Recently an old university colleague put on Facebook the statement: "Asylum is a human right". I was very temped to put a sarcastic or ironic comment, but luckily stopped myself from doings so as I'm sure it would just be viewed as cruel and unnecessary. Why unnecessary? Well her intentions were no doubt good and she has always been a humanitarian and in that I admire her. Yet, her comment displayed a naive view of both International Relations and Philosophy (N.B. we studied International Relations together at university).
The problem which she aptly displayed is that asylum involves the crossing of a political border and the shelter within a third party state. These very terms indicate the constructed nature of each and hence their in-congruent relationship with human nature. Not in-congruent in that humans cannot live with such concepts but rather that from a philosophical perspective these terms: state, asylum, etc, do not match the accepted terms of human nature. We understand human nature as something inherent and innate to humans. Therefore how can an obvious construct such as a state be at the same time instrumental in a human right, that is, Asylum? If a human right is to exist it must pre-date any man-made construct.
This inevitably begs the question as to what extent human rights are universal. To understand this we must first discuss what are human rights. Does a right exist prior to it being legislated upon? My instinct and empathy says yes of course it does. I want to believe that regardless of any written law, there is a basic truth that exists separate to society and legal procedures. Yet philosophically speaking this is very difficult to prove. A very good summary of the problem exists here:
I am interested in any views as to how this effects the UN's Responsibility to Protect resolution. In order to declare war we must be sure in our minds that such a right exists or else we risk being imperialistic in our actions.To bring this all back into some vague relationship with Poland and the main theme of this blog. Poland entered into two wars in the last decade and in many ways got its fingers burnt. In the future it may be temped to stop interacting on a grand scale altogether; yet if it does this it risks slipping back into the international isolation that existed during the communist era. More concretely though, by not being able to define its humanitarian credentials it risks its domestic ethical ideals. Only through a strong and robust demonstration of beliefs can a country affirm its defining concepts.
Therefore the extent to which Poland is truly an ethical state will be shown by its foreign policy. So far as proven on the Belarus front, all is looking good :)
