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n a world of failed and failing states, does the international community and Canada have a responsibility to intervene, including militarily, in the affairs of nations that grossly fail to protect their citizens' human rights? Or, have we learned in recent years that the use of force against sovereign states necessarily creates more problems that it solves?

The second Munk Debate will explore the merits and pitfall of humanitarian interventions by debating the resolution: "if countries like Sudan, Somalia and Burma will not end their man-made humanitarian crises, the international community should."
FOR
Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


The concept of humanitarian intervention is at its core about protecting people. It rests on the premise that when gross abuses of human rights are taking place, when innocent people are being maimed and killed, then the international community cannot and should not stand idly by. What precisely should be done and by whom is a topic of great importance and debate. But that something should be done to stop such abuses is unquestionable. As Kofi Annan has stated unequivocally "massive and systematic violations of human rights, wherever they take place, should never be allowed to stand."

As the veil of the cold war was lifted in the early 1990’s, a new type of conflict became apparent. Wars between states, which had remained hidden as US Soviet proxy wars, emerged for what they truly were – civil wars in which large scale civilian suffering was commonplace.

In 1990, this reality presented a challenge to the international community. In the face of
Serbian atrocities and oppression of the Albanian Kosovars, NATO intervened, primarily through use of high altitude bombing, to stop the killing. This was conducted without the authorization of the UN Security Council due to the threat of a Russian veto. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo would later find that the intervention was legitimate, due to diplomatic efforts made prior to the use of force, but that ultimately the action was illegal due to lack of Security Council approval.

In this conflicted decision, lies the core the challenge of humanitarian intervention – how should the world act when the interests of humans are superceded by the realities of international law and realpolitic? As Kofi Annan asked: ‘‘On the one hand, is it legitimate for a regional organization to use force without a UN mandate? One the other, is it permissible to let gross and systematic violations of human rights, with grave humanitarian consequences, continue unchecked?’’

The human costs of this challenge were made ever more poignant when in 1994, the world failed to act in response to the Rwandan Genocide. 500,000 people were killed in the span of three months while the UN and its member states did next to nothing. The legal debates around the right to intervene, here were replaced by the moral and human costs of inaction. Again, faced with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, international leaders had allowed sovereignty to trump humanity.

Following the legal dilemma of Kosovo, the failures of the Rwandan Genocide, and the humanitarian disasters of the Somalia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Canadian Government established the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) and asked it to explore when, if ever, the international community has the right to intervene in a sovereign state in the name of humanitarian protection?

Made up of prominent international human rights leaders, the commission came up with a novel approach. In their final report, “The Responsibility to Protect”, they shifted the question from when the international community has the right to intervene, to who has the responsibility to protect civilians from gross abuse. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is first, of course, placed on the sovereign state. But sovereignty is conditional on providing this protection. If a state is unable or unwilling to protect its population, or is itself the cause of the threat, the international community has a responsibility to protect those populations against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.

The ICISS also outlined a number of threshold conditions that must be met before sovereignty could be breached by military intervention. They include a just cause defined by high losses of life, right intention, last resort, proportional means, reasonable prospects of success, right authority granted by the UN Security Council, and clear operational objectives.

The notion of a state’s sovereignty being conditional on an ability and willingness to protect its citizens was re-affirmed in 2004, in the Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, which endorsed R2P as an emerging norm. The concept was official affirmed by the UN in the 2005 World Summit Outcomes document which stated that UN had the responsibility protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. In so doing, the last hurdle to the legality of humanitarian intervention had been overcome.

Since 2005, a clear case of the Responsibility to Protect has emerged. While the international community was signing the R2P into UN protocol, the genocide in Darfur was emerging as the first genocide of the 21st century. Despite much talk, little has been done to halt the killing, and the concept of R2P, so lauded in the halls of the General Assembly, has yet to be applied to save the over 200,000 people who have so far been killed in Sudan.

The case for humanitarian intervention in Darfur is clear. First, the conflict threatens regional stability. When humanitarian crises are left unsolved, they ultimately spread to neighbouring countries, destabilizing a region, leading to further conflict in neighbouring states, and threatening even more people. Second, we have a moral obligation to protect the hundreds of thousands who are risk. Third, the Sudanese government, through its complicity in the genocide, has clearly forfeited its right to sovereignty. Finally, we have a responsibility to right the wrongs of the western colonial legacy in Africa.

And herein lies the crucial point. The debate over humanitarian intervention should not be whether it is necessary – there is no question that it is – but rather who is going to finally act to stop the unnecessary killing. It is more intervention that is needed, not less.


