Communication, reflexivity and harm principle: what might an ideal speech situation look like in responsibility to protect?

Abstract

ABSTRACTPrevious accounts of International Relations research have extensively focused on deontological ethics in analysing Responsibility to Protect (R2P). At the same time, discourse ethics – along with Jürgen Habermas’ theory of ideal speech situation – has been overlooked. This article argues that the R2P process has gradually moved toward the Habermasian ideal speech situation. The Habermasian approach also provides a useful theoretical framework to understand the new, more inclusive and critical, forums of communication and initiatives set in motion by emerging non-Western norm-entrepreneurs in the R2P process, notably the Responsibility while Protecting (RwP) initiated by Brazil in 2011. From the perspective of discourse ethics, RwP could be understood as a cosmopolitan harm principle designed to manage the potentially harmful side-effects of the application of R2P. The article further argues that, despite the current paradigm shift of norm-entrepreneurship on R2P from deontological ethics to discourse ethics, it has thus far only partially fulfilled the criteria of an ideal speech situation.