Preventive Action for Refugee Producing Situations

214 Chapter 5
Secretary-General to go on special missions to offer the international
community's services, investigate alleged violations, and develop activities
with governments. 522
3) 1982-1987: Model implementing and testing. During this time the models
developed over the preceding period by the Centre for Human Rights were first
put into practice. Where necessary and appropriate, adaptations were made to
help promote the development of national infrastructures for constitutional,
investigative, judicial, teaching, and dissemination activities. 523
4) 1988 on: Reflection and evaluation. Increasing global interdependence
has forced sovereign states to take into account the international community's
concern in the area of human rights.
There is no way of isolating oneself from the effects from gross violations
abroad; they breed refugees, exiles, and dissidents who come knocking at our
doors - and we must choose between bolting the doors, thus increasing misery
and violence outside, and opening them, at some cost to our own well being. 524
Even though the drafters of the UN Charter rejected the notion of "protection"
of human rights, preferring the term "promotion," in practice the U.N. has been
involved in protection measures over the last forty years. Aside from the legal
instruments, which are enforceable among states that ratified them, coalition
building for specific new proposals has made it difficult for individual states to
resist allowing the U.N. some role in their internal affairs, especially if massive
violations of human rights can be established. Such concessions have
contributed to the shrinking of domestic jurisdiction in the field of international
human rights. By the same token this U.N. practice extends the UN's
jurisdiction into their internal affairs. By agreeing to binding treaties, states
must accept interference in their internal affairs. The eminent British scholar
Hersch Lauterpacht judges these conflicting claims:
______________________
522 The fact-finding by these special rapporteurs has not always functioned as well as
would be desirable, since some of the rapporteurs tend to see their role more as
diplomatic than investigative. Ramcharan, "Reflections," Lecture, Harvard Law
School, Cambridge, 17 September 1988.
523 United Nations Association, A Successor Vision: The United Nations of
Tomorrow, (New York: UNA, 1987), p. 32.
524 Stanley Hoffmann, "Duties beyond borders: On the limits and possibilities of
ethical politics", p. Ill, as quoted in Kühnhardt, Die Universalität der Menschenrechte,
Olzog, München, 1987, p. 362.
Legal Justification 215
Once States agreed that questions should form the subject of Declaration or
Convention, they clearly placed them outside their 'domestic jurisdiction' and article
2 paragraph 7 became inapplicable. 525
States show a greater willingness to cooperate with the Secretary-General in
permitting international measures to be taken within their borders than ever
before. Facts of such practice speak for themselves. 526 For example, in the
recent Iran-Iraq war, the UN was able to investigate the use of chemical
weapons, 527 look into the prisoner of war situation, 528 and make arrangements
to establish protection for civilians 529 - all without an explicit mandate.
Not only have states allowed UN and other organizations to take action
within their territories, but some, such as the Federal Republic of Germany
and Canada have initiated measures themselves to promote human rights in
the developing nations. 530
Still, in taking these actions on their own, rather than under the general
auspices of the U.N., states will invariably risk being accused under Art. 2(7)
by the government in question of intervening into its internal af-
_______________________
525 Hersh Lauterpacht, International Law and Human Rights, 1950, p. 213, as
quoted in Rumpf, p. 18. For a discussion of nonintervention in Art 2(7), see
Section 5.2. above.
526 "The power to bring matters to the attention of the Security Council or the
Assembly has been interpreted to imply the power, which the Secretary-General
has frequently exercised, to make such inquiries and investigations to inform the
appropriate organ of the matter in question." Hans Kelsen, Principles of
International Law, (New York, 1966), p. 281.
527 "UN says Iraq used poison gas in air raid," Boston Globe, 24 August 1988.
528 "U.N. Team to Visit Gulf War Prisoners," The New York Times, 24 July 1988.
529 Ramcharan, "Reflection," Lecture, 17 September 1988.
530 Different ways and levels can be used: "Persönlicher Einsatz für einzelne oder
Gruppen von Opfern, einschließlich der Aufnahme von politischen Flüchtlingen;
vertrauliches Vorstelligwerden bei der Botschaft in Bonn, durch den eigenen
Botschafter im Zielland oder im Rahmen von offiziellen Besuchen; allgemein
gehaltene Bekundungen, man sei über die Lage im Lande "besorgt"
(Pressemitteilungen, Reden bei internationalen Konferenzen etc.), und
öffentliche Stellungnahmen, die die Regierungspolitik des Ziellandes direkt
kritisieren." Der damalige Staatsminister im Auswärtigen Amt, Klaus von
Dohnanyi meinte "Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist heute stark genug, um es
sich leisten zu können, durch ihre Diplomaten und politischen Repräsentanten
leise, aber energisch und zielbewußt in Menschenrechtsfragen vorstellig zu
werden. Wenn wir dies tun, kann es sich dabei auch nicht um die Einmischung
in die inneren Angelegenheiten anderer Länder handeln: Menschenrechte sind
eine internationale Verantwortung." See Heinz, Menschenrechte in der Dritten
Welt, 1986, pp. 33,37.