Supporting Military Interventions to Protect Human Rights
In his most recent post Christopher Preble expresses concern about the advancement of the “responsibility to protect” norm, which grants the international community the right to intervene militarily when massive human rights violations are being perpetrated on a population whose government is responsible for those violations or is unable to stop them. In my view, the benefits to the United States and the world of promoting the norm outweigh the risks.
The responsibility to protect norm clearly goes beyond the UN Charter’s prescriptions, which only authorize the use of force in self-defense or when approved by the UN Security Council “to protect international peace and security.” But the Charter, like the U.S. Constitution, must be treated as a living document subject to evolving interpretation and amendment over time. When the Charter was written, intervention to protect human rights was not on the international agenda and was not a priority of any major power. Today it is on the global agenda and is sometimes — though too sporadically — a priority of the United States, Britain, France, and other democratic nations. International rules on the use of force will become irrelevant if they do not evolve to reflect this change in world politics.
The September 2005 UN summit declaration called on the international community to intervene when necessary through the Security Council to protect a population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity. This was a significant advance for advocates of international action to protect human rights, marking the first time the world’s nations endorsed a version of the responsibility to protect norm. But the promise of the declaration might turn out to be hollow because it leaves the Council with a legal monopoly over use of force decisions. If just one of the Council’s permanent members objects to a military intervention, governments seeking to protect a population will be left with no legal way to do so. Given the general opposition of Russia and China to protective interventions, the norm will rarely be put into practice if this legal monopoly is upheld. Consider the ongoing atrocities taking place in Darfur and then decide whether the Council should possess this monopoly.
A better approach — and one that should be supported by Democrats and Republicans — was articulated by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which first popularized the responsibility to protect idea. In its December 2001 report, the Commission argued that Security Council authorization should in all cases be sought prior to any military intervention, but that if the Council rejects a proposal or fails to deal with it in a reasonable time, alternative options should include consideration of the matter by the UN General Assembly or action by regional organizations, subject to their seeking subsequent authorization from the Council. In a similar vein, the U.S. Task Force on the United Nations chaired by Newt Gingrich and George Mitchell asserted in its June 2005 report that a failure by the Security Council to act “must not be used as an excuse by concerned members to avoid protective measures.”
Preble sees the 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo — which was justified in part on humanitarian grounds — as a dangerous departure from the UN Charter, but I concur with the conclusion of the 2000 report of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo that the intervention was “illegal but legitimate.” Although the intervention was not approved by the Security Council, the Commission called it justified “because all diplomatic avenues had been exhausted and because the intervention had the effect of liberating the majority population of Kosovo from a long period of oppression under Serbian rule.” The multilateral backing of the intervention — through NATO — gave it additional legitimacy.
Judging a preventive intervention on the basis of political and humanitarian factors as well as legal standards admittedly complicates the assessment. But the effect of an intervention on human populations and political conditions should be considered more important than whether the intervention received authorization from the Security Council or conformed to the bare-boned and somewhat outdated prescriptions of the UN Charter.
The notion of legitimacy is more complex and confounding than the concept of legality. Nevertheless, legitimacy is a more meaningful standard in a world where international law on the use of force — grounded as it is in the UN Charter — fails to provide adequate legal grounds for nations to reach across borders to protect threatened populations. If the United States participated in a broad coalition of European, African, and other nations that intervened militarily in Darfur, absent Security Council authorization but with a great likelihood of ending horrifying civilian bloodshed, which of the following should be foremost in our judgment of its legitimacy: its legality or its likely impact on the people of Darfur and the politics of Sudan?
Related posts:
Military intervention based on trumped-up propaganda like that in Kosovo is a severe threat to internaiton peace. One only has to look back at Hitler’s humanitarian effort for the Sudetenland Germans or the false rhetoric regarding Kosovo to see the foolishness of such a notion. I think in both cases, the “humanitarians” were also supporting popular unrest.
With such history as that in Kosovo and Czechoslovkia, one should question if Darfur is real of staged. Is it?
It is a terrible path to take.
Sincerely,
Todd Thompson
Comment on June 20, 2006 @ 10:06 am
[...] Across the AisleAcross the Aisle, DC - 19 hours ago… The responsibility to protect norm clearly goes beyond the UN Charter s prescriptions, which only authorize the use of force in self-defense or when approved … [...]
