Defence Forces Review 2010

Defence Forces Review 2010to prevent them using their veto in times of humanitarian crisis. This fundamental change, designedto make the Security Council more effective in times of need, was also dropped at the WorldSummit negotiations following the displeasure expressed by the powerful Permanent 5. 22There is another point of difference to be noted here in relation to the issue of ad-hoc coalitionand individual states taking action without UNSC clearance; although the change here isnot between the ICISS document and World Summit Outcome Document, rather it is in theperspectives of the international community and how they have changed given recent events.This element of R2P suffered a serious blow in 2002 with the assembly of the American-led‘Coalition of the Willing’ to enter Iraq following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. When claimsabout weapons of mass destruction fell short of the mark to justify an invasion, the US begansearching for other ways to obtain the necessary UNSC resolution and landed on humanitarianconcerns. According to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, abusinghumanitarian intervention in this way “breeds cynicism about the use of military force forhumanitarian purposes”; something that “could be devastating for people in need of futurerescue.” 23 The fears of the Global South in relation to contemporary imperialism can bemore easily understood in light of the abusive use of humanitarian intervention as a coverfor aggression that is motivated by revenge. Equally as devastating for the normalisation ofR2P was the Russian invocation of its ‘responsibility to protect’ South Ossetians from theGeorgian military in 2008; another example of the misapplication of R2P as a thin disguisefor politically motivated military action.Crucial to the implementation of R2P is its advancement of a new norm which allows theSecurity Council to recognise and classify internal violations of human rights as a threatto international peace and security and, therefore, provide a basis for legal internationalintervention. Unfortunately, the advancement of this conceptual change does not necessarilymean there will be a corresponding operational change. Over the past fifteen years theinternational community has failed in its responsibilities in Darfur, Somalia, Srebrenica andthe Eastern Congo and Zimbabwe despite having the grounds upon which to intervene. TheUNSC’s reluctance to intervene in Darfur without the consent of the Sudanese government hasbeen accused of making “a farce of the international commitment to R2P given the fact thatthe Sudanese Government had been implicated in the very crimes that the Security Councilwas seeking to halt.” 24 What is more, there is the concern, as voiced by Kofi Annan, that byallowing the UNSC to authorise international interventions in domestic humanitarian crises,secessionist movements would commit atrocities solely to provoke their governments intocommitting violations of human rights in order to attract international attention and aid totheir cause. 2522 Bellamy, A. J. (2009) p. 74.23 Global Policy Forum (2004) War in Iraq: not a Humanitarian Intervention [Online], available: http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/154/26043.html [Accessed 16 Jan 2010]24 United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs (2009) Testimony of Ms. Erin A. Weir on the New Challenges for InternationalPeacekeeping Operations [Online], available: http://wwwinternationalrelations.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=1106 [Accessed 17 Jan 2010]25 Annan, K. (2000) p. 48.40