Sovereignty Amidst Terror
RABKIN, JEREMY
Sovereignty Amidst Terror Every terrorist lives in a nation-state, which is accountable for him. BY JEREMY RABKIN NOW THAT EVERYONE AGREES we are at "war," it is time to think seriously about what...
...The victims of this failure are entitled to take up necessary policing duties on their own...
...But he did not deny the principle that a state is authorized to protect itself when a neighboring state fails to repress such threats from across the border...
...They have reasons of their own to be fearful of Islamist extremism and international terror networks...
...To those who regard all this as anachronistic, we should be more forthright...
...Can we police outside our borders...
...But this privilege comes with a price...
...This sort of thing is more than a distraction...
...One thing we must therefore ask of our "allies" in Europe is that they at least put aside their fantasies of an international criminal court which would judge the legality of American actions...
...When we do take military action, however, we must judge for ourselves the appropriateness of our measures...
...If Europeans want to be neutral in the coming war, they should at least be told to respect the classic duty of neutrals—which is to refrain from judging the belligerents...
...In planning our responses, we should not expect a great deal of military assistance from Europe or perhaps from many other countries...
...The principle remains very sound...
...And in war, toppling the other side's government is a time-honored tactic...
...Now it may be that states that have sponsored terror at a deniable distance have lost control of the most fanatic terrorist cells...
...Now that we have been attacked, no international court should presume to judge how we react in defending ourselves...
...Jeremy Rabkin teaches international law at Cornell University...
...So the Palestinian Authority, which is not recognized as a sovereign state (and does not even claim to be one), is allowed to send delegates to international forums as if it were...
...Americans who are eager to fight back may be tempted, on the other hand, to dismiss all talk about the rights of sovereign states...
...Israel is told that it cannot interfere in "Palestinian territory," but the Palestinian Authority is not responsible for terrorist actions launched from that territory...
...One American was killed in the resulting scuffle...
...That means it is much in our interest to keep the focus on terrorism—that is, on basic security—and not let ourselves get distracted by pompous rhetoric about democracy, liberty, or human rights...
...Let this be clear...
...The terror menace has reached the scale it now has because too many countries—including our own—have been too willing to replace the historic claims of sovereign states with ineffectual and hypocritical international "understandings...
...A victim state is then justified when it acts in self-defense against the host state, even if the host state has indulged terror networks by negligence or fear rather than deliberate malice...
...It is more than enough...
...That's what we should be fighting for...
...War is a relation between sovereign states...
...No international court has any means to seize terrorists or to force harboring states to surrender them...
...But we can hope to see them replaced with regimes that know the price of their independence is reliable cooperation in suppressing terror attacks on outsiders...
...When a state fails to suppress international terrorist networks, operating on its own territory, it is answerable to the countries targeted by the terrorists...
...What is true for "Palestine" is true, in greater or lesser degree, for Syria, Libya, Iraq, and other sponsors of terror...
...The United States promptly apologized, cooperated in rounding up Fenians in New York, and offered compensation to Britain...
...Or they are entitled to regard host state failings as justification for war— against the sponsoring or negligent states...
...No international court can protect us against outside attack...
...We have allowed them to connive with international terror, so long as they keep it below a certain acceptable level—and target it away from Europe or North America...
...The usual voices—from the European Union and its various agents of influence in America—warn us about the importance of "international cooperation...
...When armed men are shooting back, of course, "policing" may have little to do with lawyerly notions of due process...
...Shortly after our Civil War, Irish nationalists tried to strike at the British Empire by launching a raid into Canada from American territory...
...The first point to grasp is that, if we take words seriously, there is no such thing as "war" against abstractions like "terror"—or "drugs" or "poverty...
...China and Pakistan, for example, may prove valuable partners in some of our efforts...
...It follows from the basic idea of sovereignty...
...It can involve any force required to abate the violence...
...But we should certainly strive to get as much cooperation from other countries as we can...
...They cannot be expected to join a campaign for democracy, however, and it is no credit to democracy to enlist China and Pakistan under its banner...
...conference...
...In the campaign against terrorism, pledging respect for the national sovereignty of our partners can be an asset and should not be seen as a reluctant concession...
...If the host state won't take action, the victim state is entitled to do so...
...The United States now stands in the front rank of the victim states...
...But the principle remains: If states do not suppress international terrorist operations on their own territory, they are failing in their most basic obligations...
...We do not hold them to the standard of sovereign states...
...A sovereign state is obligated to ensure that its territory is not used as a launching pad for attacks on the territory of other states...
...Right now it is our business to fight international terrorism, not any and all things of which we may disapprove...
...That is the duty of sovereign states...
...At minimum, we will need a lot of cooperation in gathering intelligence and closing escape routes for terrorist networks...
...But now, more than ever, clear thinking about sovereignty is vital...
...In the classical conceptions of international law, sovereign states can deny outside powers the right to interfere in their own territory: That's what sovereignty means...
...This is not a doctrine invented in recent times by a starry-eyed U.N...
...So, for example, in 1842, British forces entered American territory from Canada to seize and destroy a ship loaded with arms for anti-British rebels in Canada...
...There can be reasonable dispute about the timing and degree of defensive action, but not about the principle...
...One state can only be expected to respect the territorial integrity of another when it is safe for it to do so...
...The rest is merely policing—or empty rhetoric...
...Secretary of State Daniel Webster protested that the British action was precipitate...
...BY JEREMY RABKIN NOW THAT EVERYONE AGREES we are at "war," it is time to think seriously about what that means...
...We may not replace the dictatorships of Saddam Hussein or Bashar al-Assad with a western-style democracy...
...It is a challenge to our own national rights...
Vol. 7 • October 2001 • No. 3
