Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Is a New and Potent Weapon - Term Paper Example

«Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Is a New and Potent Weapon in the Arsenal of Global Civil Society’s Struggles to Overcome Both Domestic and External Aggression under the Guise of New Humanitarianism». The Responsibility to Protect: History and Functions The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a rule or set of laws based on the notion that sovereignty does not afford unlimited freedom to indulge in acts of all kinds but rather produces the onus to protect. R2P concentrates on the prevention of four types of crime: genocide, war crimes, humanitarian crimes, and ethnic cleansing. A state is obliged to protect its people from these crimes. However, this doctrine outlines that if the state is unable to protect its people of and with its own will and resources, the international community is obligated to intervene with help. This help can include, amongst other actions, the building of early warning abilities, mediating clashes between rival political groups, consolidating the security sector, and actuating standby forces. Within this paper, I will discuss the role of R2P, the various methods of R2P that can be implemented as determined by the situation, and the consequences that can come as a result of not responding to R2P. I will also explain some of the negatives of using R2P, especially when the set of laws is not used as they should be. If a state is unable to facilitate security for its citizens from the threat of mass murder, and if other peaceful initiatives are not effective, the international community is liable to intervene first diplomatically and then forcefully as a last measure, with the help of military might. R2P extends a kind of framework for exploiting tools that are already available for the prevention of ethnic cleansing. Civil society organisations, states, and international organisations must all contribute to the functioning and implementation of R2P. The power to use military intervention lies only with the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly, and should therefore be considered as the last resort. Self-help is not an inevitable consequence of the absence of a world government; self-help is a logic that many states have selected. Moreover, there are historical and contemporary examples where states have preferred collective security systems, or forms of regional security communities, in preference to self-help (Baylis and Smith, 1997, p39). In 2000, the Canadian government instituted the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which produced a report entitled Responsibility to Protect. The report was based on the notion that sovereignty must be used in a meaningful way for the prevention of crimes against humanity. The African Union gave its full support to the report to enshrine the principles of R2P within the founding Charter of the African Union. Final touches to the language of the R2P were made at the World Summit of 2005, and all issues were decided upon. Later, there were extensive debates at the UN General Assembly. Since 9/11, the world has learned that governments that remain unable to perform their basic duties can be a significant threat not only to their own citizens but also to international peace and security. The impact of poorly-governed nations includes trans-national terrorism and regional disturbances; Western interests in this issue are therefore understandably primarily material. The doctrine intends to describe conditions when military interference would be legitimate. It stipulates that force should be the last option after the exhaustion of all other diplomatic and peaceful courses of action. Furthermore, any such decision should be executed only after a sober, calm, and dispassionate examination of the imagined stakes. However, when taking into account the realities of power and varying strategic ambiences, the doctrine’s utility will ultimately be selective. In order to enforce R2P effectively, states and regional organisations must have the resources necessary to stop the occurrence of brutalities. Full implementation of R2P is also obstructed by the notion that it has been and is utilised by Western countries to fulfill ulterior motives, such as territorial or economic interests. Downfalls of R2P One of the main pitfalls of the central notion of R2P is that it violates national sovereignty. This concern is considered a misconception by the US Secretary General. Supporters of the doctrine stress that the only situation in which the international community will interfere in a state without its cooperation is when it is either permitting or perpetrating crimes against humanity. In this scenario the state must be seen to be neglecting to carry out its responsibilities as a sovereign nation. From this perspective, R2P could be seen by its supporters as a consolidator of sovereignty. Nevertheless, it is not clear who would take the initiative on the side of international community, which itself is contentious in its composition since the most powerful nations yield the most influence. Owing to the realities of this situation, R2P is conceived as a tool for Western powers to extend justification of the violation of the sovereignty of other countries, particularly in the developing world. The scope of the application of this doctrine is also contentious: natural disasters could also be included within the remit of R2P. However, it has been argued that expanding the applicability of the doctrine would lessen its