“Humanitarian intervention” has been controversial both when it happens, and when it has failed to happen.
- Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction.
- Kosovo in 1999 raised major questions about the legitimacy of military intervention in a sovereign state.
- Bosnia in 1995 is another which has had a major impact on the contemporary policy debate about intervention for human protection purposes.
- Another was the failure and ultimate withdrawal of the UN peace operations in Somalia in 1992–93.
For some, the international community is not intervening enough; for others it is intervening much too often. For some, the only real issue is in ensuring that coercive interventions are effective; for others, questions about legality, process and the possible misuse of precedent loom much larger. For some, the new interventions herald a new world in which human rights trumps state sovereignty; for others, it ushers in a world in which big powers ride roughshod over the smaller ones, manipulating the rhetoric of humanitarianism and human rights. The controversy has laid bare basic divisions within the international community. In the interest of all those victims who suffer and die when leadership and institutions fail, it is crucial that these divisions be resolved.
"The Responsibility to Protect"
ReplyDeleteReport of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)
Published by the International Development Research Centre
This report is about the so-called “right of humanitarian intervention”: the question of when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive – and in particular military – action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state.
http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%20Report.pdf
The Intervention Dilemma
ReplyDelete“Humanitarian intervention” has been controversial both when it happens, and when it has failed to happen. Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction. The United Nations (UN) Secretariat and some permanent members of the Security Council knew that officials connected to the then government were planning genocide; UN forces were present, though not in sufficient number at the outset; and credible strategies were available to prevent, or at least greatly mitigate, the slaughter which followed. But the Security Council refused to take the necessary action. That was a failure of international will – of civic courage – at the highest level. Its consequence was not merely a humanitarian catastrophe for Rwanda: the genocide destabilized the entire Great Lakes region and continues to do so. In the aftermath, many African peoples concluded that, for all the rhetoric about the universality of human rights, some human lives end up mattering a great deal less to the international community than others.
Kosovo – where intervention did take place in 1999 – concentrated attention on all the other sides of the argument. The operation raised major questions about the legitimacy of military intervention in a sovereign state. Was the cause just: were the human rights abuses committed or threatened by the Belgrade authorities sufficiently serious to warrant outside involvement? Did those seeking secession manipulate external intervention to advance their political purposes? Were all peaceful means of resolving the conflict fully explored? Did the intervention receive appropriate authority? How could the bypassing and marginalization of the UN system, by “a coalition of the willing” acting without Security Council approval, possibly be justified? Did the way in which the intervention was carried out in fact worsen the very human rights situation it was trying to rectify? Or – against all this – was it the case that had the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) not intervened, Kosovo would have been at best the site of an ongoing, bloody and destabilizing civil war, and at worst the occasion for genocidal slaughter like that which occurred in Bosnia four years earlier?
The Bosnian case – in particular the failure by the United Nations and others to prevent the massacre of thousands of civilians seeking shelter in UN “safe areas” in Srebrenica in 1995 – is another which has had a major impact on the contemporary policy debate about intervention for human protection purposes. It raises the principle that intervention amounts to a promise to people in need: a promise cruelly betrayed. Yet another was the failure and ultimate withdrawal of the UN peace operations in Somalia in 1992–93, when an international intervention to save lives and restore order was destroyed by flawed planning, poor execution, and an excessive dependence on military force.
ReplyDeleteThese four cases occurred at a time when there were heightened expectations for effective collective action following the end of the Cold War. All four of them – Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia and Somalia – have had a profound effect on how the problem of intervention is viewed, analyzed and characterized.
The basic lines in the contemporary policy debate, one constantly being re-engaged at UN headquarters in New York and in capitals around the world, have been clearly enough drawn. For some, the international community is not intervening enough; for others it is intervening much too often. For some, the only real issue is in ensuring that coercive interventions are effective; for others, questions about legality, process and the possible misuse of precedent loom much larger. For some, the new interventions herald a new world in which human rights trumps state sovereignty; for others, it ushers in a world in which big powers ride roughshod over the smaller ones, manipulating the rhetoric of humanitarianism and human rights. The controversy has laid bare basic divisions within the international community. In the interest of all those victims who suffer and die when leadership and institutions fail, it is crucial that these divisions be resolved.