well as strangely the Police and Judicial Cooperation Pillar. The CFSP's detachment prior to the Lisbon Treaty created "an uncertain international status" (Verola) stemming from the lack of a coherent message. On its own, the CFSP was rather vaguely tasked with trying to encourage member states to develop similar foreign policy if only to try to streamline interactions with other member states and most importantly not create unnecessary conflicts.

Clearly, this was in no way an effective method at actually establishing a foreign policy of any kind. Although the member states reserved the right to create their own foreign policies and establish national strategy as they do today, using the CFSP as a type of registrar for the member states made it a misnomer at best for European solidarity and security. Although the CFSP was able to try to draw member states into a coherent European international message, "there [were] no legal sanctions for failing to comply with common positions" (Hix and Høyland). By integrating the CFSP into the "single pillar system" under the Lisbon Treaty, it gives the EU a greater command over determining common foreign policy, both figurative and practical.

The former comes in the form of creating a framework for actual policy making and accountability on the member states, like the solidarity clause which considers an attack on any member state as an attack on the consolidated EU body. The latter takes shape in international talks, as the EU is no longer an observer to the United Nations but is now a member with speaking privileges (Council Spokesperson Legal Service ESDP Missions, 7/20/2011) as it is one whole legal body. The streamlining that is made because of the Lisbon treaty is rather immense compared to the vision of the Maastricht Treaty 10 years ago.

External Action Service: The Legitimization of EU Foreign Affairs

Perhaps the most controversial (at least at the moment) aspect of the Lisbon Treaty relies around the creation of the External Action Service. This separate new institution takes the place of the old CFSP pillar in the sense that it has many of the original CFSP goals and responsibilities still apply to the EAS. The difference however is that the EAS is given through the Lisbon treaty the ability to act as a "diplomatic service" (Hix & Høyland) which the former CFSP could not, even with the Amsterdam revisions proposed in 1999. As the EAS is run by an appointed High Representative directly from the Council under consultation from the Commission, its position is one that like the CFSP relates to the member states, but still serves the EU's common interests.

The EAS is therefore a new understanding, much like the "pillar restructuring", to the responsibilities of the EU specifically in the area of foreign policy. It is designed to not open itself up to the same criticism as the CFSP for being too divided or not as important as the first pillar was (Hobbing, 7/19/2011). Its new powers clearly move it into the direction of greater autonomy. Proof of this very fact can be seen in the controversy it has managed to stir in its bureaucratic infancy. Lady Catherine Ashton who serves as Vice-President of the Commission as well as High Representative for the EAS has received her fair share of criticism for not upholding the "right of initiative" (Verola) aspect of her post [1]

Because she is acting in part to accommodate the needs of the Council of the EU, her job consists of checking off with all member states regarding any critical issue, making emergency situations very difficult to deal with in terms of responding within a given time frame. An example of this was the backlash she received for not taking a more publicly active role after the Haiti Earthquake in 2010 (Bork) even though her interaction with U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton advised her to simply send aid rather than an envoy. Yet that in itself still does outline the responsibilities to the member states that in some sense hinder the actions of the EAS. However, I still maintain that the foundation of the EAS, even with the oversight of the member states is a great leap forward in EU foreign policy and understanding EU involvement abroad. The EU has a track record of many international involvements regarding peaceful and humanitarian operations (Hix), so there is no problem of will.

The problem that does exist is the public relations problem of not having a main face of EU foreign policy which plagues most of the EU itself. There are some main advantages to having created the EAS that will work to reverse this problem. The first comes straight from the politics involved in choosing the high representative. Because both the Council and the Commission have a say in deciding the High Representative, the opportunity for political theatre over a position that will inevitably need to stick to a common script down the line provides a public relations win for the whole of the EU, and gives a major boost to the reception of EU foreign policy amongst those in or outside of the EU. A second advantage is the very fact that there is now a figurehead at the top of the EAS that can actually be referred to for any foreign relation problem, specifically any crises that may arise. The stock of presidents that the EU currently has for the Presidency, sitting President of the Council, or President of the Commission is acceptable (not necessarily ideal however) for internal issues that can allow for time to pass before their resolution (things such as trade or commerce laws).

Foreign policy however needs to be able to respond much more quickly and with a certain gravitas in order to claim legitimacy. The EAS helps this need out by creating a framework for all future foreign relations communications to come out quickly and efficiently. Much is said about Lady Ashton currently having to be approved by all the member states before making an announcement and therefore slowing down the process (Cirtautas, 8/1/2011) but that is because there is very little precedent to jump off of at the moment. Because the EAS is tasked to package and categorize common EU foreign policy interests, every outside stimuli adds another piece of information to the greater common EU knowledge base, making every action after the other much easier to digest and react to. Unless there are serious upheavals in member states' governments and ideas regarding foreign policy, the common EU policy will continue to dictate a general first response on the part of the EAS.

Beyond Legal Unity

The most striking of the Lisbon Treaty change is, like most attempts by the EU to gain legitimacy, symbolic in nature. What the combined efforts of the legal merger of the three Maastricht Pillars and the creation of the EAS generate is an environment to fit what over the last decade has become a louder aspect of the EU; combined security efforts. During the Cold War, European Security never became a great issue because of NATO's presence and the one clear Russian threat. However, ever since the Soviet Collapse and the European "military enlightenment" that was the Kosovo Mission in 1999 (Pinder), the topic of European Defense became harder to ignore. This is emphasized by the level of commitment every new mission has received on the part of the EU in terms of sheer numbers of volunteers sent in, both civilian and military (Keukeleire).

By merging the CFSP into the rest of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty legally ties foreign relations with security and defense as one whole body under the communication of the EAS. The result is a combination of both CFSP and ESDP efforts under one legal entity (Pirozzi & Sandawi). Although the immediate effects are bureaucratic in nature, the possibilities that this bond creates for future EU foreign policy is an enticing and unpredictable development. For the first time the EU can begin to better articulate its humanitarian missions; more importantly it may see an initiative that is key to EAS policy and could bolster it with direct involvement of its security efforts. It also makes the EU more prepared to deal with conflicts that could possibly arise on Europe's front door like the Arab Spring or oddly enough territorial rights to the Arctic (Nemitz, 7/18/2011) which could call upon a simultaneous deployment of both diplomats and humanitarian forces/ peacekeepers.