productiveness. Another issue pertaining to R2P is that the UN Security Council, when employing R2P, will be using its discretion and may be prejudiced towards states that are economically or politically influential. This is particularly evident when considering the mass atrocities engendered by Western states and their allies in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has been cited as an issue of major concern and has obstructed the enforcement of R2P. Discretion within UN bodies is a grave concern that impacts each and every UN enforced act. R2P Does Not Always Solve Problems During past decades, the world has remained a spectator in situations where innocent civilians have been assassinated by American bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It has been a powerless bystander of homicidal Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza. In the past, millions have perished in different parts of the world either at the hands of the world’s most powerful nations or because of infighting and civil war. The humanitarian answer must be to reach out to these regions in order to protect lives and to never allow these crimes to happen there again. However, a question arises around methodology and the identification of appropriate force. How are the brutalised ever to be shielded from the strong? This is the key question that must be answered before the issue of responsibility can be addressed. In other words, debates about the disconnection between the legality and the legitimacy of the use of force needs to be issued. This question must be explored, not only taking into account humanitarianism and legality, but also bearing in mind the political framework. Safeguarding the weak is always dependent on curbing the power of the strong. The rule of law allows such restriction as long as it is based on the principle of the equality of all in the eyes of law. Intervention is generally believed to be legally and morally wrong: sovereign states or independent political communities are thought to have the right to have their spheres of jurisdiction respected while it is sometimes contended that intervention may be justified so as to defend the right of foreign subjects of an oppressive ruler (Hedley Bull, 1996, p2). The real significance of the doctrine of R2P lies not with its diplomatic or atrocity-avoidance facets, but with the military aspect and the so-called timely response of military intervention as well as the assertion that it is good for the idea of national sovereignty. R2P is an uncertain doctrine. On the one hand, it is presented as something necessarily distinct from humanitarian intervention, a notion that was evolved in the West at the end of the 1970s after the demise of colonial empires and the defeat of the United States in Indochina. This ideology was based on the human atrocities in newly liberated counties, in order to give moral justification to the unsuccessful policies of intervention and management by the Western powers over the rest of the world. This ideology, which has at its core the notion that states can and should intervene to stop and/or prevent serious human rights abuses, is said to represent a new and enlightened era in world affairs, when the U.S. and other Western powers shed self-interest and use their military might to enforce humanitarian norms (Steve Fake & Kevin Funk, 2008). The right to facilitate humanitarian interference was snubbed by the Non Aligned Movement shortly before the American-led attack on Iraq. The R2P is an endeavour designed to insert this discredited right into the framework of the UN charter giving it legitimacy by emphasising that military actions are to be the last measure and must be sanctioned by the Security Council. At the same time, R2P is being popularised in public opinion in the West as a new norm in the international arena, one that allows military interferences on humanitarian grounds. For example, when President Obama emphasised the criticality of national sovereignty, the French newspaper Le Monde termed it as backward-looking initiative as R2P has already been accepted. R2P is subject to the political will of the powerful sovereign states, the powerful members of the United Nations, especially the U.S., and it just reinforces the understanding that geopolitics is primary and takes precedence over international law in those cases where the interests of the most significant members of the UN are engaged (Andrew, 2009). There is a huge difference between R2P as a legal concept and its ideological acceptability in Western media. Nevertheless, taking into account post-World War Two history, incorporating the Indochina wars, the attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Panama, the conflict with Grenada and the bombing of other countries such as Libya and Yugoslavia, it is hard to believe that it is a regard for international law and tolerance of national sovereignty that propels the United States to prevent and combat genocide. If America had had the resources and inclination to intervene in Rwanda, it would have done so and international law would have avoided that; even if a new norm is brought into being within the framework of the current bond of political and military forces, it will not increase security for anyone anywhere until the United States feels it is sufficiently in their interests to intervene. Additionally, it is difficult to imagine that the proponents of the doctrine will speak of a duty to rebuild in the military intervention period. The doctrine’s requirements from the Security Council are completely