International RelationsLecture 12

Humanitarian Intervention

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There are international organizations that have codified standards for common humanity. One of these international documents is the 2001 report Responsibility to protect produced by the International Commission on intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS).

Responsibility to protect (or R2P) is a norm or set of principles based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility. R2P focuses on preventing and halting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.

A framework for using tools that already exist (like mediation, economic sanctioning, and Chapter VI powers) to prevent mass atrocities. The authority to intervene militarily rests solely with United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly.

The ICISS recognized that the SC failed in many cases like Rwanda and Somalia. Thus there was a need for a specific criteria to judge the legitimacy and justification for military intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Relationship to the United Nations?

ICISS was an independent body intended to support the UN. Its work was intended to complement efforts already undertaken on these issues in other contexts.

The ICISS Framework

1. “Just Cause” Threshold- the presence of an adequate reason for intervention

a. Large scale loss of life - due state action or state failure

b. Large scale “ethnic cleansing” – actual or potential for, by forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape, or killing.

FROM BOX 25.4 in reading on HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN WORLD POLITICS

2. The precautionary principles

a. Right intentions- halt human suffering and have multilateral support

b. Last resort- military intervention to happen only after all other measures fail

c. Proportional means- resources and response proportional to the crisis and not less

d. Reasonable prospects for success- and awareness of long term problems.

3. Right authority

a. UNSC authorization.

b. Formal request by intervening parties should be made to the UNSC. Or General Secretary can discuss this (Article 99).

c. No delays in the UNSC. Facts must be verified.

d. Veto must not happen if the interest of 5 powers is not directly involved.

e. If the UNSC rejects a proposal, alternatives are:a. General assembly in an Emergency Special Session can take up

the matter.*b. Regional organizations can intervene to a small extent if the UNSC

deems fit. f. The UNSC must take into account it has a responsibility

to protect and if it fails the credibility of the UN suffers.

*Under the resolution 377A(V), "Uniting for peace", adopted by the General Assembly on 3 November 1950, an "emergency special session" can be convened within 24 hours:

“If the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations, including the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such emergency special session shall be called if requested by the Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations".

If over two-thirds of UN Member states declared that, according to the UN Charter, the permanent members of the UNSC cannot and should not prevent the UNGA from taking any and all action necessary to restore international peace and security, in cases where the UNSC has failed to exercise its "primary responsibility" for maintaining peace. Such an interpretation sees the UNGA as being awarded "final responsibility"—rather than "secondary responsibility"—for matters of international peace and security, by the UN Charter.

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4. Operations principles

a. Clear objectives and resources to match

b. Common military approach, communications and a unity of command.

c. Acceptance of limitations. The objective is the protection of people not the defeat of a state.

d. International laws to be respected.

e. Force is not the only option. Non-conflict alternatives must be explored.

f. Maximum coordination with other humanitarian organizations.

2. Customary international law is grounds for humanitarian intervention

Over a period of time, if states start behaving a specific way, it becomes part or customary law, that can be legally imposed.

3. Moral requirements (how many people have t die before something is done to stop it?)

Morals may not be legally recognized, but they can still be the basis of policy.

Cases of intervention and the intentions behind intervention

Humanitarian motivations or non-Humanitarian motivations?

What have been the outcomes of these operations? Does intervention based on humanitarian reasons result in better outcomes?

STATE PRACTIE DURING THE COLD WAR

Humanitarian Intervention during the cold war

2 things to look at

1- The humanitarian motive of intervention and Justifications by the state

2- the international society’s response to the interventions

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CASE: Tanzania-1978

Gross human rights violations characterized Idi Amins Ugandan Government.

Relations between Tanzania and Uganda had been strained for several years before the war started. After Amin seized power in a military coup in 1971, the Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere offered sanctuary to Uganda's ousted president, Milton Obote.

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Obote was joined by 20,000 refugees fleeing Amin's attempts to wipe out opposition.

A year later, a group of exiles based in Tanzania attempted, unsuccessfully, to invade Uganda and remove Amin. Amin blamed Nyerere for backing and arming his enemies.

In early October 1978, dissident troops ambushed Amin at the presidential lodge in Kampala, but he escaped with his family in a helicopter. Amin sent troops against the mutineers, some of whom had fled across the Tanzanian border. The rebellion spilled over into Tanzania, where Tanzania-based anti-Amin exiles joined the fighting against Amin's troops.