AGAINST
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There is no doubt that the moral case for humanitarian intervention is convincing. Who would not want to help those in dire need? The reality, however, is somewhat more complex. More often than not, the use of force for humanitarian purposes simply causes more problems than it solves.

The myriad of arguments against humanitarian are as diverse as their wide array of proponents - from radical leftists to isolationist conservatives, from African development workers to Chinese leaders. All caution against promoting a practice whereby militaries are used, countries are invaded and wars are waged in the name of humanitarianism.

There are eight diverse arguments against humanitarian intervention.

First, humanitarian wars are rarely, if ever, fought for purely humanitarian reasons. National interest is almost always a critical factor governing the motives of the intervening states. More often than not, geopolitics rather than human interests drives humanitarian intervention. In Kosovo, for example, there were clear NATO interests at stake. In Rwanda there were not. There are two costs to the role of national interest in humanitarian operations. First, if the primary interest is geopolitical, rather than humanitarian, then the means of force used will bias the former over the latter - such as the near exclusive reliance of airpower in Kosovo. Second, states that intervene for purely humanitarian reasons quickly lose interest and go home (such as is Haiti, Somalia); those that stay almost always have dubious motives.

Second, humanitarian intervention is a guise for a new era of colonialism, driven by a neo-liberal agenda. Rationalized through the theory of a 'liberal peace' - that countries with open markets and democratic governments won't go to war - proponents of intervention have replaced the colonialist goal of "civilizing" the third world, with the humanitarian goal of freeing the developing world from human right abuses. The result is that the economic order promoted and established by the intervening powers, often works against the interests of those the intervention was meant to protect.

Third, breaches of sovereignty in the name of humanitarianism erode the principle of sovereignty that has successfully governed the world since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. This has two costs. First, it diminished the authority of the entity best suited to protect the interests of humans. Intervention delegitimizes the very body that for the past 400 years, has been the single best protector of human wellbeing - the nation state. Second, humanitarian intervention sets a very dangerous precedent for future violations of the principle of national sovereignty. Just because we may think a breach of sovereignty was appropriate in Kosovo, would we feel the same way if Russia invaded Georgia to "protect" the peoples of South Ossetia? Or China, to "protect" the Taiwanese?

Fourth, the problems in many of the conflicts in which proponents would like to see us intervene, are either the direct or indirect consequence of European colonialism and Western inference to begin with. Whether in Colonial Africa, in shaping the borders of the Middle East or in fueling the proxy wars of the Cold War, the "west" has been at the root of many of the wars they now use as a rationale for further interference. Perhaps it is time we stay away.

Fifth, the principle of humanitarian intervention have been co-opted as a Trojan horse for US imperialism. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, humanitarian rationales have been evoked to justify what are clearly being fought for US, rather than humanitarian interests. As Richard Falk states "After September 11, the American approach to humanitarian intervention morphed into post hoc rationalizations for uses of force otherwise difficult to reconcile with international law… There is no doubt that the Iraqi people have been liberated, although for what remains obscure."

Sixth, it is sometimes better to let a conflict run its course, than to prematurely step in and stop it. As political scientist Edward N. Luttwak has noted "Although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace." Humanitarian interventions often impose short term solutions to trump real long term peace and stability.

Seventh, with regard to the Responsibility to Protect. Once we open the vault of intervention, where does the "responsibility" end? For example, R2P has already in its short life, been cited as a reason to: invade Iraq; to protect the artifacts in the National Museum in Iraq; to implement stringent domestic counterterrorism policies in the US; as a reason to stop Iran from processing enriched uranium; and, to use force for the promotion of democracy. While the intentions of R2P may be sounds, it has already been used to rationalize profoundly un-humanitarian acts.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, humanitarian interventions often do more harm than good. In, fact, they often result in precisely what proponents say they are meant to prevent - gross violations of human rights and international law. Militaries, no matter what their mission, will fight to win. The process of winning a war, will often make the humanitarian situation worse in the short term. This is exacerbates by our unwillingness to take casualties. A recent air strike in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians. In what way is this act "humanitarian"? In Kosovo, a reliance on airpower, while ultimately successful in achieving a military victory, provoked the Serbs to accelerate their murder and displacement of Albanian Kosovars.

While few of these argument may be convincing on their own, and there are surely no individuals who would agree with all of them, together, they offer an overwhelming caution for those who seek the wider use of force in the name of humanitarian interests. The world would be far safer, and people more secure, if less intervention took place, not more.


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