The Lisbon Treaty is in no way however creating a NATO alternative. Although many question its use or identity in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union (Economist), its existence is not short lived in the European Defense psyche. The rise of right wing governments and public sentiments in the member states is an early indication that NATO will continue to play a large role in regional stability for years to come. But the EU is now on the path of being able to provide perhaps not a substitute to NATO but a corollary EU defense policy similar to that of the Pleven and Fouchet plans (Keukeleire).

But is it a Real Change from Business as Usual?

So the Lisbon Treaty does manage to make certainly significant changes to the previous foreign policy and defense structure of the EU. But the worrying prospect for most is not so much that a change has occurred, but rather the way in which it has occurred. Effectively merging the EAS and ESDP under a common directive is a good idea; more consolidation leads to more efficacy. But only to a certain extent. The EAS functions much like the U.S State Department (as a diplomatic wing) while the ESDP functions instead like the U.S Department of Defense (as a military wing). Although connected, both are departments that require huge amounts of dedication and effort just to be run separately; the merging of the pillars under the Lisbon Treaty then seems to have actually caused more strain on both wings because of a quantifiable lack of leadership and direction because only one High Representative chairs both.

If the Lisbon Treaty really was aiming for efficacy and streamlining, a more rational method of combining forces could have been to still create an EAS that focused on centralizing European foreign policy by overseeing both the former CFSP and ESDP, without having to actively chair both. The pillars as they were could have been given separate legal status so that they could effectively have the same powers they do now, but maintain the internal structure and policies that they had beforehand. With enhanced powers, enhanced legal status, and an office from the Commission that worked to consolidate the work and not the agencies, the Lisbon Treaty could have avoided many hassles that are beginning to appear after its inception.

One Must Learn to Walk Before Running

The question of efficacy though is perhaps skewed by a difference in understanding what the Lisbon Treaty was created to do. Undoubtedly the Lisbon Treaty sought efficacy, but there is a stronger case to believe that it sought progress. The merging of the "two pillars" was not a decision stemming from luxury or governmental aesthetics, nor was it simply to give legal status to a wing of foreign affairs. It clearly was an attempt to promote a rethinking of European foreign affairs and security by showing that the two disciplines were not and should not be so far apart. Again, the discussion currently relates around the idea of EU collapse or EU irrelevancy.

These problems are not solved by marginally increasing powers to certain facets of government; they are solved by approaching the question of government in a different light. When Keukeleire entitles his chapter with the words "From Taboo to a Spearhead of EU Foreign Policy", he is not using rhetoric to make his article stand out, he is describing a recent reality. In order for the EU to remain relevant, it must begin to play a much more active and centralized role on the world stage and that particular endeavor begins by creating a face for the EU; the EAS. Some questions about Lady Ashton and her leadership still remain. She perhaps has acted as a catalyst for the argument that the position as head of the EAS is too overreaching and too overbearing for one individual by her missteps (EU) and misrepresentations in the media (EUX.TV). But her less than perfect performance can be simply attributed to the political choice made to appoint her by not the Commission but instead the 27 member states who would rather see the EAS limited in centralizing foreign affairs and defense (BBC).

Regardless, the structure put in place by the Treaty of Lisbon is one that is as symbolic as it is progressive. For the EU, the coupling of the former CFSP and ESDP was seen as much more necessary than organizational efficacy. Historically speaking, many of the current EU institutions began as weakened versions of the current lot, once destined to be either irrelevant or short lived. But like the Parliament and the European Court of Justice, the EAS will be justified and then later expanded to accommodate the new responsibilities.

What is the Lisbon Treaty Good For? Why, the Future of the Whole EU.

The Treaty of Lisbon did not mean to impose a "silver bullet" for the foreign affairs question of the EU. Treading on the grounds of foreign affairs and security has always been a difficult affair when negotiating with the member states. Their claims of sovereignty are still very loud and rarely challenged by any EU institution (Chmielewski), making solidarity in any EU centralization effort very difficult. It instead was chartered to introduce this new way of thinking, and most importantly legally setting it as precedent that the EU was going to take foreign affairs and security as a more central mission than before. Because of this, even the structural setbacks of the Lisbon Treaty do not hinder it from being a true step forward for European integration.

Works Cited

Ashton, C. (2011). A world built on co-operation, sovereignty, democracy and stability. Corvinus University. Budapest: European Union.

BBC . (2009, November 20). EU foreign head dismisses critics. Retrieved August 5, 2011, from BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8367589.stm

Bork, J. (2011). The European Union - A General Introduction to the EU. Brussels: EU Commission.

Chmielewski, K. (2011, August 4). Visit to the Polish Permanent Presidency 2011. (U. 2. Program, & A. Regio, Interviewers)

Council Spokespoerson Legal Service ESDP Missions. (2011). Discussion about the Council of the EU. Brussels: Council of the EU.

EUXTV. (2009, November 20). Ashton Grilled by Media on Qualifications as EU Foreign Minister. Brussels, Belgium.

Hix, S., & Hoyland, B. (2011). The Political System of the European Union. New York: Palgrave McMillan.

Hobbing, P. (2011). Brussels Basics. EU Symposium 2011. Brussels.

Keukeleire, S. (2010). European Security and Defense Policy: From Taboo to a Spearhead of EU Foreign Policy. In F. Bindi, The Foreign Policy of the European Union (pp. 51-72). Washington D.C: The Brookings Institute.

Nemitz, P. (2011). Integrated Maritime Policy. EU Symposium 2011. Brussels.

Pinder, J., & Usherwood, S. (2007). The European Union: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford Press New York.

Pirozzi, N., & Sandawi, S. (2008). Five Years of ESDP in Action: Operations, Trends, Shortfalls". European Security Review, 39, pp. 14-17.

Verola, N. (2010). The New EU Foreign Policy under the Treaty of Lisbon. In F. Bindi, The Foreign Policy of the European Union (pp. 41-50). Washington D.C: The Brookings Institution.