oblivious to the geopolitical motivations that are so fundamental to international political decision-making. They expect the Security Council to either assent to R2P’s application or defer decisional precedence onto regional bodies on issues of global security. This is highly unrealistic and unfeasible, and it begs the question as to whom the legitimate authority to uphold R2P will actually come from (Yves Guillaume A. Messy, 2010). No one was compensated after the devastation inflicted on Vietnam or, more recently, in Iraq or Lebanon. It is the same in Gaza, where brutalities were unleashed by a power aided and armed by the US. In Nicaragua, reparations for the Contra activities remain unpaid, despite condemnation by the International Court of Justice. Therefore, it is not realistic to expect this doctrine to compel interventionists to compensate for what they destroy in the process if they are not compelled to by previous legal arrangements. If it is a fact that the 21st century requires a new kind of United Nations, it does not need one that justifies such interference by innovative arguments, but rather one that facilitates at least moral backing to those who endeavour to build a world that is less pervaded by America and its allies. The defining principle of the United Nations at its outset was to protect mankind from the curse of war. This was to be realised precisely by holding national sovereignty in the highest esteem in order to prevent greater powers from subjugating weaker ones, irrespective of their motivations. The wars launched by the leaders of the Western world and NATO demonstrate that despite some important successes, the United Nations has not yet absolutely accomplished this basic aim. All of this would surely be undermining the notion of national sovereignty, which is the bedrock of international relations. When NATO acted upon its self-announced right to intervene in Kosovo when diplomatic efforts were yet to be exhausted, it was applauded by Western media. When Russia put in force what it considered to be its R2P in South Ossetia, it was uniformly criticised and even condemned by Western media. When Vietnam interfered in Cambodia, the West came down on this measure very harshly. This shows that Western governments, media and NGOs, naming themselves as the international community, will evaluate the responsibility for human tragedy completely differently depending on their relationship with that sovereignty. National sovereignty is sometimes unfairly labelled by proponents of humanitarian intervention or R2P as the permission to kill. We need to remember the reason why national sovereignty must be safeguarded against such accusations. National sovereignty is in part a shield for smaller states against the aggression of bigger ones. For example, nobody expects any small state to interfere in the internal affairs of America in order to compel it to curtail its CO2 emission owing to the devastating consequences on the environment. Interventions: More Harm Than Good? Interventions are always one-sided. American interference in the internal issues of other countries is multi-sided but constant and always contravenes the spirit and usually the letter of UN objectives. Despite promises to act on behalf of ideas like freedom and democracy, American interference has frequently had catastrophic results, and not only the millions of deaths the US has caused by direct and indirect hostilities, but also the demise of hope for a large number who could have been the beneficiaries of international cooperation and the policies of some socialist leaders. Some of these leaders have been systematically removed from the scene, overthrown, or assassinated with the help of Western influence. Every offensive act carried out by a country generates a reaction. Employment of anti-missile shields generates more missiles. Bombing civilians, whether intentionally or as a result of collateral damage, is the harbinger of armed retaliation. Endeavouring to overthrow governments spawns more internal suppression, not less. Propping secessionist minorities by giving them a largely false impression that the sole superpower will be saving them if they are suppressed culminates in more violence, despair, and death. Needless to say, the kind of 'stability' sought by the foreign interveners has not yet arrived; nearly five years of UN-sanctioned occupation has not improved life for most Haitians; incredibly, a popular movement still exists calling for the return of the exiled former president, Aristide. Few would contest the claim that, were he to return to Haiti and run in a future election, Aristide would win in a landslide (Anthony Fenton, 2008). The humanitarian disasters in Eastern Congo and in Somalia are largely the result of foreign interference rather than a result of its absence. To take the most appropriate yet chilling example quoted by advocates of the R2P, it is most improbable that the Khmer Rouge would ever have come to power in the absence of the huge clandestine American bombing in the wake of an American engineered regime change that left that unfortunate country destroyed and paralysed. The ideology of humanitarian interference is an integral part of a long convention of Western behaviour towards the rest of the world. When Western colonialists arrived on the shores of the Americas or other continents, they were appalled by the human rights violations that they viewed as barbaric behaviour. Time and again these conditions have been employed to validate or mask the crimes of Western powers, such as the slave trade, the cleansing