1 HIST 104A Intervention and International Law in World History Co-ordinated Arts Program & Department of History University of British Columbia Fall 2018 Instructor: Timothy Brook, Buchanan Tower 1117 tim.brook@ubc.ca Office hours: Wednesday 3:00 to 4:00, Thursday 9:30 to 10:30 Lectures Tuesday and Thursday 11:00 to 12:20 Tutorial Assistants: Aaron Molnar aaron.molnar@alumni.ubc.ca Ryan Sun ryan.sun@alumi.ubc.ca The concepts of state sovereignty and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states emerged with the rise of the modern state since the 16th century. These concepts were new and came to restructure the legal relations among states. As the conditions and costs of conflict changed, so too did the instruments and institutions used to manage conflict and assure sovereignty: treaties, conventions, laws, even war crimes tribunals, the sum total of which is what we call international law. This course takes a historical rather than legal approach to this history, asking when and how the norms and laws guiding international relations came about. The material we cover dates from 1493 to the present, and the incidents we study extend across the globe. The course is organized around ten themes grouped into four units. We begin in Europe in the 15th to 17th centuries, turn to Asia in the 16th to 18th, examine the impact of World War II in Asia in te 20th, and then explore postwar institutions from the United Nations to the (Canadian) doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in the 20th and 21st. Readings All readings, with one exception, are available on the course website: http://www.history.ubc.ca/course/history-104a-227-topics-world-history-stateintervention-and-international-law-world-history The exception is Nick Cullather s Secret History. This book can be read online @ UBC Library, but a limited number of paper copies are available at the Bookstore for students who prefer to read books on paper rather than on a screen. The reading load for this course is moderate, but the texts assigned demand close attention. Read slowly and do the assigned readings before you come to class.
2 Assignments and Grading In-class short essay (Tuesday October 2) 5% Mid-term exam (Thursday October 18) 20% Essay (due at noon on Monday November 19) 20% Topic: Write a commentary on a section of Resolution 36/103 of the UN General Assembly (1981) in the light of what you have learned in the course. Do not tackle the entire document. Identify one section and ask what the UN General Assembly was arguing for and against, what principles it called upon, and what results it sought. 1500 words. Final exam (December exam period) 35% The exam is in 3 parts: (1) short identifications of people, events, and treaties discussed in the course; (2) three essay questions, of which you answer two; and (3) one mandatory essay question: Was the doctrine of R2P a breakthrough in the development of international law, or a reversal? Justify your view by drawing on at least three examples from the course. Tutorial attendance and participation 20% Tutorials are for talking about the readings, raising questions, debating issues, and discussing assignments. Your grade depends on preparation and participation: A: outstanding I did all the readings, attended every session, actively joined discussion, and responded thoughtfully to others B: Good I did most of the readings, came to most sessions, took some part C: Satisfactory I did some of the readings but rarely spoke D: Poor I sometimes came and listened, but didn t participate F: Fail I didn t even manage that much Academic integrity Academic integrity within the university means acknowledging the contributions of others to the work we produce. We don t buy or copy papers or have someone else edit them. We don t falsify data or sources or hand in the same work in two courses. Any instance of cheating or taking credit for someone else s work, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will result in receiving a grade of zero for the assignment. Other penalties may be assigned at the discretion of the Department Chair, the First-Year Programs Chair, and the Faculty of Arts Associate Dean, Academic. For University policies on plagiarism and other academic misconduct, see: http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=3,54,111,959 On how to cite the work of others in a way that acknowledges your sources, consult the History Department Writing Centre: http://www.history.ubc.ca/content/common-questions-about-citations Social contract Learning is an interactive process, and the lecture hall and classrooms are the social platforms for that learning. In the first meeting we will talk about how we will work together, and on that basis of that discussion draw a social contract governing our time together. * * * * *
3 Lectures and Readings Thursday Sept 6 Course introduction: Law of nations Week 1 Unit 1 Europeans encounter the world 1. Rights of conquest and occupation Week 2 Tuesday Sept 11 Columbus returns n Pope Alexander VI, Inter caetera (1493) Thursday Sept 13 The Treaty of Tordesillas n Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), excerpts Tutorials meet for the first time this week to discuss the course and get to know one another. 2. Right of indigenous populations Week 3 Tuesday Sept 18 The Spanish conquest of Mexico n Bartholomé de las Casas, Thirty Propositions, in Early Modern Spain: A Documentary History, ed. Jon Cowans (2003), pp. 64-68 (following the section on Sepulveda) Thursday Sept 20 The debate at Valladolid, 1550 n Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Just War in the Indies (1547), in Early Modern Spain: A Documentary History, ed. Jon Cowans (2003), pp. 58-63 n Bartholomé de las Casas, Summary of Sepúlveda s Position, in In Defense of the Indians, pp. 11-16 n Immanuel Wallerstein, Whose Right to Intervene? in European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power (2006), ch. 1 Tutorial debate: Come prepared to defend Las Casas or Sepúlveda (you won t get to choose). 3. Rights of navigation and sovereignty Week 4 Tuesday Sept 25 The Santa Catarina and the open sea n Grotius, Freedom of the Seas (1609), pp. 12-25, 51-53 n John Selden, Of the Dominion or Ownership of the Sea (1652), excerpts n United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), articles 1-9, 17-21 Thursday Sept 27 The Peace of Westphalia, 1648 n Peace Treaty between the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France, excerpts Tutorial debate: What are the principles of Westphalia? Do they apply today? Unit 2 Asian inter-state relations 4. China s relations with the world Week 5 Tuesday Oct 2 The tribute system n Timothy Brook et al., Sacred Mandates: Asian International Relations since Chinggis Khan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), pp. 57-70, 88-89 Thursday Oct 4 Portuguese intervention in China, 1514-17 n Timothy Brook, Trade and Conflict in the South China Sea: China and Portugal, 1514-1523, in A Global History of Trade and Conflict since 1500, ed. Lucia Coppolaro and Francis Mackenzie (Basingstsoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 20-37 Tutorial discussion: How does the tribute system differ from Westphalia?
