Violating human rights agreements

The United States’ “War on Terror” and involvement in Iraq have renewed questions concerning human rights agreements and international treaties. Do nations ever have the right to violate or ignore these agreements? What conditions are seen as justifying a breech? These were the questions addressed in a study by GIPGAP in 2005.

Declaration of Human Rights, French painting
Declaration of Human Rights, France 1789. Image in public domain.

A sample of 518 participants (253 females and 218 males), at least 20 percent of whom were college students, completed the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Scale (PAIRTAPS), which includes the following item: “Sometimes a country has the right to ignore international treaties or international human rights agreements.”

Participants were asked to indicate on a scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) the extent to which they agreed with the statement, and then to explain the reasoning behind their rating scale score.

Analyses revealed that most participants could be divided into two groups:

  • Opposers—i.e., respondents who argued that governments do not have the right to violate or ignore agreements
  • Justifiers—i.e., participants who argued governments sometimes do have such a right.

Of the 518 respondents, significantly more opposed violations than justified them, but opposers and justifiers used the same types of arguments to support their positions.

For example, both opposers and justifiers appealed to characteristics of treaties to justify their scores, with opposers arguing that agreements should be respected and justifiers arguing that agreements could be ignored if they were impractical, obsolete, or unjust.

Similarly, both opposers and justifiers emphasized the positive effects and the greater good that would come from adopting their position. For instance, one opposer wrote “These treaties are for the greater good of mankind,” while one justifier wrote “Sometimes you have to ignore your morals for the good of mankind.”

What do you think about these findings? Can you think of other situations where people argue passionately in favor of two opposing positions using the exact same type of argument—e.g., “My way is more moral/more intelligent/more practical, etc. than yours”?

Why might this be? What might be done to help opponents get beyond endless debate?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post is based on the study “Attitudes toward international treaties and human rights agreements” by Kyleen Hashim and  Kathleen Malley-Morrison, published in the journal Peace Psychology, Spring/Summer 2007.

 

Government’s right to invade: National differences in views

In response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States and its allies waged war against Afghanistan. The Gallup International Terrorism Poll 2001 showed that 88% of the American public agreed with this military action.

In the months preceding the start of the Iraq war, national support for invasion never dropped below 55%, probably reflecting the Bush administration’s framing of the Iraq war as an extension of the “war on terror.”

Protest in Spain against Iraq war
Protest in Spain against Iraq war. Photo by Francisco M. Marzoa Alonso; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 license.

In contrast, the Flash Eurobarometer 151 surveyed citizens of the 15 European Union nations in 2003 and found strong opposition in some nations to the U.S. involvement in Iraq. In particular, Greeks and Spaniards viewed the U.S. as the greatest threat to peace–more threatening than Iran and North Korea.

The Group on International Perspectives on Government Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) administered the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) to ordinary people from the U.S., Greece, and Spain in 2005. We found that Americans rated a governmental right to undertake an invasion much more highly than Greeks and Spaniards.

In regard to specific arguments made by the participants in support of their ratings concerning the acceptability of invasion:

  • Significantly more Greeks and Spaniards than Americans said war is outdated or there are better ways to solve conflicts.
  • Significantly more Americans than Spaniards referred to “defense” in their explanations, including references to preemptive action in response to a threat.

What do you make of the findings of this study? Is war outdated? Are there better ways of solving conflicts?

Why might Americans seem to be more worried about defending themselves than Spaniards and Greeks? Why might there be national differences in views concerning preemptive strikes?

Do you think that if a new sample of Americans, Greeks, and Spaniards were to be asked today about the US involvement in Iraq, their opinions would have changed?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

[Note: This post was adapted from an article by Maria Daskalopoulos, Tanvi Zaveri and Kathie Malley-Morrison, in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Winter, 2006.]

Blaming the victim (Moral disengagement, part 8)

President Bush addressing the U.N.
George Bush addressing U.N. (Photo in public domain; from Wikimedia Commons)

Blaming the victim is a common form of moral disengagement when nations go to war or try to persuade their citizens to go along with an unpopular war.

There are countless examples of the Bush White House arguing that Saddam Hussein was forcing the United States to go to war against Iraq. For example, President George W. Bush, in a speech to the UN on September 13,  2002, argued that “By breaking every pledge, by his deceptions and by his cruelties, Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a February 6, 2002 briefing to the UN Security Council, continued placing the blame for the upcoming invasion of Iraq on Saddam Hussein: “We must not fail in our duty and our responsibilities. Clearly, Saddam will stop at nothing until something stops him.”

It is not only the people in power who blame the victims of violence for the violence against them. Good examples can be seen in online responses to a video, available from Wikileaks, showing American military personnel killing Reuters reporters and Iraq civilians, and wounding two children.

  • “They (the Reuters personnel) got themselves killed because they were out of their element, why were they with the enemy??”
  • “As far as the kids go the pilot said it best, they should not have brought children to a battle. Maybe their value of life is just as low if they are willing to bring children.”

What examples of blaming the victim do you hear in your own conversations or see in the media?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.

Misrepresenting or minimizing consequences (Moral disengagement, part 6)

Misrepresenting or minimizing consequences is another moral disengagement mechanism.

Psychologist Albert Bandura notes that when people commit atrocities for personal gain or as a response to social pressure, one way to offset shame and guilt is to minimize or distort the ill-effects of their behavior.

During contemporary warfare by the developed nations, this process is facilitated by modern technology, which allows maiming and killing from high in the air–thus avoiding the sight of blood, guts, and dismembered bodies; the screams of pain, pleas for help; and victims begging for an end to their ordeal.

It has been noted that the Pulitzer-prize winning photograph of the naked Vietnamese girl running from her napalmed village played a pivotal role in turning the American public against the Vietnam War.

To avoid a repetition of that kind of public disavowal of their political and military aims, more recent governments have exercised extreme control over media portrayals of wartime events.

Misrepresenting and minimizing consequences is rampant in relation to the environmental consequences of war. Among the long-lasting effects of war that are minimized right out of people’s consciousness are:

  • Sunken ships that continue to pollute the oceans
  • Landmines that continue to maim and kill
  • Hazardous waste from the manufacturing of weapons
  • Destruction and pollution of wildlife and human habitat through use of herbicidal weapons such as Agent Orange
  • Environmental degradation from the thousands of refugees fleeing the armed conflict.

(For more about environmental consequences of war, see the report of the Environmental Literacy Council.)

In reaction to the minimizing, misrepresenting, and denial of the environmental effects of war, the United Nations, in 2001, declared November 6 to be  International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Note: This post was adapted from my previously published article in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Spring, 2009.