Norm linkage as politics of legitimacy: The interaction of protection and prosecution norms in humanitarian intervention debates

面对一个国家正在犯下的大规模暴行，“国际社会”应该怎么做？自冷战结束以来，出现了呼吁国际社会干预此类案件的不同国际准则：“保护义务”，假定如果一国不愿保护其公民免受暴力侵害，国际社会应在必要时使用军事手段进行干预；以及“起诉义务”，要求国际刑事司法机制起诉在各自国家逍遥法外的暴行。尽管这两种干预准则有不同的目标--一方面是防止暴行，另一方面是惩罚暴行--但它们之间的潜在协同作用和冲突从一开始就一直在辩论：起诉能否威慑暴力和保护平民，或者它们是否会产生不断升级的影响？为保护平民而进行的军事干预是否进一步或危及国际刑事司法的目标？正在进行的关于这些问题的辩论不仅限于学术界，也有政治行为者进行。该项目审查了这一政治话语及其潜在的政治动态：在关于干预的国际辩论中，对保护和起诉义务之间的关系有哪些解释--原因是什么？本研究在定量内容分析的基础上，结合比较法和过程追踪法对本研究问题进行研究。我们能否证实一些观察家的说法，即政治行为者在战略上构建保护和起诉之间的联系，以使有争议的干预决定合法化？例如，各国政府是否利用所谓的刑事审判的威慑作用作为借口，以避免采取成本更高的军事保护措施？或者，国际社会的言论--从而最终是其集体干预实践--是由不同的因素驱动的吗？为了回答这些问题，该项目开发了一个规范联动的理论模型，该模型可以移植到其他政策领域，为国际规范的研究做出更广泛的理论贡献。根据这一模式，规范之间的积极或消极联系是由政治行为者随意构建的。这些联动话语可以由不同的动机和结构条件驱动。该项目第一阶段的重点是分析在有关达尔富尔、利比亚和叙利亚的辩论中是否可以看出战略动机，以及话语的演变是否反映了权力不平等、体制权威或先例的影响。在这些假设仅得到部分确认之后，拟议的扩展项目将使用扩大的数据库和定性比较分析(QCA)来测试将规范联系与政治行为者的文化倾向和集体学习联系起来的替代假设。

What should the „international community“ do in the face of mass atrocities being committed in a country? Since the end of the Cold War, different international norms have emerged that call for an international intervention in such cases: a “duty to protect”, which postulates that the international community should intervene with military means, if necessary, if a state is unwilling to shield its citizens from violence; and a “duty to prosecute”, which demands that atrocity crimes that would go unpunished in the respective state be prosecuted by international criminal justice mechanisms. Although both intervention norms have different objectives – the prevention of atrocities on the one hand and their punishment on the other –, potential synergies and conflicts between them have been debated ever since their inception: Can prosecutions deter violence and protect civilians, or do they have escalating effects? Do Military interventions for the protection of civilians further or jeopardize the goals of international criminal justice? The ongoing debate about these questions is not limited to academic circles, but is also conducted by political actors. The project examines this political discourse and its underlying political dynamics: Which interpretations of the relationship between protection and prosecution duties have prevailed in international debates about interventions – and why? This research question is investigated on the basis of a quantitative content analysis, combined with comparative and process-tracing methods. Can we confirm the claim by some observers that political actors construct linkages between protection and prosecution strategically to legitimize contested intervention decisions? For instance, do governments use the alleged deterrence effect of criminal trials as an excuse to avoid more costly military protection measures? Or is the international community’s discourse – and thus ultimately its collective intervention practice – driven by different factors? To answer these questions, the project develops a theoretical model of norm linkage, which can be transferred to other policy Areas to make a broader theoretical contribution to research about international norms. According to this model, positive or negative linkages between norms are discursively constructed by political actors. These linkage discourses can be driven by different Motives and structural conditions. The first phase of the project focused on analyzing whether strategic motives can be discerned in debates about Darfur, Libya and Syria, and whether the evolution of the discourse reflects the influence of power inequalities, institutional authorities or precedents. Following the only partial confirmation of these hypotheses, the proposed extension project will use a broadened database and a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to test alternative hypotheses connecting norm linkage to political actors’ cultural predispositions and to collective learning.