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[1] The “right of initiative” basically prescribes a vaguely based right of autonomy within EAS proceedings and policy making. This grants the independence that the EAS needs in order to be a leading force of foreign affairs.  

Response to Peace Pact by David C. Hendrickson “Evaluating the Realities of a Federative System”

In Peace Pact, Hendrickson works to argue that the best way of achieving true peace is through a system of application of shared security. His model for this is the foundation of the federal system in the infancy of the United States and how that incorporation of different political entities with a moral claim to sovereignty, the states, into a union able to also morally claim significant sovereignty not only over itself but also over members of the union. Hendrickson does note that federalism takes on many if not theoretically infinite forms of balance between "state" and "federal" power (if we are to take this balance as a sliding scale between two extremes, one being "state" and the other being "federal").

Further into his argument, he claims that the best possible form is one where the emphasis of security is placed further on the side of "state" security than on "federal" security in order to avoid the pitfalls of realism (which would lead to appeasing the security concerns generated by the system and not necessarily the actors) and complete hegemony (which would by definition curtail rights of individuals within each state). In order for Hendrickson's argument to hold its own however, there will need to be some review of whether or not his intention to put emphasis on state and individual security actually coincides with state and individual motives for security; put simply, the rationale behind what gives moral backing to a certain system of security must be a response to the motives and ideas of actors (state and/or individuals), otherwise there is too great a detachment between the need for security and the physical security itself. The risk here then is that not only is the full worth of the  individual sidestepped but the creation of a federal union begins to look increasingly more like a modernized version of bandwagoning among members of the union, all vying to gain the most benefits for the least amount of costs.

                                                                             

However, before any consideration is made to evaluate Hendrickson's argument, it would prove useful to be able to describe it in the best detail possible. To do this, it is important to note some general axioms that Hendrickson will be working with in order to ground his argument. One of these axioms is the idea that people generally if not exclusively look out for their own security and the security of their property. That being said, it is also a general axiom that people tend to congregate in some manner in order to provide a better route to gain said security. Hendrickson's argument here is technically an elaborate extension of the "state of nature" thought process with regards to individuals. The specific change here is that he is applying libertarian principles to foreign policy, specifically how states should see each other given the fact that the interests of the individuals have a moral standing such that they should be preserved. 

Hendrickson is quick to point out two polar opposites of world organization among states, that of International Anarchy (IA) and that of Universal Empire (UE). The two concepts are simple to understand; IA is focused solely on a "state of nature" amongst states, with varying degrees of cooperation along its spectrum, whereas UE is the "Hobbesian" answer of a sovereign government that rules others in the world in order to avoid problems. Each model however has significant blocks to rights of individuals.

IA has far too much conflict sewn into its system's fiber to ensure any sort of peace of mind, let alone establish the right amount of security of one's person and belongings. Even in times of alliance and relative peace (should Locke's state of nature be taken over Hobbes'), the uncertainty of a system ripe for war would itself lower quality of individual rights, and make them almost null and void (what is the point of embracing these rights if at any moment they could be trampled upon in times of war?).

UE on the other hand has the general fear that the bigger a government gets and the more rights it claims in order to properly function under its own decree the less rights individuals will actually have and less power will be had by those rights that do filter through if any at all. In Hendrickson's comparative model, individuals are essentially caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to protecting their rights from the volatility of a truly international system. In looking at one direction they see war and strife, whereas in the opposite they see limited rights and a possible oppressive government.

It is at this point that Hendrickson points out, much to the joy of these troubled individuals, that this spectrum is not the only possible system on which an international order can run on. In fact, there is historical evidence found in the exact founding of the United States that provides a blue print for how to approach such dire security concerns. More so, when this system is blown up to scale the international order, even that of today, the different components fit in to size the bigger and more robust groups without changing the impact on individual rights. Hendrickson here of course is talking about a federal system of government that sprung up in the soon-to-be states of the United States.

A federal union was not to be founded on conflict or control, but rather on only cooperation, such that rights of the individual would be then forced to take center stage. Even at the time of the creation of these circumstances, this realization was felt in of all places, Great Britain, where Burke recognized the ultimate struggle between legitimacy of government and individual freedom (Hendrickson 86) was heading on a collision course with state interests; in this case his own. Perhaps more crucially was the recognition on the part of the colonials themselves of this very fact and the subsequent worry of how exactly to get various colonies, each with their own unique demographics, social organization, and political ambitions to avoid " 'discord and total disunion' " (Hendrickson, Dickinson, 108).

Epistemological epiphanies aside, the course for federalization was set in the hopes of preventing the colonies from devolving into either IA by allowing their lot in the new world to remain a European playground (or worse have the colonies turn forces on themselves) or into UE under British rule. To anchor the logistical push for a federal system, a moral ground was taken with regards to what philosophy best embodied the interests of the union as well as the interests of the individuals within it. Classical realism to the founders obviously was out of the question given who they were fighting against, and Kantian Perpetual Peace, while very attractive, did not address the issue of separate states and their willing  "cooperation while not submitting" (Hendrickson 270) to a higher union. Although this was the general case in the colonies at the time, the way that history turned out to be showed precisely how awkward this system would have been had it been implemented in the colonies.

With social and political bickering across colonial lines, the effect of "automatic cooperation" as Kant described it would not have worked. So instead the founders adopted an idea of an "international society", one where states are treated in a way that turns them into knowledgeable, cost-effective, and poised actors on the world stage (Hendrickson 278). This may at first sound a bit utopian in nature, but it is the only theory regarding international relations that could actually foster a healthy federal union, mainly because again, the tenets of "good faith, sovereignty, and peaceful settlement of disputes" reflects the morality of individual rights. With this piece, Hendrickson comes full circle from his discussion of the histories of the founding of the United States to his ultimate goal of embracing a theory of international relations that embodies the push for a robust protection of individual rights.

In order to place individual rights at the top of any sort of international organization of states, there must be a push for a federal union among states who value individual rights. More importantly, in order for this said union to not fall apart, it must live in a world where the major actors, crucially those who support it, act in concert with an "International Society" that extends the moral force of individual rights into what would otherwise be a "global state of nature" among states. Without this construct, individual rights would either or cease to exist under a strongman's government, or count for nothing in a world filled with perpetual war.