of indigenous people, and the systematic theft of land and resources. This behaviour of righteous consternation persists to this day and is at the centre of the claim that the West has a right to interfere and a right to shield. The promoters of R2P present it as the beginning of a new era, but in fact it is the end of an old one. “From an interventionist viewpoint, the R2P backtracks with respect to the old right of humanitarian intervention, at least in words, and that old right was itself a step back from traditional colonialism” (Jean Bricmont, 2009). Some fundamental measures are needed ensuring the reverence for international law on behalf of Western powers; enforcing the UN resolutions regarding Israel; disassembling the worldwide American empire of bases and NATO; halting all threats of unilateral application of force; removing unilateral sanctions against the countries of the developing world; ceasing all intervention in the internal issues of other states, especially all activities of democracy promotion; and the utilisation of the politics of minorities. This essential regard for national sovereignty means that the sovereign of every state is in effect the population of that country, whose right to substitute unfair governments cannot be snatched by hypothetically benevolent intruders. Proponents of R2P may suggest that all this criticism is politicising the issues, as according to them it is the international community that would be interfering and not the West, and even then only with the authorisation of the Security Council. However, in reality there is no such entity as an original international community. NATO’s interference in Kosovo was not endorsed by Russia and Russian interference in South Ossetia was disputed by the West. There would have been no authorisation for either interference. Recently, the African Union did not approve the conviction of the Sudanese President by the International Court. When anger against such a regime is universal, it is incredible that this new notion would be able to justify its operations, which could be considered nothing but a ruse by the country or nation to maintain its imperial status. The preservation of this status is a primary concern of the US, which keeps inventing new doctrines and applying them in an unconventional manner. Any system of international justice or collective security, whether it is R2P or the ICC, requires a framework of parity and an atmosphere of trust. Currently no such framework exists and a huge amount of suspicion exists between the West and East and between North and South, mainly as a consequence of past policies. If the world wants a new interpretation of R2P in the future, it would require building a relationship of parity and confidence. The world can experience peace and security only if it first becomes more equitable and just. Conclusion Clearly we should evaluate states on the basis of their previous practice and not their humanitarian rhetoric. With this in mind, the intentions of those who yield international power become very clear. By means of the notion of dispassionate, benevolent powers straddling the globe in search of humanitarian crisis for which to provide solutions may sound enticing, but the factual record of these humanitarian interferences and appeals to their responsibility to protect is discouraging. Even though the world has deep moral and material stakes in helping to avoid and prevent genocide and crimes against humanity, it cannot behave as the world’s policeman in an increasingly unproductive quest to eradicate man’s cruelty to man. There is no doubt that the doctrine has not inspired much confidence and is not expected to do so in the future. Only a true respect of international law, sovereign equality, and economic justice can redeem the world of all current and future crises, about which some powers seem so concerned. This is the only correct path and all other machinations are nothing but an aid to the destabilisation of world peace. Reference: Anthony Fenton, (2008), Haiti and the Dangers of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Available at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Haiti/Haiti_R2P.html (last access to 16/09/2010) Andrew (2009), The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Finally A Real Debate on RP2. Available at [http://www.stwr.org/the-un-people-politics/responsibility-to-protect-the-real-debate-on-r2p.html.] (last access to 16/09/2010) Baylis and Smith (1997), The Globalization of World Politics. Oxford University Press, p39 Gareth J. Evan (2008), The Responsibility To Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once And For All. Brooklyn Institute Press, p3 Hedley Bull (1996), Intervention in World Politics, Hedley Bull Oxford: Clarendon Press, p2 Jean Bricmont, (2009), A more just world and the responsibility to protect. Available at [http://www.brusselstribunal.org/R2P.htm] (last access to 16/09/2010) Steve Fake & Kevin Funk, 2009, R2P: Disciplining the Mice, Freeing the Lions. Available at [http://www.fpif.org/articles/r2p_disciplining_the_mice_freeing_the_lions] (last access to 16/09/2010) Stephen Gowans,(2009), Gaza, "Responsibility to Protect": Where are the R2P advocates now?. Available at [http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11812 ](last access to 16/09/2010) Yves Guillaume A. Messy,(2010), Responsibility to protect (R2P): Malevolent friend or handicapped foe? Available at [http://wphr.org/2010/yvesatangana/responsibility-to-protect-r2p-malevolent-friend-or-handicapped-foe/] (last access to 16/09/2010) Read More