WSU International Law Studies Winter Speaker Series 2009 Honduran 'coup' a fait accompli-- Professors discuss the international promotion of democracy

By John Minnis Legal News Wayne State University Law School students and faculty got a good immersion into the murky depths of international law Wednesday, Feb. 24, during a discussion of the Honduran "coup" of 2009. Part of the law school's Winter Speaker Series of the Program for International Legal Studies, political science professor Sharon Lean and associate law professor Brad Roth spoke on "International Promotion of Democratic Government: The Strange Case of the 2009 Honduran Coup." "The idea that international actors should be promoting democracy around the world has gotten a bad rap since the Iraq War," said International Law Studies Director Gregory Fox, who co-edited Democratic Governance and International Law with professor Roth. "(But) since the end of the Cold War, a lot of money has been spent on promoting democracy without war." He said there has also been widespread international monitoring of elections, and mechanisms have been created to react to interruptions of democratic states. "There is a fairly extensive legal framework," he said. Political science professor Lean, co-author of "Promoting Democracy in the Americas," gave a brief history lesson on the Organization of American States, "the world's oldest regional international organization." The OAS was chartered in 1948, though its predecessors go back to the 19th century. The OAS's role was to promote stability, non-interference and representative democracy, but mainly it was to ward off the spread of communism. The OAS was pretty much ineffectual, Lean said, and the United States did not interfere with non-democratic dictatorships and military regimes as long as they were not communist. Then in 1991, the OAS adopted the Santiago Commitment to Democracy and the Renewal of the Inter-American System, a commitment to "strengthening representative democracy." Member nations became less concerned about outside intervention and pressured non-representative governments to reform. In 2001, the OAS adopted the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which declared "the peoples of the Americas have a right to democracy and that their governments have an obligation to defend it." "It committed the OAS to promoting democracy," Lean said. "(But) most scholars believe application of the charter has been uneven. Overall, the record looks as one of selective intervention. It has succeeded in maintaining low-quality democracies." Honduran rule, she said, has been dominated by military rule and American intervention. The CIA established a training base there as early as 1954, and the United States has used Honduras as a staging area for interference in neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador. The huge influx of U.S. dollars corrupted the Honduran military. "It is really not a stellar period for the Honduran military during the 1980s," Lean said. Since 1980, the Liberal and National Parties have dominated Honduran politics, though both are relatively conservative. In 2005, Liberal Party candidate Manuel Zelaya was elected president by 49 percent of the vote. Once in office, Zelaya departed from the party platform and became a populist leader. He increased the minimum wage and joined a regional alliance with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and other leaders in Latin America as a counter to the policies of the United States. "Although he was doing some things that did not reflect his party's platform," Lean said, "he was very popular among the populace." In 2008, Zelaya began calling for a fourth box added to the November 2009 ballot asking voters if they wished to call a "constituent assembly," a constitutional convention. Opponents felt Zelaya was seeking to eliminate term limits in order to stay in office. Zelaya countered that since he could not run for election in 2009, the argument was specious. According to the Honduran constitution, the National Congress can modify the constitution by a two-thirds vote, but only those provisions that are not "entrenched," such as the form of government and presidential succession. In fact, it is unconstitutional for the president to even attempt to amend the succession provisions. When Zelaya called for a June 28, 2009, "poll" asking voters whether there should be a fourth box added to the November ballot, National Congress President Roberto Micheletti declared that even calling for referendum was a crime. The Supreme Court agreed and ordered the military to arrest Zelaya. It did so and went a step further by flying the ousted president to San José, Costa Rica. As next in line, Micheletti was sworn in as the new president. The United States and other nations denounced Zelaya's removal as a coup d'état. The OAS suspended Honduras. Zelaya snuck back into the country in the trunk of a car and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy, which was besieged by the Honduran military. Zelaya finally was allowed to flee to a resort in Santo Domingo and amnesty was offered to his followers, though it is believed some Zelaya supporters have been arrested, beaten and killed. Porfirio Lobo Sosa of the National Party was elected president in the November 2009 election and took office in January. As far as the Honduran people are concerned, the coup d'état is a fait accompli, and that incident belongs to the past. However, international constitutional law scholars such as WSU's professor Roth, author of "Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law," continue to debate the issue. Was President Zelaya constitutionally removed from office? Was his call for a referendum unconstitutional? He pointed out that one way of legitimizing a government takeover is to hold a highly publicized, internationally monitored election. However, many times that backfires for the plotters since the opposition party is often elected instead. Sticks the United States and the OAS have over unruly governments are financial and military aid, both of which are needed to fight off indigenous rebels. So Latin American leaders have a strong motivation to have at least the appearance of a democracy. But, Roth asks, "do we really know what democracy is? ... The great irony in all of this is the ones most promoting constitutionalism are Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega, both of whom I support, but it is a nightmare for constitutionalism." International Law Studies Director Fox said one interesting aspect of the Honduran coup was the international community's second-guessing the Honduran Supreme Court's interpretation of its own constitution. That may be akin to Honduras and the OAS questioning the U.S. Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore. Published: Mon, Mar 8, 2010

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