The main problem with Hendrickson's argument is two-fold; a primary concern regarding logistics and then a secondary concern regarding the true intentions of the call for security given the lapses in logistics. To address the first part of the objection, we must again divide the load in two. The first problem with the logistics of Hendrickson's argument concerns the feasibility of creating a true federal union. Hendrickson uses the United States as a shining example of what people can do if they truly embody the spirit of shared security through federal union, but a great deal of credit for that happening must be given to the general cohesiveness of American culture. Creating a federal union requires that a lot of trust be given to other individuals and groups within the union, much more so at least than the IA or UE models. Keeping that in mind, it is a lot easier to trust people who are culturally similar than others who may be culturally distant.

This is not to say that some cultures cannot handle the prospects of federal union, rather that xenophobia is part of every culture to some extent and effects of "othering" (the generation of an outside and consequently strange, untrustworthy, not completely equal group by the prime-group that identifies itself as superior for self justifying reasons) will always make giving trust to other cultural groups difficult. This is made especially worse if there are historical dark spots between two different cultures or states.

However, even if there was to be an effort of reconciliation between two cultures that managed to instill full trust, the prospects of trying to work across different languages and cultures makes the logistical feasibility much harder than trying to work within only one culture. The United States were fortunate in this case because although the North-South split was becoming apparent well before the Civil War, there was no language divide, nor was there a problem of identification as something other than Americans, only their sense of rights divided an otherwise homogenous group.

The second and more structural problem that Hendrickson stumbles upon is the question of what a federal union actually happens to become once it is installed. Hendrickson generally proposes that the success of shared security among the United States is that states with their own declared sovereignty and peoples who identified themselves as part of those particular groups based on their own personal geo-political locations willingly decided to fall under the wings of a much greater power in search for security and stability, and more so to avoid future conflict.

More still, the creation of this coalition between independent states and a greater power also established a signal of alliance against outside powers looking to expand their own lands and holdings. Hendrickson calls this a federative system, but it sounds terribly close to an effect of  "bandwagoning" (term reserved for when small states who cannot ensure their own safety form security blocks under a greater organizational power in order to increase regional security and deter possible attacks from outsiders). Just because the United States federal government was not an established state itself, it acted as one byways of constitutional connection to all the individual states. If anything, the federative system that Hendrickson talks about is actually the world's most condensed episode of bandwagoning, where the coalition of states in an alliance form the greater power and presently give political acceptance of its greater collective security.

If this is the case, then the states did not form a union in order to cooperate, but instead formed the union ad-hoc given that there was no other major power to align with on the continent to sway away the remaining Spanish, French and British settlements in North America. For the states, the only way to create regional security was not to cooperate in establishing a federal union, but instead to construct quite literally from scratch a political entity that could be big enough to rival the European powers still left on the continent, but that could not in any way turn on the small states given its hollow, state-less structure.

Given these flaws of unfeasibility amongst Hendrickson's argument, it follows that not only is the structure of the argument wrong, but so too is the actual intention of creating this flawed "federative system". Without a real sense of cooperation, we cannot go on to say that the founders followed any sort of "international Society" when thinking about international relations, rather they followed a strict Realist structure where the state level security was placed above the security of the individual , clearly not embodying the libertarian tenets of personal freedom and independence. The federative system that is shown here is not one that embodies the need to establish some sort of accountability on the part of the individuals that make up the state, but instead it is one that recognizes more traditional Realist threats like issues of balance of power and relative strength among North American powers.

Historically it makes sense that the founders would tend to side more often than not within the mode of International Anarchy given what they knew about the threats of a Universal Empire. Although IA was the other side of the same coin, it was the side of the coin that the states felt more capable of controlling at their own will; put simply, it is easier to manage a system that one adapts to the structure of the states (establish an American influenced system of states in North America) than a system that forces structures of the states to mold into place. More broadly, any sort of federative system that emulates what happened in the United States runs a real risk of becoming a bandwagoning system as well.

In fact, in a system of states where language and culture act more as dividers instead of connectors, identifying an outside threat could fill that slot to motivate countries to come together, but once that idea is established, the importance of the security system switches immediately from protecting individual rights to protecting states from falling prey to outside threats, and the switch from cooperation to IA is complete.

There is however one major consideration to be observed before Hendrickson's argument can be fully measured to either immediately pertain to individual rights or not. Hendrickson's system may very well bend to the stimuli of a system that embodies IA, especially when it may not be the decision of the federal union being created to do so (if nobody else is willing to see the world any differently, deciding to not "play by the rules" could leave any political entity at a disadvantage). But even though it may bend, it does not take anything away from its primary objective of protecting individual rights, mostly because it is an ends-based approach, not a means-based approach. Essentially, if the state is secure, then so too are the rights and security of the individuals that live inside it, and so the motivation for security and the motivation for establishing a federative system still remains that which protects individual interests.

Whether or not the world around the federative system chooses to act in a more traditionally belligerent fashion does not matter, so long as the state that is established manages to end up with a place that respects individual rights then the security system is a success. With that in mind, it is possible to see just how even by appeasing the state-level interests and not directly approaching the individual level interests a federative system is able to have a true moral backing of its mission to protect individual rights. With a secure state comes also the possibility to embrace whatever sort of international theory structure the state wants to uphold, in the case of the colonies the "International Society".

Crucially, a structure like the "International Society" would have a hard time upholding its values of acting in good faith and resolving issues peacefully in a shark-tank as it were, so generating enough state-level security by way of a federative system creates a necessary positive feedback loop that propagates the core of an "International Society". Better still a core bent on understanding and good faith would also make great strides in alleviating the pressures of cultural differences should a federative system be adopted in less homogenous zones of humankind, thereby relieving some of the feasibility concerns related to the simple logistics of the federative system. This is not to say that a federative system with an applied "International Society" structure behind it would cure all cultural differences; it would simply make them small enough to not affect the entire system, leaving it just as strong as if there were no differences to begin with.