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Uganda declared a state of war against Tanzania, and sent troops to invade and annex part of the Kagera region of Tanzania, which Amin claimed belonged to Uganda.

Nyerere mobilized the Tanzania People's Defence Force and counterattacked. In a few weeks, the Tanzanian army was expanded from less than 40,000 troops to over 100,000 including members of the police, prison services, national service, and the militia. 

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CASE: Vietnam intervention into

CambodiaMotivations were not humanitarian but result was good for the Cambodian population. Self defence- a legitimate right supported by UN rules.The Khmer Rouge was the name given to the followers of the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot. Its attempts at agricultural reform led to widespread famine, while its insistence on absolute self-sufficiency, even in the supply of medicine, led to the deaths of thousands from treatable diseases (such as malaria). Brutal and arbitrary executions and torture carried out by its cadres against perceived subversive elements, or during purges of its own ranks between 1976 and 1978, are considered to have constituted a genocide.

Khmer rouge seizes power in 1975 and starts ethnic cleansing.

The war began with isolated clashes along the land and maritime boundaries of Vietnam and Kampuchea between 1975 and 1977, occasionally involving division-sized military formations. On 25 December 1978, Vietnam launched a full-scale invasion of Kampuchea and subsequently occupied the country after the Khmer Rouge was removed from power.

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The ultimate objective of the Khmer Rouge was to erase the structure of the Cambodian state, which they viewed as feudal, capitalist, and oriented around the agendas of both the landholding elite and imperialists. In its place, they hoped to create a classless society based entirely on worker-peasants. The radical ideologies and goals of the Khmer Rouge were alien concepts to the masses. In fact, the socialist revolution held very little popular appeal, which led Pol Pot and his cadres to use ultra-nationalist sentiment, repressive and murderous rule, and propaganda aimed at demonising the Vietnamese to maintain their tenuous control

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The Khmer Rouge government tortured and executed anyone suspected of belonging supposed "enemies":Anyone with connections to the former government or foreign governments.

Professionals and intellectuals, artists, including musicians, writers and filmmakers were executed.

Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Thai and other minorities in Eastern Highland, Cambodian Christians (most of whom were Catholic, and the Catholic Church in general), Muslims and the Buddhist monks. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.

Former urban dwellers guilty by virtue of their lack of agricultural ability.

• Vietnam was penalized by the US and China as they saw it supporting the Soviet Union.

• There were also fears of Vietnam becoming a regional hegemon.

Yet the war was good for the oppressed Cambodian. The result was a the downfall of the Khmer Rouge and the suffering it has caused.

What do these cases show?BOTH had no collective intervention from the

international community even though there seemed to be a clear humanitarian need. Tanzania and Vietnam took unilateral action.

Motives: Self defense- under Article 51 of the UN Charter- they were victims of aggression since Cambodia and Uganda had started cross border incursions.

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Article 51

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

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Why did they not use humanitarian grounds for their interventions?Their reasons were realist. Saving lives was a consequence

and not a goal.

To sanctify (make legitimate) a doctrine of humanitarian intervention would be to store up trouble for themselves and their friends. States with dubious human rights records are fearful of setting precedents for a doctrine of humanitarian intervention because this might be employed against them at a later date. However this reason my not apply to Tanzania as PM Nyerere was known to be a humanist.

At the time international society was very sensitive to consequences of actions that would erode the non-intervention principle in international society. There was no tendency to recognize that such actions were a right. And there was no agreed doctrine of what human rights were. 23

Response of Intl Society in these two cases

The actions of the two states were not legitimized by the intl community and the response to the two cases was very different. Vietnam was universally condemned while Tanzania was treated much more leniently even though Cambodia's genocide was greater.

This response was conditioned by Cold war politics. US and China castigated (reprimanded) Vietnam for acting as an agent of Soviet Imperialism. Regionally ASEAN were suspicious of Vietnams intentions to become a regional hegemon.

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In Uganda the new govt got intl recognition aid and support. Tanzania, on the other hand, received no help from other countries in the Organization of African Unity, which had denounced Tanzania's invasion as a breach of respect for national sovereignty. As a result, the government in Dar es Salaam had to foot the bill for the invasion and subsequent peacekeeping role from its own coffers, further driving the country into poverty; Tanzania would not fully recover from the cost of the war until Uganda paid back Tanzania's debt in 2007.

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Do we even need Humanitarian Intervention?