4 5. Relations among rulers in Inner Asia Week 6 Tuesday Oct 9 Mongolian and Tibetan traditions of inter-polity relations Thursday Oct 11 Manchu intervention in Tibet, 1717-20 n Timothy Brook, Tibet and the Chinese World-Empire, in Empires and Autonomy, ed. Stephen Streeter et al. (UBC Press, 2009), pp. 24-40 Tutorial question: Choose the perspective of one of the polities in play in Tibet in the 1710s Tibetans, Manchus, Mongols, Zunghars, or Chinese and come prepared to explain their course of action. Tuesday Oct 16 Tibet in the People s Republic of China Week 7 n Seventeen Point Plan for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet (1951) Thursday Oct 18 Mid-term exam No tutorial this week. Unit 3 World War II and the remaking of international law 6. The rules of war Week 8 Tuesday Oct 23 Japan s invasion of China, 1937 n Timothy Brook, ed., Documents on the Rape of Nanking (Ann Arbor: University of Chicagan Press, 2000): Introduction (pp. 1-23) Thursday Oct 25 Japan s conduct in China and the Pacific n Brook, Documents on the Rape of Nanking: Hsu Shu-hsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone (pp. 1-18); The Family Letters of Dr. Robert Wilson (pp. 207-227) Tutorial questions: How is war appropriately restricted? Can such restrictions be guaranteed? Is the protection of civilians more important than winning a war? Do circumstances justify collaboration? 7. War crimes as international law Week 9 Tuesday Oct. 30 The invention of war crimes n The Lieber Code (1863), excerpts n Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928) n Charter of the International Military Tribunal (Nuremberg), excerpts Thursday Nov 1 The Tokyo trial n International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo): Indictment n Brook, Documents on the Rape of Nanking: IMTFE Judgment, pp. 257-97 Tutorial debate: Was justice done at the Tokyo trial? Unit 4 Between non-intervention and intervention 8. The regime of absolute sovereignty Week 10 Tuesday Nov 6 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 n The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Thursday Nov 8 US intervention in Guatemala 1954: events n Nick Cullather, Secret History, chs. 1-3 Tutorial issue: Cullather has written a book with an argument. What is it, and how does he unfold it for the reader?
5 9. Forms of intervention Week 11 Tuesday Nov 13 US intervention in Guatemala 1954: consequences n Nick Cullather, Secret History, ch. 4 and Afterword Thursday Nov 15 The responsibility to protect n The Responsibility to Protect (2001), pp. 1-18 Tutorial issue: Was US policy in Guatemala necessary for its regional objectives? Were there alternatives to covert operations? 10. Practices of intervention Week 12 Tuesday Nov 20 Peacekeeping and the emergence of R2P Guest speaker: Professor Heidi Tworek n The Responsibility to Protect (2001), pp. 29-37, 61-75 Thursday Nov 22 Challenging the responsibility to protect Guest speaker: Professor Paul Evans, Institute for Asian Research, UBC n Introduction to Rory Stewart and Gerald Knaus, Can Intervention Work? (2011) n Fabrice Weissman, "'Not in Our Name': Why Médecins sans Frontières does not Support the 'Responsibility to Protect'," Criminal Justice Ethics 29:2 (August 2010), pp. 194-207 Tutorial debate: Stewart or Weissman? To intervene or not to intervene? Tuesday Nov 27 Drones: the ultimate intervention? Week 13 n Living under Drones @ http://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/living-under-drones.pdf, pp. 1-15, 103-124, 138-146 Thursday Nov 29 Review: themes and questions Tutorial: Course review
6 How to Read a Text Texts are intentional: they are not simply "there" to be read but have been "put there" to influence opinion, at the time or in the future. Texts are never perfect mirrors, either of reality or of the author's mind. Think of them instead as artifacts manufactured to project meanings and produce effects. As no time or place is the ever unchanging, every text is shaped by the circumstances in which it appeared and the audience it sought to persuade, Texts disagree, so every text that enters the documentary record has to be accounted for. Here are some questions that might help you figure out what a text "says": mechanics: who wrote it? when was it written? when was it published, if ever? what language was it written in? what language was it published in? what language are you reading it in? if it s not in the original, does that matter? when was it read? who might have read it? are you one of the readers for whom it was intended? meanings: what does the author say? how does the author say it? what is its genre (i.e., is it a biography, novel, diary, memoir, legal judgment, satire?) how does the genre influence what gets said and shape how the author says it? what does the author avoid saying or refuse to say? can you detect tension between the said and the unsaid? effects: what is the author's point of view? (i.e., what does the author think s/he is saying?) why does the author hold that point of view? is the author aware of competing points of view? what effects does the author seek to produce? what effects has this text produced over time? has it had consequences? if it has, why?