Pingback on June 21, 2006 @ 3:04 am
To protect the norm might be acceptable if applied universally. After all, isn’t it a norm to apply human rights in a universal manner? Unfortunately, even those NATO allies, just like Germany in WWII, did not apply the same values on life in their own country as they did on those that they wanted to bomb, kill, and occupy. That’s right. I’m speaking of the Kurds in Turkey and the Gypsies in NATO countries. What AisleAcross the Aisle promotes is “Might is Right” as the norm and nothing more. It is also called Imperialism.
I suppose Sudan would make a great place to have a U.S./E.U. airbase. Darfur is just the convenient excuse, like Bosnia, like Kosovo, like Iraq.
Call in some recycled diplomat!
Comment on June 21, 2006 @ 12:21 pm
While I am not quite so suspicious of intervention as Mr. Thompson, I do think that the ICISS standard is too vague to be comfortable. By allowing an intervention to go forward via GA or regional organization approval after *rejection* by the SC, it opens the door to a problematic sort of venue-shopping.
I think it’s better to keep the distinction between legality and what you call “legitimacy.” The latter is essentially a moral standard, and is likely to be difficult to codify. If we try to allow for every possibility (e.g., it is *possible* that only one nation is moved by the moral horror of some situation, while the rest of the world venally looks the other way), we will end up with a standard like the ICISS’ that is so flexible as to be, I fear, easily abused.
This is not to say that we cannot say *anything* procedural about the moral legitimacy of an intervention. For instance, approval by a multilateral institution would certainly play a useful epistemic role – i.e., if NATO approves of an intervention, that does not *make* it right, but it is some evidence for its rightness that you were able to convince other nations to approve. Similarly/conversely, if my trusted friends think that I am morally in the wrong about something, I’m apt to reconsider my position. But procedural rules – try to get a position that can attract consensus, exhaust diplomatic avenues first (given their generally lower cost in human suffering), try to ascertain the wishes of the population in the intervened-upon nation, be vigilant against biasing interests (e.g., with Mr. Thompson, we should ask ourselves if our intervention might not be motivated by the promise of a military base rather than genuine humanitarianism), etc. – are unlikely to be both sufficiently nuanced to capture the moral dimensions of a situation *and* straightforward enough to be easily understood and applicable.
That should not mean that we despair of finding worthwhile rules of international *law.* Law is, after all, only one consideration about what should be done. But I think there are reasons for writing the legal rules more strictly, perhaps requiring at least GA approval of any intervention (or maybe approval by the *local* regional organization). Having fairly restrictive legal rules, with some genuine penalties, will encourage nations to do the sort of due diligence required for a good moral decision – even a nation that decides to break the law will have reason to be very sure that its actions are worthwhile before doing so, rather than making a superficial appeal to human rights and finding a friendly multilateral organization to sign off on it.
Of course, a nation might as easily break a robust law because of weighty, but selfish interests. I don’t think we can avoid that. But a relatively restrictive legal framework combined with a serious international conversation (helpfully started by the ICISS) about the morality of intervention might help create a situation where a state which breaks the law from what are obviously morally sincere motivations will ‘get off easier’ than one that does so for apparently selfish ones.
Comment on June 22, 2006 @ 11:43 am
What is obvious is that the current regime does not work. Our government has imposed discretionary war-type actions for every president beginning with Reagan. It is always rationalized somehow and always in direct conflict with the current framework for peace.
I want to thank Mr. Levine for the well-considered input.
I agree that there must be a change. The future process cannot be something that can be based on deceitful negotiations, propaganda, lies and rhetoric like Kosovo and Iraq. War has to be the very last option, not the first that is ramped up through the above.
The UN appears corrupt and useless. Is Paddy Ashdown really British Secret Service? That would be worse than the UN sending William Walker as an observer.
Thank You Across the Aisle!
Comment on June 22, 2006 @ 10:51 pm
[...] I’d like to go back to the lively discussion here about the Responsibility to Protect, and the ideas launched by Christopher Preble and Jordan Tama as a spin-off from the debate over UN reform, genocide and preventive intervention. [...]
Pingback on July 7, 2006 @ 9:43 am
[...] Much of the discussion of late on this blog has been about when to intervene and under what authority. On that score, I agree with Jordan Tama that legitimacy – as amorphous a concept as that is – makes more sense than legality. [...]
Pingback on July 10, 2006 @ 7:50 am
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