Should or shouldn't States pay a ransom in the unfortunately increasingly frequent case of kidnappings for political purposes and extortion?
The answer is certainly not, but it depends. First of all it depends on the contexts; therefore from ethical, political and opportunity considerations. All this ends up determining behavior and the application of the rules in different ways.
Sacredness of life vs sacredness of the state
There is a first group of arguments, of a nature that we could define as ethics. For some countries, respect for the sacredness of life cannot prevail over the protection of the sacredness of the State, as it guarantees not only the good of the individual, but that of the entire community.
Bowing to the illegal logic of a ransom demand violates this sanctity, goes against the general interest and can never be justified. In the opinion of others however, life constitutes a supreme good which prevails over any other value since it is in its protection that the sacredness of the state is embodied; the illegal logic of redemption must be rejected, but this does not erase the primary value of individual life.
Cutting things with an axe, we can roughly identify with the first reading the countries of Protestant culture of northern European origin: United States and Great Britain in primis; with the second, those of the Latin Catholic tradition (but not only) such as Italy or Spain.
France being between the two, is in the middle, albeit with a prevalence for the Catholic one. All this in theory: in reality it often happens that countries with an intransigent formal position enter into negotiations whose existence they decisively deny, sometimes against the evidence. In this, for once, the position of a country like Italy appears less ambiguous, which when it pays it does so without confirming, but not even denying with excessive and counterproductive certainty.
Treaty tolerance
The behaviors described are affected by considerations of cost-benefit and political expediency. In short, there is kidnapping and kidnapping: when the threat is perceived as highly systemic, the space for negotiation tends to shrink.
The attitude of public opinion in setting the bar of "negotiation tolerance" is very important: here the ethical considerations we have spoken about come into play again. The kidnapping and beheading of British and American prisoners by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) has aroused indignation and at the same time solidified the majority opinion in the refusal of any compromise: the sacrifice of individuals is a horror that demands revenge, but it cannot determine the compromise of the solidity of the state in protecting its own integrity.
The case is different, for example, of the Italian attitude towards the two Italian volunteers who left for Syria without adequate preparation and cover, and were kidnapped in circumstances that were never fully clarified. In this case, in the eyes of public opinion, the need to obtain his release takes precedence over any other consideration: the negotiation does not appear as proof of weakness but as the fulfillment of an ethical canon which justifies the action.
The quality of abductees is also relevant. For an important journalist like Giuliana Sgrena, a significant apparatus was mobilized – with the tragic consequences that we know. For technicians kidnapped in Libya attention is inevitably less. It may seem cynical but, in evaluating cost-benefit, the ability to mobilize in terms of politics and public opinion is no less an important factor than the others.
A coordinated response from the international community is sought
Then there is a sort of informal ranking of the dangerousness of the threat posed by the kidnappers with respect to the national interest. As Natalino Ronzitti has observed in these pages, so-called "commercial" piracy is so widespread that shipowners include it among the insurable risks of their business: direct intervention by the state is not claimed and it is provided otherwise (sometimes state puts itself in situations of useless ambiguity by taking on tasks that are not its own.
If our Navy had not decided to have its soldiers embark on merchant ships for payment with tasks similar to those of "contractors sui generis", we would not find ourselves in the mess of our marines today).
Terrorist acts carried out in the context of intra- and inter-state conflicts that are not of a global nature – Mali, Nigeria, Libya – foresee a level of response commensurate with the importance that the victim country attaches to its role in the region: let the example of the steadfastness shown by Paris towards the crises in the former French West Africa go for all.
There are the global systemic threats – Al Qaeda, IS, but also Boko Haram – which would require a coordinated response from the international community as a whole; the fact that it has often been limping constitutes a powerful incentive for these forms of violence and shows a weakness that should lead us to reflect on what are the characteristics and limits of an international security system in which there is no center of imputation - and of power – hegemonic and therefore unitary.
As long as the kidnappers are heroes for some, and criminals for others, a shared canon to counter what, in other ways, is an important factor of deviance from international law will be very difficult.
This explains why beyond the political commitments and declarations of good will, a pact system that defines common rules and commitments has never actually shown itself to be effective.
The alternative between paying or not paying appears difficult to refer to the ambit of legal certainty to return to that of pragmatism – wisdom, prudence, cynicism – of politics. As always when one enters this dimension, it is worth saying that politics proposes the worst of solutions; except for all the others.
