Just as states have had to evolve basic rules, norms, and institutions to regulate society for (hopefully) the common good, so the international community must do the same. Indeed, contrary to general perceptions the level of global governance is already enormous and growing daily. When it comes to the intervention challenge, however, the necessary rules, norms, and institutions clearly have yet to evolve in ways that are generally acceptable. In this task, much can be learnt from how states have typically addressed and reconciled what are quite similar sources of contention in the exercise of domestic governance.
On the face of it, this argument requires a truly massive suspension of disbelief. The respective challenges of domestic and global governance would appear to be so fundamental different as to yield any useful insights. Of these, the absence of a supreme governing authority at the global level capable of replicating the "law and order" functions of the state is clearly paramount. States, as Max Weber famously observed, maintain order and govern by monopolizing the legitimate use of force over a given territory and population. This is accepted by its citizens (and paid for by them) in return for national security and public safety as part of the underlying social contract. The governed will typically insist that those doing the governing will execute these responsibilities according to broadly agreed rules that are usually expressed in the form of constitutions, bills of rights and enacted law. Various checks and balances are usually also put in place to ensure that the rules are faithfully and uniformly observed by the governing authorities, especially in exceptional cases when certain rules may be suspended temporarily for the common good.
Establishing equivalent arrangements at the international level―essentially a global government capable of monopolizing the use of force―is generally considered impractical given the prevailing nature of the system of sovereign states, while for many, it is highly undesirable.31 It is the basic reason why the "domestic analogy"―the term that many international relations specialists use to refer to the presumptive reasoning that believes that the essential institutions and mechanisms that sustain order within states can be reproduced to preserve order between them―has been frequently rejected.32 Yet looked at more closely there are in fact many interesting parallels as well as useful precedents from the domestic arena that can be of use for the purpose of global governance in general and, more specifically, for the task of addressing the most contentious questions relating to humanitarian intervention.33
Taking first the most vexing question, namely whether the right to intervene for humanitarian purposes transcends the right of states to conduct their domestic affairs without external interference, a clear parallel can be drawn between the right of individuals in all democratic societies to conduct their affairs as they wish within the confines of their own property and the right of the state representing the interests of the community to uphold its laws within the confines of its jurisdiction. The tension between the two is typically resolved by acknowledging either implicitly or explicitly that the right to individual privacy and non-interference is preeminent but not unconditional. Private citizens do not have a license to ignore or break society's rules just because they are within an otherwise legal "sanctuary." There is, therefore, a presumption―indeed expectation―on the part of the state that its citizens will "govern" their private spaces in a way that is not harmful or disturbing to others, neighbors and occupants included.34
