Counterinsurgency and Human Rights in Northern Ireland

Abstract

In most discussions of the practice of counterinsurgency (COIN) and the protection of human rights, various dichotomies and metaphors are employed. First among these is the idea that protecting individuals’ security as well as their human rights is a zero-sum game in which a gain on one side necessarily means a deficit on the other. A second, related, position is that, while individuals may have rights, society as whole has overarching interests which necessarily trump those rights for the sake of some greater good. A third is that protecting human rights and using physical force are inimical to each other — human rights, allegedly, cannot be protected by force because that somehow destroys their raison d’être. And, fourthly, some take the view that whenever the chips are really down — in a war, or a situation of grave national danger — standards on human rights must be replaced by standards on humanitarianism: it is enough, at those times, to be humane to others, but it is unnecessary to respect their rights.