There is a date for the United States deciding move forward with the concept of humanitarian intervention: 19 April 1999.
It was at the opening ceremony of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum when Elie Wiesel, admonishing the Western world for its inaction in the face of another possible genocide, demanded to know what President Clinton, a ceremonial attendee, was going to do about Bosnia. This speech, coupled with his previously exalted Millennium Lecture “The Perils of Indifference”, focused on the need for all peoples to confront crimes against humanity and initiate strategies to aid those in need; Elie Wiesel’s words reinforce the concept that we are all accountable.
These remarks coupled with the international community’s actions in Kosovo and East Timor generated the belief that the 1990s were the decade of ‘humanitarian intervention’; a title that would more appropriately be bestowed upon another decade: the 1970s.
The 1970s were witness to major uses of force based upon the concept of self-defense – India’s incursion into East Pakistan (1971) and Vietnam’s assailing of Cambodia (1978) – had more influence, on humanitarian grounds, than the actions of the West in the 1990s. It would be hard pressed to believe that these events had fallen into the dustbin of history when the term ‘humanitarian intervention’ came to be; realistically, the ‘wrong’ people succeeded in acting in a humanitarian manner, in thus no new policies were established in the world community.
Instead, it was the 1990s that ushered in the period of the West foisting new rules pertaining to ‘humanitarian intervention’ on the entire world. Many countries, even Western allies, met this newly developed concept with disdain: Nelson Mandela declared the West was “encouraging chaos…by ignoring other nations and playing ‘policemen of the world’” while the Israelis criticized Western leaders for a return to “gunboat diplomacy” under the guise of “moralistic righteousness”.
The conceptualization of a state in the context of international law has consistently referred to a nation’s institutions and territorial boundaries while the citizenry embodies the nature and identity of the state. People are the primary factor in a country’s existence, for, as stated in the Montevideo Convention’s Article 1, a “permanent population” is not only a “qualification for a “state”, but also an extremely important instrument for a government’s formation and nation’s border retention. It is the citizenry and not the concept of state that is directly affected by international laws, as the Law of Nations defines “[n]ations or [s]tates” as “societies of men who have united together”. In thus, the terminology used by international law when referencing a state is implicitly a reference to its people. It is due to this that the international community would have legitimate recourse in defending a country from internal and external threats on the basis of ensuring the livelihood and survivability of the state’s civilian population.
It is under the above stated, misguided perception that has led the international community to defend its concept of legal authority and moral responsibility to protect all people anywhere.
The concept for The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was derived by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) and was developed as a means to resolve the dilemmas disrupting the contemporary world order. The escalation of intrastate violence during the post-Cold War era brought about a fundamental disagreement within the international community pertaining to finding a balance between sovereign rights and humanitarian intervention when attempting to resolve a nation’s internal conflict. The internal socio-political, -economic, and -cultural violence erupting from lesser-developed countries was beginning to undermine the stability and security of the international system. It was due to this outbreak in hostilities that led the Western powers to attempt to construct a framework of collective international security, in order to effectively and efficiently intervene in the violence and respond to all humanitarian emergencies.
These efforts were brought about due to the international community’s delayed response to Rwanda as well as the lack of political will by those who were committed to peacemaking and peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Somalia. The failures of the international community to respond in accordance with the needs on the ground in these countries, as well as in other nations, initiated a movement to reform international law by redefining the role of a nation-state and its ability to use force.
During this period the self-proclaimed leader of humanitarian intervention, the United States, began falling back on defining its actions with the rhetoric espoused in Wilsonian idealism; the concept that the United States is a good, noble country that exudes righteous intent in everything it does, even when the actions are bungled in execution and questionable in outset.
American administrations in the post-Cold War environment have strived to become unifying force of tying humanitarian intervention with U.S. foreign policy has allowed American actions to reach a “noble phase”, in which its “elevated ideals” are committed to “stability and righteousness” (phrases extracted from Wilson’s rhetoric regarding America’s role in world affairs – ie. the Philippines).
It is widely believed that there are parameters under the R2P that dictate the international community’s rationale and manner of conduct when executing a humanitarian intervention campaign; a belief that is utilized to defend the notion that humanitarian interventions cannot be utilized improperly. The Responsibility to Protect states that every country “has the responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”, and, if a country does not abide by this principle, the use of “military force” by the international community “remains a possibility” to end the human rights violations. In order for the international community to resort to the use of force, interventionist policies must be developed based upon the concepts of just cause, right intention, right authority, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects. It is the duty of the international community to analyze the situation as it unfolds and reinforce its actions of humanitarian intervention with these criteria.
Contention to defend a state’s right to territorial integrity and national sovereignty arose with the acceptance of the principles within the ICISS and the criterions put forth by the R2P. The objections to the R2P by members of the international community comes from a concern about a potential for abuse by the Western powers; due to the weakening of the general prohibition on force contained in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which states that “[a]ll [m]embers shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.
Past international decisions have already laid the framework in explaining away the safeguards laid out in the R2P. The concept of ‘humanitarian intervention’ and the issues surrounding the concept has its roots as far back as the 1949 International Court of Justice’s Corfu Channel case, which stated: “The Court can only regard the alleged right of intervention as the manifestation of a policy of force, such as has, in the past, given rise to the most serious abuses such as cannot, whatever be the defects in international organizations, find a place in international law…for the nature of things [intervention] would be reserved for the most powerful states, and might easily lead to perverting the administration of justice itself”.
The decision by the court was based upon the justification of world leaders during the lead-up to World War II: Hilter’s incursion into the Sudetenland was justified by his statement that the German people were “filled with earnest desire to serve the true interests of the peoples dwelling in this area, to safeguard the national individuality of the German and Czech people, and to further the peace and social welfare of all” or Japan’s invasion of Northern China and Manchuria were deemed, by the nation’s leaders, as a sacrifice for these people in order to ensure the Communist “bandits” do not destroy their way of life.
Since the Corfu Channel case, there have been numerous instances in which world leaders justified their actions by way of structuring their message as a response to a humanitarian crisis: Russia’s 1956 invasion of Hungary was explained away as a “defensive response to foreign funding of subversive activities and armed bands within Hungary for purposes of overthrowing democratically elected government” and the United States’ attack against South Vietnam was stated as a needed operation of “collective self-defense”.
Even the most well designed policy can be manipulated and reinterpreted for the advantage of one group over another.