So in essence, the protection of the state at the state level is not something to bludgeon Hendrickson's argument, but rather something with which scope can be used to understand precisely what gives it moral gravitas. At the end of the day, if the main goal is to protect individual security, then the means by which one arrives at such an end (unless of course truly objectively evil) become mere sideshows pitted against the main attraction. With state security comes individual security, and with individual security comes the ability to safely choose what sort of theory of international relations is the most beneficial to a culture that values acts of good faith and peaceful solutions rather than being forced to adapt to whatever structure has developed outside the borders. That is the true motivation behind what creates freedom in this sort of structure, that by choosing it individuals coming together can choose what their own world, in this case their world of international relations, looks like rather than being slaves to its own whim, even as brutish and vicious as it may be.

This may very well be the loophole through which Hendrickson makes his argument work even when the perspective of analysis is changed from individual level to state level, but overall the argument really cannot stand against the strong connection between his federative system and ad-hoc bandwagoning. Ignoring the true moral intentions of the founders aside, which in reality cannot be completely inferred by their actions but only partially inferred, the establishment of the United States which held many powers over individual states would make little sense if the true goal of each and every state was sovereignty through individual rights. If individual rights were the main concern of each state then willfully submitting to a power greater than the states themselves would have been erroneous to say the least considering the states' collective knowledge accumulated as colonies regarding power structures and regional sovereignty.

Instead, it makes much more sense to approach the founding of the United States as the founding of a friendly pole of power for the smaller states in a rather nasty neighborhood at the time. In essence, all federations come about in this manner, when smaller states that need a heightened level of security but cannot bandwagon with other poles of influence in their immediate vicinity for whatever reason come together to form a "shadow pole of influence".

The roots of modern Germany are found in the exact same circumstances as those of the early American states; surrounded by powers much greater than themselves, the German speaking states in central Europe in 1815 formed a federation in order to create some stability and security in an otherwise very hostile part of the world. Surely, the individual security was heightened for the people of the states that took part of the first Confederation and the North German Confederation that followed it, but in both cases the central security of the states came before any mention of constitution making or traditional federalization. To add more to the list of commonalities between American and German federalization, out of the security pact, a new nation was born, that of Germany which before was only contested between Prussia and Austria. The same happened with the United States where being an "American" came into light well after the War of Independence.

All these pieces of evidence make it rather clear that the focus of federalization was never to establish security for individuals and their rights; if that had been the case then federalized Germany would have adopted a form of government with a more robust  idea of suffrage which would have prevented the North German Confederation to become an empire. If Hendrickson's case for a federative system then in some way needs or implies the state to develop a humanist essence, then it does not explain why late 19th century Germany was able to federalize and not develop such an essence. Instead, if federalizations are more pre-occupied with creating a custom-built pole of influence in a Machiavellian world, then it does not matter what the individual level security forms into (regarding individual rights of either citizens or subjects) so long as the states are preserved in the ad-hoc bandwagoning effect. If that is indeed the case, then federalizations cannot claim any moral justification from preserving individual rights; considering that Hendrickson’s argument does not have a response for this charge built into his analysis of the federalization of the first American states, his ultimate argument of what federalization truly wants to create in terms of security fails.

Works Cited

Hendrickson, David C., Peace Pact: the Lost World of the American Founding, The University Press of Kansas, 2003, Lawrence, Kansas

Having your cake and eating it too; How the fight for autonomous lives leads to fighting against poverty

In this paper, I will argue that the importance of a life’s autonomy is enough moral obligation to give the excesses of people who are already living autonomous lives so that others may have a more fulfilling life. I will show that the need for an autonomous life is such that moral obligation to donate through aid agencies will supersede the wanting of things not as important as granting a person an autonomous life.

Before I begin, I must clarify the true aims of this paper. I will be focusing on the autonomy and the quality of that autonomy that all human lives share. For this paper, we will assume that in order to have a good life, one must be autonomous in the fullest extent in whatever situation, place, or state he or she resides in. We will also assume that the definition for autonomy is one that applies to how much real choice a person has to go about living his or her life in a certain locale based on the amount or access to certain goods, services, and social functions he or she has. For there to be complete autonomy, a person must fulfill the criteria [1] for all those necessary components needed to lead a normal life in relation to their place of residence. For instance, an autonomous life should be free to not only choose trivial things like food sources or perhaps even consumer goods, but also allow for some flexibility in the enrichment of one’s life. Whether it is by fulfilling a certain goal or by adopting a lifestyle that requires a unique combination of required goods and/or a specialized belief system (i.e. vegetarianism, religious beliefs etc.), one must be able to wholesomely convey these senses of autonomy. In order for that to happen, one must be in a community that has the means to support the enrichment of all people's lives and generally support their autonomy. That being said, there must be suitable conditions that in no way take away from the autonomy of people before someone is said to be living a complete life.

Taking all things into account, we can move on to understanding how poverty negatively affects autonomy. More importantly, we need to identify how lack of funds at the micro level severely limits the fulfillment of both “societal” and “stand alone” criteria of autonomy. Let's take education as a preliminary example. Education is an important aspect to a person's autonomy because of the essential building blocks it provides to further enrich a person's life. Education works to not only broaden the options of work for a person, it also expands their possible aspirations, effectively adding autonomy. Yet education is dependent on societal functions; without certain institutions and human interactions, education would be a useless requirement for autonomy unlike perhaps basic needs which stand alone as a sector of autonomy. The simple distinction of how these provisions relate to autonomy is what is important here; there are some provisions which support autonomy based on societal functions, and others that can stand alone to preserve physical life. Although those that stand by themselves may seem more important, both types are crucial to the development of autonomous lives. Applied to real world problems, the cost of education serves as its biggest threat. While many believe that education should be free (and some speculate a right as well), we know this to not be true about many poor countries. Many poor African countries in fact do not spend more than 3% of their GDP for education across primary, secondary, and tertiary schools (Guardian) and some don’t even fund education at all, while the United States invests 5.7% of its GDP (NationMaster).

This lack of support of education is in that sense a denial of education to a section of the world that could very well do with increased levels of education for all children regardless of grade level. Because spending on education is so low, it is expected that education to many families is not a given but instead a difficult choice, and in many cases another sacrifice made to simply survive. The levels of education needed to achieve autonomy then, as stated above, is not being met in countries with severe poverty. Consequentially, we can make a distinction that lack of certain goods or services does not describe poverty, but rather that poverty causes these lapses in suitable conditions, and the loss of autonomy.