• No formal legal definition exists• Outside powers have the right and also a moral duty to

intervene to protect people, even if what is taking place is a conflict within the state.

• Traditionally, intervention itself, is political in character and has been defined as a forcible breach of sovereignty that interferes in a state’s internal affairs.

• Advocated by Solidarists* and counter-restrictionists*International society is capable of agreeing on universal standards of

justice and morality. Countries can unite and agree of some core values principles.

• The rule of non-intervention, is enshrined in customary international law and codified in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, prohibiting the use of force in matters that are ‘essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.’

Opponents of intervention

Restrictionists: the majority of international lawyers who argue that to forcibly intervene on humanitarian grounds is illegal due to the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter.

The only legitimate exception, they claim, is the right to self-defense (as articulated in Article 51 of the Charter) e.g. Vietnam intervention in to Cambodia in 1978

Objections to humanitarian intervention

These problems are pointed out by realists and pluralists*:

1.States do not intervene for primarily humanitarian purposes and only pursue their interests.

*states are conscious of common goals and interests but these are limited to rules of sovereignty and non-intervention. States are diverse and cannot agree on universal norms. Pluralists are usually liberals.

2. States do not have the right to risk the lives of their armed forces on humanitarian missions (pragmatism). State leaders have no right to sacrifice their people on behalf of a the suffering humanity.

If there is a problem in a country, it is the responsibility of that state, not of external states.

3. The problem of abuse of international rules: Methods of legitimizing humanitarian efforts are not neutral or impartial. Already UN articles are twisted to justify intervention. This will only increase and lead to more intervention that may not have humanitarian motivations.

4. Selectivity of response: States intervene only where there are geo-political interest involved. Humanitarian response is not uniform.

5. What moral principle should legitimize intervention? How is a consensus reached? Morals and values are determined by culture and states may impose their own definitions of morals to facilitate intervention.

Counter-restrictionist argument

There is in fact a legal right of unilateral and collective humanitarian intervention in the society of states, as well a moral duty to help fellow men by virtue of their humanity. They argue this based on two claims: (1) The UN Charter also commits states to protecting fundamental human rights. (2)There is a right of humanitarian intervention in customary international law.

1. Protection of human rights:– The UN has provisions for the protection of civilian

rights in its charter. – If the UN fails in its responsibility to protect, states

can and should unilaterally take action to stop mass killings or genocide.

– If the UN does not provide a legal basis for humanitarian intervention, it contradicts its original purpose.

– If the right to self defence is legal, so should be the right to intervene humanitarian grounds unilaterally.

Cases of intervention and the intentions behind intervention

Humanitarian motivations or non-Humanitarian motivations?

What have been the outcomes of these operations? Does intervention based on humanitarian reasons result in better outcomes?

Intervention and the UN

Intervention is defined as a deliberate incursion into a state without its consent by some outside agency, in order to change the functioning, policies and goals of its governments and achieve effects that favour the intervening agency.

Intervention in this traditional sense was opposed to the principles of the UN enshrined in Article 2(7): “Nothing contained in the present charter shall authorize the UN to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state”

The principles of non-intervention could only be challenged based on threats to individual rights.

‘The sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity of states must be fully respected in accordance with the charter of the United Nations. In this context, humanitarian assistance should be provided with he consent of the affected country and in principle on the basis of an appeal by the affected country’ (A/46/182)

There have been very limited cases where intervention has been allowed by the UN, especially on the basis of the above UNSC resolution.

In most cases the UNSC has not given clear approval for these actions. Instead it uses indirect language such as authorizing member states to ‘use any means necessary’ to carry out its decisions

Chapter VII- deals with the action that the UN can take against threats to peace and acts of aggression

Article 42: The Security Council can take such action by air, sea or land, that is necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. The SC has sometimes authorizes countries to use ‘all necessary means’ to do this.

Article 99 authorizes the UN Secretary General to bring to the attention of the SC any matter which he feels may threaten the maintenance of intl peace and security.

The increasing readiness of the UN to intervene in states to promote internal justice for individuals indicates a movement away from unconditional sovereignty of countries to global governance.

There is resistance to this idea and no clear consensus. China for example feels that Article 2(7) should be interpreted strictly, that the consent of the state is important when intervening.

Kosovo was the first case where intervention was justified by the UN as there was a clear humanitarian element. Here international forces defied a sovereign state to protect humanitarian standards.

