Omer F Sahbaz

“The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war,” says Desiderius Erasmus, a famous Dutch philosopher, and scholar whose name is living among young people and students across Europe by building cultural bridges. Indeed, a permanent peace is what most rulers have been seeking since the first-known peace agreement in history, the Treaty of Kadesh signed between two ancient hostile parties Egypt and Hittites in 1259 BC.  Since then, history noted numerous clashes, disagreements, and especially wars that brought us a ground which we now impetuously seek for a plausible solution even though we all have medley and varied cultural and sociological roots. However, it could be easefully suggested from what history taught us that the one never shifts among today’s states is war itself. It seems like war unites nations besides peace. Countries and governments act almost the same in the time of order and conflict that they are keen to justify their actions conceivably.

Ever since the humankind has existed, a seek for protection has been occupying the agenda in politics both physical and legal, especially in terms of international relations. In order to learn the advancements throughout history, the doctrine has been spending notable efforts to figure out a balance within stakeholders of interest-maximizers. In order to justify and defend a right, there is a need a platform. In the very first, as far as recorded history, Hammurabi, the sixth king of Babylonian dynasty designed and published a code for his citizens.

The above quote is taken from the now famous “Ballot or Bullet” speech in 1964, where Malcolm X spoke about the issue of discrimination against black people in the United States of America. “Human rights”, which today form the foundations of International Law, have been controversial in the development of civilization since the 6th century B.C. Cyrus the Great freed all the slaves after he conquered the city of Babylon. Although the answer to the question: “What was the motivation behind freeing the slaves?” remains uncertain, historians perceive the act of Cyrus as an example of early leanings towards a Human Rights perspective.

Humankind has searched a reasonable solution to settle all minor frictions, thenceforward it existed. An eminent reflection, 30 Years’ War resulted with The Westphalian Treaties which would be considered “The Big Bang” of a universal discipline, International Relations. It all started with the treaties as newly emerging inter-state relations for reciprocal sovereign recognition and advance consistently its path by coining unique notions through history with the help of several scholars such as ‘the father of liberal idea’, John Locke who drew the boundaries of liberalism after English Civil War. Following Locke’s way, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, and Richard Cobden contributed the liberal idea virtually. When the first total war emerged, the world entered subsequently an era of ideological clashes. World War I (“WWI”) was a consequence shifting ‘ancient’ world order to a one which would be created as an array of contemporary thoughts.

Since the Treaties of Westphalia, international society and significant peace treaties agreed between counter-parties of the Thirty Years’ War, have been seeking softer and humane ways to bury their differences. The balance of power being conducted by international actors costs more than a million people’s lives to maintain the newfound system. This is not only because the notion of war has driven the contemporary states into snarled-predicament, but also because of these unending passions of being more powerful than ever. From the Thirty Years’ War to World War Two (WWII), the stakeholders of international world heritage worked to establish universal human rights in spite of the contest among states between the ideologies of realism and liberalism. Regarding the United Nations (UN), some say the successor of the League of Nations (LoN), was found when the LoN failed to keep the so-called peace after World War One (WWI) and failed to prevent the outbreak of WWII, one of the most barbarous incidents in history, which resulted in a certain pursuit of constant peace.

Since the foundation of the United Nations, the use of force, as the fundamental and unrepeatable part of its Charter, has proved problematic for both intervening states and the state being intervened with. The disciple, however, is often exploited by countries in the name of humanitarian purposes, mostly, in fact, by the Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council themselves. To facilitate a more sophisticated understanding of this exploitation, the present thesis adapts and develops a critical analysis along the lines of responsibility to protect paradigms. This allows the correlation of the historical connection to the evolution of theory and practice that emerged in Kosovo, gained precedent in Libya, to where it failed in Syria. The research thus has a multifaceted purpose. On the one hand, it examines the philosophical and historical background of the responsibility to protect theory from the establishment of its moral foundation; on the other, the study focusses on two diametrically opposing cases that academics witnessed; the doctrine adumbrates its influence in debates. Additionally, the research lays out the paradox in theory with the dilemma that states strike. Accordingly, it attempts to provide a valuable contribution to current attention being paid to the use of responsibility to protect civilians as an international law instrument.

The research aims to starkly illustrate a regional issue, the Syrian puzzle, from the perspective of a blend of international and domestic law. It will mostly consider the reasons why Turkey has reservations, to what extent these reservations are of use, what legal regulations can be expected from Turkey to ease the pain of Syrian people living in Turkey, and the differences between Turkey and other countries that have accepted Syrians who escaped, in terms of finding a permanent solution.
It is argued that Turkey has been overcoming the crisis with some minor mistakes. The author tries to explain the further legal efforts that it is necessary for Turkey to make. After examining the problems that affect both sides, the terminologies for being a refugee in Turkish law will be defined for the reader.
The research is narrowed to Syrians in Turkey, comparison with other regions, and Turkish legislation. The analysis is limited to the period in which Syrians started move to neighboring countries up until the end of 2018 because the conflict is still topical. This study is the output of an idea of offering ongoing legal suggestions based on the basic principles of law and in light of universal ethical values about the confused legal statuses of the people who came from Syria to settle in Turkey or who have come from the divisions of combat in several territories in the wracked country of Syria.