Letters

The triple lock, neutrality and sovereignty

Adapting to a changing world

Fri Dec 08 2023 - 00:16

Sir, – As Ben Tonra has pointed out, the elimination of the requirement for a UN mandate to deploy in excess of 12 members of our Defence Forces overseas has no bearing on Ireland’s policy of “military neutrality” (“Will ditching the triple lock damage our neutrality or vindicate our sovereignty?”, Opinion & Analysis, December 5th). That policy, which long predates the triple lock and means whatever we decide it to mean, will continue, triple lock or no. It should, however, be noted that our somewhat unique application of “military neutrality” did not prevent us from joint planning with UK for certain eventualities during the second World War. Neither did it prevent us from failing to intern Allied airmen, or permit our airspace from being used by Allied forces in Northern Ireland during that conflict. It does not, and should not, prevent us from providing military training to Ukraine. Abandoning the triple lock does not mean that we will necessarily ignore the requirement for UN sanction for any proposed deployment. It is difficult to envisage circumstances in which we would seek to avoid such approval. It does, however, give Ireland back its sovereign right to have the freedom to do so, should Dáil Éireann so decide. It is worth reminding ourselves that, in the context of the Lisbon Treaty, and specifically its mutual assistance provisions, Ireland retained the right to “determine the nature of aid . . . to the victim . . . of armed aggression”. If we assert our right, as we do by virtue of provisions in Article 29 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, to retain sovereign decision making over deployment of our Defence Forces in the context of armed aggression against a fellow EU member state, the logic of giving a veto to the Russian Federation, the US, the UK, China, or even fellow EU member France, in a wider context, escapes me. – Yours, etc,

MICHAEL O’DWYER,

Clogheen,

Co Cork.

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Sir, – Donal McGrath muddies the ethical, legal and political issues stirred up by the weapons training of foreign troops at Kilworth Camp (Letters, December 6th). He claims that Nato “involvement” (an endlessly slippery term) in the Balkans was “mandated” by Security Council Resolution 1244. But that was in June 1999, some three months after Nato’s bombardment. The Independent Commission on Kosovo, in its Kosovo Report (2000), deemed the bombardment illegal, as did UN secretary general Kofi Annan. We could all profitably reread the report’s chapter six, “International Law and Humanitarian Intervention”. This extends maximum charity to claims that “justification” trumps legality, but details the inevitable dragons’ teeth – and foretells their bitter harvest. It nails the “sense of ex-post UN legitimacy” as conferring an “aura of legality” on Nato’s action. It questions whether Nato was a “suitable agent” for intervention. It deems Nato’s claims of UN failure “somewhat self-serving”, given Nato’s own contribution to that situation. It warns that “much of the non-Western world remains unconvinced”, and predicts increased use of the veto. It regrets the failure even to seek a Security Council mandate or to turn to the General Assembly under the 1950 Resolution “Uniting for Peace”.

This sorry catalogue adds weight to Prof Ray Murphy’s argument for reforming the UN rather than beating a retreat from it with Nato (Opinion & Analysis, December 5th). We have recently had reason to ask where and when war actually “works”, as even the format of driving licences recently proved inflammatory in Pristina, and Serbia built up forces on Kosovo’s border in response to continued unrest, some quarter-century after Nato’s “humanitarian solution”. But with Kilworth as with Kosovo: boots on the ground, planes in the air, and the “aura of legality” will follow in undue course. – Yours, etc,

JOHN MAGUIRE,

(Professor of Sociology

Emeritus, UCC),

Dublin 4.