International Courts and Peacetime Espionage: A Study of State Behavior
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2019
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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Thesis
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Award
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eng
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Dark Archive until 2039-01-01, afterwards Haverford users only.
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Abstract
The puzzle in my thesis stems from why in certain situations states have opted to using international courts as the response to an espionage incident in peacetime. International courts do not deliver results quickly, they are not completely under the control of the state, and can only work if states accept their rulings. Therefore it is unusual that a state would want to resolve a violation of their security by using the courts, particularly if the violation has to do with the theft of sensitive information. Methodology In my thesis I used qualitative analysis on three test case studies. For each test case, I will also provide a control case where a state did not use an international court to address an incident involving peacetime espionage. In this section I will discuss my sources, the dependent variable, the independent variables, and my universe of cases. The dependent variable for this thesis is defined as an incident of peacetime espionage that is taken to an international court. It must be an interstate case where the states involved are not engaged in armed conflict with each other. While espionage need not be the only reason involved in the case, it must be a principal reason. H1: States are more likely use an international court when they seek to avoid raised tensions with the perpetrator through more direct means. H2: States are more likely to use international courts when using the court is deemed the most effective mechanism available to them. H3: States are more likely to use the international courts for peacetime espionage if they are committed adherents to international institutions. The first case I will discuss will be Nicaragua v. United States, which was decided by the International Court of Justice in 1986. On April 9, 1984 Nicaragua filed an Application instituting proceedings against the United States of America, together with a request for the indication of provisional measures concerning a dispute relating to responsibility for military and paramilitary activities, including espionage, in and against Nicaragua. The second case is the Republic of East Timor-Leste v. Australia. The Australia–East Timor spying scandal began in 2004 when the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) planted listening devices in the Timor-Leste Cabinet Office to obtain information for negotiations with Timor-Leste over the rich oil and gas fields in the Timor Gap. The final case is currently ongoing and involves India and Pakistan. Following Pakistan’s arrest of Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav who was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court on charges of espionage and terrorism, India responded by invoking international diplomatic protections for Jadhav. India petitioned the ICJ in May of 2018, and the case is ongoing. I also compiled three control cases to test. In all of these cases the state that was the victim of a peacetime espionage operation chose not to make an appeal to an international court. I am using these cases to assess my hypotheses and provide comparisons to strengthen the analysis. In the next chapter, I will present the cases as pairs, with the test case first and the control case second. Table 1. Test Cases Case East Timor v. Australia Pakistan v. India Nicaragua v. United States Hypothesis 1 Low Low Low 2 High Pakistan: High India: High Medium 3 Low Pakistan: Low India: Medium Low Table 2. Control Cases Case Indonesia v. Australia India v. Pakistan Nicaragua v. United States Hypothesis 1 Low High Low 2 High High Medium 3 Low Low Low Research Limitations Because of the rare nature of the phenomenon studied in this thesis, and the lack of scholarly literature that deals directly with how states respond to espionage violations, it is difficult to show the significance of the findings in this thesis.