With regards to the international system, there are most definitely actions that states should not take because they would be deemed unacceptable by social standards.
States should not attack or declare war on countries without reason. If one state were to invade another state and steal resources or kill their people without any justification, this would be unacceptable among social norms. Our social norms and expectations are based on morals and ethics; we expect states to act with honesty and integrity, to be fair and act rationally, and to work diplomatically with one another.
In addition, states should not violate human rights. Violations would include genocide, torture, slavery, and rape, among other things. Certain basic rights apply universally and social expectations say that human rights must be upheld by justice, tolerance, and human dignity.
States seldom admit that they are going to do something (declare war in this case) without a reason. But who is to decide what is a good reason? And who would enforce that? Many would argue that the US invasion of Iraq was without good reason, but did anyone stop us? Is a a bad reason acceptable, but "no reason" is not?
ReplyDeleteAnd, as for the rest of the post, I again ask: where do these standards come from? Who decides what is a violation and what is not, and who would enforce such decisions?
We as Americans have a slightly skewed perception on the expected nature of other states. We tend to attribute social norms to shared values or principles, when really they emerge from a shared benefit. Nations tend to understand that mistreating their citizens is not beneficial to them as a state, so when other states see this violation of a basic tenet of sovereignty they react to it negatively. It is difficult to prescribe morality onto other states for the simple reason that all states do not share a moral compass. How would a state define the idea of tolerance? This ideal means something very different in the U.S. than it would in Nigeria. You mentioned that states were expected to act rationally, which is the true catalyst for the idea of social normality. States can generally share the same idea of rationality because it is generally clear what is and what is not beneficial to a state or group of states as a whole.
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