Taking the importance of the positive relationship between autonomy and living a good life into consideration, we have proven that poverty has a profound effect on the quality of autonomy and therefore the quality of life of a person. We must however be cognizant of the fact that a simple demonstration like a lack of education is normally not the only factor which leads to a lessening of the quality of autonomy and one's life; even “stand alone” provisions suffer because of poverty. It seems to stand to reason then that we may feel some sort of obligation to cure poverty so that unsuitable conditions affecting autonomy disappear altogether. Yet poverty in itself is not a reason to feel morally obligated to give any aid. Thinking that simply curing poverty for the sake of increasing personal wealth is a moral obligation is a flawed argument if we develop the idea of moral obligation.

 A moral obligation is a response to an internal judgment brought about by what many would take to be a conscience in relation to an outside stimulus. How that "conscience" is developed or what develops it can be debated, but the important aspect is that moral obligations come about when there is an absolute external stimuli to which someone takes it upon him or herself to settle.  We take poverty to imply an extreme lack of funds, but we have no means to figure out at what limit one becomes impoverished. It is very difficult if not impossible to pinpoint a global poverty line. Many institutions try to strike an arbitrary line, which can help in understanding the plight of very extreme poverty cases, but it still does not answer the practical question. It seems foolish to imply that someone who is one cent above the poverty line has full autonomy whilst the person one cent below does not. Therefore, poverty must be dealt with in relative terms, not absolute terms. The conflict of autonomy on the other hand must be dealt with in absolute terms. One cannot simply have partial autonomy; there either is autonomy, or there is not autonomy. Relating the problem of autonomy and the problem of poverty then, moral obligations can only arise in problems of autonomy (absolutist) and not poverty (relativist). That is why there is only a moral obligation to ensure a full and autonomous life and not to ensure private financial security.

 This can be shown with the easy rescue case [2]. The point of the obligation in the example is not to ensure that the drowning victim be in possession of a flotation device. It is instead to ensure that the drowning victim does not end up drowning. There is a moral obligation to protect life in general, not private holdings in general. The pond example can continue to stretch our thinking as to how much one should really invest into fulfilling their personal moral obligation to ensure autonomy amongst other people. Clearly, before trying to do so, one must ensure that his or her autonomy is not put in danger. Sacrificing one's chance at an education to provide an education for another seems like the lifeguard exchanging places with the drowning victim. That somewhat defeats the purpose of embracing universal autonomy if at the end of the day there is still someone who drowns. Yet we cannot simply stand idly and try to calculate exactly how much energy and time will be sacrificed by the person tossing the life preserver in. By the time those calculations are through, the life preserver has become rather useless. Instead, we can make a simple judgment to toss the life preserver into the water because it is of no use to us, because we are not in a position of needing it. That is the key to understanding exactly where the line must be drawn.

If autonomy is to be described as the fulfilling of criteria concerning the quality of life of a person, we can imagine different categories being filled to reach a certain acceptable level. Whatever those levels may be will differ from community to community, but the concept is universal. There must be a pre-decided minimum level for each criterion that allows for any member in the community to become completely autonomous and able to enrich his or her life. Anything over those levels that grant autonomy can be seen as excess; excess that can be better used if invested in giving autonomy to those who lack the minimum basics for being autonomous. This is not to be interpreted as a redistribution endeavor. This rule simply implies that any excess of goods, funds, or social capital be not allowed to waste after a person's autonomy has been completely satisfied. There is indeed a moral obligation to not allow those things to go to waste, and rather to allow them to improve the life of someone who has diminished chances at autonomy. An example will illustrate this process. Say you are at a restaurant eating a nice dinner. You are more than wealthy enough to afford the meal, as well as the valet service outside. You go out to dinner to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary, both of which are goals or aspirations whose completion is as much of a reflection of past ability and effort as it is about personal "on the moment" enjoyment and pleasure. Once the meal is done, food scraps remain on the plate that you decide was just too big of a portion for you or anyone else at the table to handle. You therefore reject to go on any further with that meal and allow the waiter who you will tip handsomely to take the plate away from you.

Those food scraps now have two possible places to go. The landfill, where they will sit for months idly rotting away into nothing, or the coal burning plant which has been retrofitted to process food scraps as sources of energy. Clearly, the more efficient choice is to send the food scraps off to the plant where the excess food will be used to its fullest extent rather than wasting away. That is the same principle behind what level of obligation people with more than autonomous lives have to give. I'm not implying we should give out food scraps to those less fortunate than us. I am implying however that at the end of the day, people who live fully autonomous lives have gathered a certain excess of goods in many categories, an excess that we are morally obligated to donate. In some if not most cases, there is much more than "food scraps" in terms of quantity of excess in many wealthy nations. If we visit Singer's efforts, we can see that a small donation can really go a long way towards helping someone gain autonomy (Singer 90-93) in a place where the standards to achieve it are not as high as wealthier states or communities. So the argument stands clear; if one is already living an autonomous life as described by the fulfillment of criteria regarding autonomy in a community, then whatever excess is to be had in each of those criteria should be donated to those who still struggle to gain autonomy. Aid agencies will help help distribute the excess in a way where the “ratio effect” will work the best, so the donations must go there.

What happens however when someone does not have any excesses? Do they now no longer have an obligation to give? Perhaps those that barely cover the necessary autonomy and struggle to maintain it could be forgiven for not feeling the same moral obligation to help out someone else. Yet there could be people who are very well off but still feel that certain lacking aspirations need to be fulfilled before they are completely autonomous, and will therefore never be obligated to give. This makes a system so that those who are very well off and can generate copious amounts of different aspirations will continue to do so instead of generating excess to give to those in need. Essentially, one might end up paying for an infatuation with tennis rather than saving someone's life which sounds very bizarre if not downright wrong.

