Minerva, Spring 2008 (Volume 32) - Citizens for Global Solutions

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“It has taken the world an insanely long time to come to terms conceptually with the idea that state sovereignty is not a license to kill – that there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong about states murdering or forcibly displacing large numbers of their own citizens, or standing by when others do so.” 1 BACKGROUND Although the 2005 Human Security report 2 documents a significant decline in major violent conflicts beginning in the early 1990s, the fact remains that civil wars have continued and civilians have borne the brunt of fighting – even after the United Nations (UN) has intervened, as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or after military operations such as the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Certain means and methods employed in contemporary warfare are of particular concern. For example, the unlawful use of child soldiers continues and the targeting and mass displacement of civilian communities are often explicit in the strategy of combatants involved in today’s “low intensity conflicts”. Not only are combatants targeting civilians, but they also have a propensity to prey on the weakest and most vulnerable, namely women and children. Although overall more men than women continue to die as a result of conflict, women and girls suffer myriad debilitating consequences of war. 3 For example, public rape aimed at instigating flight, forced impregnation, mutilation of genitals and intentional HIV transmission have all been used as tactics in ethnic cleansing. Proponents of the concept of human security 4 have argued that a traditional state-centred approach to security fails to adequately address the safety of civilians caught in warfare, particularly in internal conflicts often waged by undisciplined militias or factions in civil wars: By broadening the focus to include the security of people, human security encompasses a spectrum of approaches to the problem of violent conflict, from preventive initiatives and people-centred conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities to — in extreme cases, where other efforts have failed — intervention to protect populations at great risk. 5 Since the mid-1990s, a range of initiatives have been advanced under the rubric of human security. International norms related to the protection of civilians in armed conflict have been strengthened and mechanisms put in place to implement related policies. The International Criminal Court was established to end impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Guidelines for the treatment of internally displaced peoples have been developed. Groundbreaking work within the Security Council addressed the humanitarian impact of sanctions and led to explicit protection mandates for UN peace operations. 6 While these developments were – and are – not without controversy, one of the most contentious issues regarding the protection of civilians has been the legitimacy of military intervention when people are being targeted and killed within their own borders. At what point should the humanitarian imperative to save lives override the longentrenched notion of sovereignty as non-interference? In practice, the international community’s record of “humanitarian intervention” has been highly questionable. Within UN debates, member states have remained deeply divided on the issue, even as strengthened international human rights and humanitarian standards have raised the pressure to “do something” in the face of humanitarian crises. Footnotes 1–6: 1 Presentation by Gareth Evans, President of the International Crisis Group, to Panel Discussion on The Responsibility to Protect: Ensuring Effective Protection of Populations Under Threat of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, Program to Commemorate 1994 Rwandan Genocide, United Nations, New York, 13 April 2007. 2 Human Security Centre, Human Security Report 2005: War and Peace in the 21st Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 3 A 2002 report of the UN Secretary- General concluded that women and children are disproportionately targets and constitute the majority of all victims of contemporary armed conflicts. See Jeanne Ward and Mendy Marsh, “Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in War and its Aftermath: Realities, Responses, and Required Resources,” A Briefing Paper prepared for Symposium on Sexual Violence in Conflict and Beyond (Brussels, 2006). 4 The term “human security” was first given prominence in the United Nations’ 1994 Human Development Report. 5 Freedom from Fear: Canada’s Foreign Policy for Human Security, (Ottawa: Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 2000), 2-3. 6 The Government of Canada made advancing the Protection of Civilians a key priority during its 1999-2000 Security Council tenure, during which time resolutions 1265 (1999) and 1296 (2000) on civilian protection were adopted. 14 • Minerva #32 • June 2008
The failure of the international community to stop the mass slaughter of civilians in Rwanda and Srebrenica fuelled debate between advocates of a “right to intervene” and those who argued that state sovereignty, as recognized in the UN Charter, prevented any intervention in internal matters. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, without Security Council authorization, brought the issue to a head and raised serious concerns about whether the United Nations was capable of addressing critical security challenges of the day. In 1999, and again in 2000, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged the General Assembly to resolve the question of when, under what authority, and how to intervene in the face of mass atrocities. 7 In Annan’s words: . . . if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica – to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity? 8 In this context, the government of Canada, along with a select group of foundations, established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) 9 with a one-year mandate to foster global consensus on this set of issues. 10 The Commission’s most notable contribution was to redefine the basic point of departure – from the right of states to intervene to the responsibility to protect people. According to the Commission’s Co-Chair, Gareth Evans, the Commission hoped that reframing the debate would cast new light on the issue and enable “entrenched opponents to find new ground on which to more constructively engage”. 11 While stressing the primary responsibility of states to protect their own populations, the report asserts that when states fail to ensure such protection (or are themselves perpetrators of abuses) this responsibility falls to the international community. In extreme cases, this may require external military intervention. 12 The timing of the Commission’s report, presented to the UN in September 2001, could not have been worse in terms of the acceptance and implementation of its findings. The global refocusing on terrorism following 9/11, exacerbated by military activity in Iraq, diverted attention away from constructive discussions on intervention and heightened concerns that the responsibility to protect would be misused as a justification to advance “imperialist motives.” Despite ongoing controversy, the responsibility to protect became a central theme in debates and key reports leading up to the 60th anniversary of the UN and the 2005 World Summit. The ongoing conflict in Darfur was making it painfully obvious that the issue – of preventing or stopping mass killing or genocides while respecting the sovereignty of a member state – remained a burning one. The Canadian government was among those that argued that addressing the UN’s ability to protect people from genocide and crimes against humanity struck at the very core of UN reform, claiming that nothing undermines the credibility and legitimacy of the United Nations like the failure to prevent and stop atrocities. Footnotes 7–12: 7 See International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, The Responsibility to Protect, (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2001). 8 Kofi Annan, “We the Peoples”: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, A/54/2000 (United Nations, 2000). 9 ICISS was co-chaired by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and Algerian diplomat Mohammed Sahnoun. ICISS presented its report, titled The Responsibility to Protect, to the Secretary-General in 2001. 10 See www.iciss.ca. 11 Address by Gareth Evans, President, International Crisis Group, to Human Rights Law Resource Centre, Melbourne, 13 August 2007 and Community Legal Centres and Lawyers for Human Rights, Sydney, 28 August 2007 [http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index. cfm?id=4521&l=1#gareth] 12 For an outline of principles proposed by the ICISS, see its report . Current Status: A Global Consensus The 2005 World Summit was a significant turning point; 150 heads of state and government endorsed the concept of the responsibility to protect, unambiguously placing genocide and related crimes against humanity on par with other threats to international peace and security. Paragraphs 138 and 139 of the Summit’s Outcome Document read in relevant part as follows: Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, 15 • Minerva #32 • June 2008
Page 1 and 2: JUNE 2008 Minerva32 Citizens for Gl
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Page 33 and 34: This letter in support of establish
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Page 45 and 46: BOOK REVIEW Global Environmental Go
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Page 57 and 58: ~ THE COUNCIL OF WOMEN WORLD LEADER
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Minerva, Spring 2008 (Volume 32) - Citizens for Global Solutions

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