The 2003 Iraq war was another case of intervention but without UNSC permission.

Intervention into Kosovo- Kosovo War 1998-1999

• In 1998, Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic sent Serbian troops to take back areas of Kosovo controlled by ethnic Albanian guerrillas*, triggering a NATO air campaign in 1999. The war ended when Serbia agreed to a peace agreement sponsored by the United Nations.

• A brief war fought in 1999 between NATO and Serbia, the main remnant of the former Yugoslavia, over the status of the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo.

* Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and traditional army, and withdraw almost immediately.

After World War I the Austro-Hungary empire was divided. One of the new countries was Yugoslavia. This nation disintegrated in 1992 and war broke out between its seven new states.

Yugoslavia was a communist nation but after the end of the Cold War, Russian control over the territory ended and the country broke up.

Kosovo and Serbia

The former Serbian province of Kosovo lies just south of Serbia.

Confrontations between ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and ethnic Serbs from Serbia drew world attention to the province, which is 80% Albanian.

1996

In the southern Yugoslavian province of Kosovo, the militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) begins attacking Serbian policeman.

1998 March

Milosevic sends troops to Kosovo to quash unrest in the province. A guerrilla war breaks out.

1999 March

After peace talks fail, NATO carries through on its threat to launch airstrikes on Serbian targets.

Foreign Intervention:

In 1998, as the violence had worsened and displaced scores of Albanians, Western interest had increased. A massacre in January 1999 in particular brought new international attention to the conflict.

Within weeks, a multilateral international conference was convened calling for restoration of Kosovo's autonomy and deployment of NATO peacekeeping forces. The Serbian party found the terms unacceptable and refused to sign the draft.

Between March 24 and June 10, 1999, NATO intervened by bombing Yugoslavia aimed to force Milošević to withdraw his forces from Kosovo.

This military action was not authorised by the Security Council of the United Nations but military peacekeeping in 1999 was.

The proclaimed goal of the NATO operation was summed up by its spokesman as "Serbs out, peacekeepers in, refugees back". The campaign was initially designed to destroy Yugoslav air defenses and high-value military targets (it was nowhere near the concentrated bombardments seen in Baghdad in 1991).

On the ground, the ethnic cleansing campaign by the Serbians was increased and over 300,000 Kosovo Albanians fled into neighboring Albania and Macedonia, with many thousands more displaced within Kosovo.

NATO military operations switched increasingly to attacking Yugoslav units on the ground, hitting targets as small as individual tanks and artillery pieces, as well as continuing with the strategic bombardment. This activity was, however, heavily constrained by politics, as each target needed to be approved by all nineteen member states.

After many years of struggle and the Kosovo war, Kosovo declared independence in February 2008. Not all the countries of the world have accepted the independence of Kosovo, most notably Serbia and Russia.

The Kosovo War was NATO's first military engagement. It was controversial in part because NATO was not repelling an attack on member states but intervening in what was arguably an internal affair.

The Iraq War 2003

In 2003 a US led coalition led an attack on Iraq, removing Saddam Hussain from power.

The justification was the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq, rather than human rights violations like in Kosovo.

That weapons of mass destruction were never found fuelled claims that the war was unjustified.

The only two justifications in the UN SC were

1.A resolution from 1991 that required the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction under UN supervision

2.A resolution passed in 2002 that threatened ‘serious consequences’ if this was not done.

Efforts to reach a SC resolution in 2003 to clearly authorize the use of force against Iraq were unsuccessful and vetoed by France and Russia.

USA and UK unilaterally decided to invade Iraq under the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy of September 2002: ‘we will be prepared to act apart when our interests and unique responsibilities require’

Gulf War 1991 Not to be confused with

the 2003 Iraq War

Throughout much of the Cold War, Iraq had been an ally of the Soviet Union, and there was a history of friction between it and the United States. The United States also disliked Iraqi support for many Arab and Palestinian militant which led to its inclusion on the developing U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 1979.But the U.S. remained officially neutral after the invasion of Iran in 1980, which became the Iran–Iraq War, although it assisted Iraq covertly. To open full diplomatic relations with Iraq, the country was removed from the U.S. list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

Tensions with KuwaitBy the time a ceasefire with Iran was signed in August

1988, Iraq was virtually bankrupt, with most of its debt owed to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Iraq pressured both nations to forgive the debts, but they refused. Iraq also accused Kuwait of exceeding its OPEC quotas and driving down the price of oil, thus further hurting the Iraqi economy.