There are two approaches to resolving this problem. The first is the time constraint approach. If someone is so wealthy to keep continuously generating new things, they will inevitably continue to do so, only until there is a crucial time constraint. We can assume that most of the people who would be able to do this have a job that allows for them to pay for such things, but also takes away crucial time to do them in. For cases of inheritance, the lack of a job may give more hours to do things in, but not so many that would give the person a chance to circumvent there only being 24 hours in a day. In that case, there would still be considerable excess to be donated as a person may only be constrained to a handful of truly wanted aspirations which could be seen as legitimate if they stood alone.

The second approach deals with the fact of evaluating a situation dealing with no excess at all for someone who is not extremely wealthy but rather well off and technically autonomous, yet still oddly not morally obligated to give to someone who really is in need. This may require a reworking of the understanding of autonomy in order to settle the matter of aspirations. Instead of dealing with the previous definition of autonomy as including aspirations, we could have the fulfillment of autonomy include only the basic necessities of life within a community [3] and have aspirations stand alone as an optional sector. The basic necessities of life would also have to be placed in a range of acceptable values for each sector so as to determine what is absolutely needed to be autonomous and which is over-indulgence or excess. To obtain autonomy, those sectors must be fully filled and be in a stable condition. Any excess in those categories still has a moral obligation to be donated to those who still strive to achieve autonomy. In that case, aspirations become secondary values that can only be fully endorsed once autonomy has been reached, giving a greater need to fulfill the needs of autonomy for people who don’t have it as of yet. To ensure that aspirations do not become too superfluous however, a standing limit must be met as to how much people are morally obligated to donate. For this value, we can take a simple formula. People should be morally obligated to donate the same percentage of their yearly costs of maintaining aspirations to people who are still seeking autonomy, but only up to 15%. In numerical terms, if Jones is looking to spend 5% of his $60,000 yearly salary on tennis lessons ($3000), he should be prepared to spend an additional $3000 on donations.

This order may sound arbitrary, but it has its own purpose behind it. These donations only go to people who are still struggling to establish autonomy, let alone their own aspirations. Normally, these people were born, without their consent obviously, in places where the propensity to become autonomous is much lower than in other places. This is a fact often overlooked when deciding on the merits of donating and whether or not "fate" simply wanted there to be people who struggle and people who do well; donating the equivalent amount of what one would spend on his or her own aspirations forces one to look at the disparity between even having no excess and living an autonomous life apparently on the edge of not being autonomous and realizing the true cost of tennis lessons or other aspirations. I cannot simply stay here and say that aspirations are not important, but in relation to other people's plights, they do start to dwarf in importance. The 15% limit also is in no way purely arbitrary. There are people whose lives are definitely shaped by their aspirations (professional athletes for example), and asking for them to match their investment on that level seems too demanding and could possibly relieve them of their autonomy, if not permanently momentarily. The 15% also ensures that a sizable amount is donated (taking Singer's ratio example, 15% of Kobe Bryant's investment in being a great basketball player would give eyesight to many people), but this exact value can be evaluated and perhaps more precisely defined with further research about the effects 15% would have on people who truly take aspirations to describe their lives.

The main goal of this provision however is that people should be morally obligated to understand the worth of what they may take for granted put against the very real problem of lack of autonomy in people’s lives. By showing the disparity in autonomy and not funds, I have proven that a moral obligation lies in truly valuing what some take for granted or take for useless, without having to sacrifice autonomy, in hopes of helping gain autonomy to those that do not have it.

Footnotes

1.      These sectors include things such as basic needs (shelter, food, water etc.), aspirations, education, healthcare, social constructs, government aid, and cultural enrichment. In order for people to have complete autonomy, they must fulfill these criteria to their fullest extent by either investing in them (education) or paying for them up front (food and water).

2.      The easy rescue case refers to the drowning victim needing you to toss the life preserver in the water at no cost to you. Because it is so easy, you are morally obligated to go ahead and toss the life preserver in the water.

3.      The new requirements of autonomy no longer require the aspiration sector to be fully met; yet all previously mentioned sectors still need to be met.

Works Cited

NationMaster. "Education spending (% of GDP) (most recent) by country ." January 2000-2002. NationMaster Website. May 2011 <http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_spe-education-spending-of-gdp>.

Singer, Peter. The Life You Can Save. New York: Random House, 2010.

UNESCO. "African Education Spending." 2011. The Guardian Website. May 2011 <https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdEVSNzJYd29Da2c0YjFtbmE4aWh0akE&hl=en#gid=0>.

A Claim to International Sovereignty ; Why IGO's Are Weak and How They Can Be Stronger

The pace and productivity of our modern world can be summed up by one very brief question: "what have you done for me lately?". It seems that almost everything needs to be quantified, numbered and evaluated with respect to the person asking that very question in order for it to be deemed necessary or not. To most extents, it's a fair question to ask. If you run a business then that question is your second best friend right after the guy who does payroll. However, what if you weren't asking that question while running a business? What if you asked that question when you weren't really evaluating something that has a real bottom line at all? Or quarterly figures? Or any numerical metric with which to judge performance?

That sort of question and the lack of a metric with which to answer it is the bane of the existence of many international institutions, specifically IGO's, including the "big ones" like the U.N., the W.H.O., the I.C.C., etc. In theory, these organizations are tremendously powerful and beneficial to the whole human race, but in practice that is most certainly not the case. So why is that; why is it, or better yet, can an international institution have any real power?

The best way to answer this question is to start looking at the foundations that make up the call to have international institutions to begin with. Without doing that, there will be no way of understanding criticisms against them.

Historically speaking, multi-party treaties (alliances or alliance blocs of more than two states) technically serve as the world's first crack at establishing some sort of cohesion between differing state interests. However, they do not in any way form some sort of IGO where the states involved rallied around a cause other than maintaining the peace. The first sort of theory that goes so far as to explain a cause other than security itself is most likely Kant's Perpetual Peace. The main focus of Kant's work is of course in maintaining security for the state and its people, making his Perpetual Peace a world-wide alliance bloc and not an IGO. There are some interpretations of it though that attribute a partial secular personal independence that comes out of having this peace. 

Kant's call for Republican states to be part of this perpetual peace does not necessarily imply a willingness to enfranchise all citizens, but it is definitely a much more open form of government for Democratic ideals than a dictatorship or monarchy. Additionally, a structural note that Kant makes with regards to abolishing standing armies over time may sound like a security pipe-dream, but is instead a reflexive explanation rather than a direct explanation of his "utopia"; if there was no war, then there'd be no need for a standing army. Consider the fact that a standing army, even in Kant's time, was more than a nuisance to the population which was invaded by the aforementioned army, meaning that even in that regard the personal liberties of citizens was being looked after in that specific recommendation.

Unfortunately Kant's Perpetual Peace can really only be considered to be a prelude at best of the sort of IGO's we are familiar with today. The groups mentioned earlier on act as strongly on the rights of the individual as they do on the security of the state, some more so than others. Is there an explanation for why these IGO's of our time focus much more on individual rights than Kant did 150 years earlier? The 150 should give a good guess as to the time-frame we are looking for; World War II brought about the greatest push for the rights of the individual after the effects of war and the Nazi cultural cleansing machine became evident. 

If anything, the foundation of the U.N. was based solely on the hope of genocide never happening again. Even the U.N.'s predecessor, the ill-fated League of Nations, only focused on ensuring that a great war would never happen again, but only to spare the lives of millions from being taken by heads of state. Although it was a nice gesture, it cannot be considered to be a direct call to action to defend human rights like the U.N. had. The I.C.C. the W.H.O. and arguably to some extent the W.T.O. all look to better individual lives either equal to or more than ensuring security or prosperity for member states.

So the defense of individual human rights is a major concern to to those looking to establish an IGO. Is there any other reason as to why an IGO could claim  right to exist? Perhaps it comes through as an extension of individual human rights by having IGO's focus on some group rights. 

Keep in mind, IGOs are not by definition universal, though they aim to be given their belief in the democratic peace theory. Point is, there is a definite sense of exclusivity among the big IGO's; having your country be part of the U.N. or the I.C.C. at least among countries that embody their mission statements is a signal to the rest of the world that your country has "made it" on the international stage. With that comes the prestige, the member benefits if there are any, as well as the recognition of other countries of a higher respect needed to be paid than to a non-member country. In most cases, countries or groups of people look for the recognition or membership of IGO's in order to give the group itself foundations it otherwise wouldn't have, i.e. Palestine and its search for membership and nation recognition in the U.N. In that specific case, we can see that the effect of membership is notable given the United States' and Israel's opposition to allow Palestine any leeway in the U.N. (if it wasn't a big deal, the U.S. and Israel would obviously not have made such a big fuss). 

Having narrowed down the three main mission statements for modern IGO's being security, individual rights and group rights, we can begin to understand exactly why an IGO as is conceived of today cannot ever be given enough autonomy to qualitatively garner "real power". It is because only one of an IGO's mission statements is of any interest to a state, that being security. Even countries that are built from the ground up to embody the remaining two mission statements of the big IGO's having to do with human rights and would therefore be assumed to want to be in concert with said IGO's simply aren't. The United States is a prime example of this phenomenon. 

Although the United States is objectively designed to be all inclusive of all sorts of peoples and lifestyles and their connected rights (over a long period of formulation of course), ratifying UN treaties or declarations that do not have to do specifically with security interests never go down easy, if they go down at all. Just ask Rick Santorum what he thought of a UN declaration having to do with people with disabilities, and you will hear all sorts of fears having to do with U.N. sovereignty overtaking that of United States citizens, something that is quite literally impossible given the way the U.N. is set up. 

Not understanding international protocol aside, the main reason states are so reluctant to give credence to an organization like the U.N. is this deep rooted fear of being regarded as useless once the security issue is taken care of. If Kant's prescription of the elimination of a standing army were to be carried out, what would separate the United States from Canada in terms of relative power in the U.N. General Assembly? Not much is the answer, and "not much" is just enough to scare people like Mr. Santorum. If this situation sounds like a schoolyard bully asking the nerd he is currently hitting with the nerd's own hand "why are you hitting yourself?", then you're on the right track. Essentially states that complain about the U.N. having too much sovereignty are the ones that did not allow it to gain much sovereignty in the first place, and so the circle goes on and on. 

Is there a solution for this? Yes there is; take security off the table as a mission statement for IGO's. This might sound weird and counter-intuitive, but it has the best chance of success when compared to its opposite choice which would be for the IGO's of the world to somehow muster up their own sovereignty. Without international security being made an important aspect of whatever IGO is being setup, states that contribute to said IGO would no longer be forced to play a double game between security measures and protecting human rights on an international scale. That means that security dilemas would be left to regional treaties or organizations, effectively creating a "division of security" à la "division of labor". 

Meanwhile, human rights conflicts would be handled not by military brass of member countries, but instead by a mixture of both public representations of member states as well as private entities from many member states. This would not only inject much needed private accountability of human rights efforts, but it would also create a more democratic influence of member states coming from the individual level, something that would poetically complete the IGO's wanting to increase or at least protect individual rights. 

If you think about it, this has already been shown to work. The W.T.O. and the World Bank, although just as easily manipulated by the "big fish" countries in the international pond as the U.N. are generally regarded as the more efficient organizations simply because they deal with a specialized mission of economic growth and stability. The interests of the member states therefore are focused on one specific topic, instead of having to deal with security measures and therefore security based interests of member countries which as we have seen sometimes conflict with the mission statements regarding human rights. 

Security issues then seem to not be best applied to a world-wide basis, even though the potential upside of having perpetual peace would most likely be man's single greatest achievement on this planet. Again it seems counter-intuitive that we should give up on that dream, but there is nothing wrong with simply re-appropriating IGO focuses and creating a different system of world-wide security organization so long as the mission statements of human rights are given the full backing they deserve. 

So send in NATO to deal with issues like Libya and perhaps Syria if they see it fit, but send in the U.N. when you have to deal with the rights of Palestinians and Israelis who are shelled, regardless of where the shells come from. Send in the CSTO if nuclear warheads need to be tracked in Central Asia, but send in ASEAN when you want to improve the lives of millions in South-East Asia through medical care and economic growth. Without having to deal with security issues and the strings that come attached to them, IGO's focused on improving specific sectors of people's lives gain legitimacy not through the states but rather through the people they serve, hopefully one day obtaining sovereignty by achieving world-wide private backing. 

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