The collapse in oil prices had a catastrophic impact on the Iraqi economy. The Iraqi Government described it as a form of economic warfare, which it claimed was aggravated by Kuwait slant-drilling across the border into Iraq's Rumaila oil field.

The Iraq-Kuwait dispute also involved Iraqi claims to Kuwait as a territory of Iraq. After gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1932, the Iraqi government immediately declared that Kuwait was rightfully a territory of Iraq, as it had been an Iraqi territory for centuries until the British creation of Kuwait after World War I and thus stated that Kuwait was a British imperialist invention.

Iraq claimed Kuwait had been a part of the Ottoman Empire's province of Basra. Britain drew the border between the two countries, and deliberately tried to limit Iraq's access to the ocean so future Iraqi government would be in no position to threaten Britain's domination of the Persian Gulf. Iraq refused to accept the border, and did not recognize the Kuwaiti government until 1963.

In early July 1990 Iraq openly threatened to take military action.

On the 23rd, the CIA reported that Iraq had moved 30,000 troops to the Iraq-Kuwait border, and the U.S. naval fleet in the Persian Gulf was placed on alert.

On 2 August 1990 Iraq launched the invasion by bombing Kuwait City.

Justifications

to support its ally Saudi Arabia, whose importance in the region, and as a key supplier of oil, made it of considerable geopolitical importance.

During a speech in a special joint session of the U.S. Congress given on 11 September 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush summed up the reasons with the following remarks: "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression.”

The US and UN gave several public justifications for involvement in the conflict, the most prominent being the Iraqi violation of Kuwaiti territorial integrity. The United States moved

Other justifications for foreign involvement included Iraq’s history of human rights abuses under President Saddam. Iraq was also known to possess biological weapons and chemical weapons, which Saddam had used against Iranian troops during the Iran–Iraq War and against his own country's Kurdish population.This resulted in a massive refugee crisis and legal UN support for humanitarian military intervention- ‘threat to international peace and security’ UNSC Resolution 688. not a unanimous resolution.

Failed humanitarian response in Somalia

• In December 1992 American forces entered Somalia as part of a UN mission to feed starving people.

• By late 1991 there an inter-clan war for control over Somalia and an intra-clan war for control over Mogadishu. Throughout the south, and in Mogadishu especially, warlords claimed control over bands of well-armed youths, who roamed the cities and roadways plundering, extorting and killing.

With TV broadcasting images of the soldiers coming ashore to rescue the population, this gesture of international goodwill seemed destined for success. This is also called the “CNN factor”.

Over the next year the mission expanded from humanitarian relief to include elements of "nation building," which translated into helping Somalia establish some sort of stable, workable, democratic polity that would ultimately prevent the need for future outside interventions (Operation Restore Hope). They had entered only for famine relief, but interfered in disarming warring factions and stabilizing government. The shift from short term relief to long term peace resolution was a failure.

As a result of this expanded mandate American forces found themselves at odds with local warlords in the capital city of Mogadishu.

This conflict culminated on October 3, 1993, with a firefight between U.S. Army Rangers, members of the elite Delta Force, and forces loyal to Somali leader Gen. Aideed. After hours of intense fighting eighteen Americans lay dead and seventy-three wounded- (Battle of Mogadishu)

Triumphant Somalis dragged the body of an American helicopter pilot through the city streets. This covered in the news, complete with graphic video footage. Somalia sent shockwaves of caution and anti-interventionism through the Pentagon and the White House. Intervention in Africa then appeared to involve a maximum of risk with limited returns.

‘Black Hawk Down’ fiasco 1993

Within the military establishment, an angry belief developed that the administration of President Bill Clinton had failed to provide it with requested equipment; there was also irritation within the military at the United States' subsequent hasty withdrawal from Somalia following the Battle of Mogadishu.

Both factors contributed to the administration's reluctance to commit U.S. forces to another UN mission, especially one in Africa. American domestic politics suggested that few, if any, constituencies supported risky U.S. involvement in Africa (including Rwanda a year later).

To put it simply, the president feared a decline in public support and losing more votes in a reelection than he would gain by authorizing any African intervention, even if just or successful.

The US withdrew from Somalia in March 1994, followed by full UN withdrawal in 1995

Today much of Somalia remains in a state of feud, famine and economic collapse.