Responsibility to Protect

1
Responsibility to Protect

• Alex Bellamy

2
Agenda

• Origins of an Idea
• The International Commission on Intervention and
  State Sovereignty (ICISS)
• 2005 World Summit and the UN Security Council
• Operationalizing R2P

3
The Problem

• States are intended to protect their citizens
• But states are often primary source of
  insecurity (170 million killed by their own
  government)
• Or state is unable to protect citizens (e.g.
  Somalia, Uganda from LRA etc.)

• States are sovereign enjoy exclusive
  jurisdiction
• 2(7) UN Charter non-interference
• 2(4) UN Charter non-use of force
• These rules necessary for international order and
  self-determination
• Dilemma how to protect civilians when state is
  unable or unwilling to do so without violating
  these rules?

4
Sovereignty as ResponsibilityOrigins of an Idea

• Sovereigns answerable to the people
• sovereignty as responsibility
• humanitarian intervention

5
Sovereigns are Responsible2 Foundations

• 1. Everybody has inalienable human rights that
  are
• Natural (inherent in our humanity)
• Equal (the same for everyone)
• Universal (applied everywhere)

• 2. Governments are responsible for protecting
  those rights
• When they fail, sovereigns lose their right to
  rule
• But does it
• Legitimise rebellion?
• Legitimise intervention?
• Both?

6
American Declaration of Independence

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
  men are created equal, that they are endowed by
  their Creator with certain inalienable Rights,
  that among these are Life, Liberty and Happiness.
• ..to secure these rights, Governments are
  instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
  from the consent of the governed,That whenever
  any Form of Government becomes destructive of
  these ends, it is the Right of the People to
  alter or abolish it, and to institute new
  Government
• when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
  pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
  design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
  it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
  such Government, and to provide new Guards for
  their future security

7
Sovereigns are Responsible to their Citizens

• Basic idea sovereignty is derived from the
  people
• When sovereigns fail to protect the rights of
  their citizens, citizens acquire a right and duty
  to overthrow the sovereign
• 1789 French Revolution
• Rights of Man and the Citizen the principle of
  all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation.
  No body and no individual may exercise authority
  which does not emanate expressly from the nation
  
• These basic ideas underpin decolonisation

8
Sovereignty as Responsibility

• 1993 Francis Deng appointed UN Special Rep on
  IDPs
• Civil wars increase number of IDPs
• 1993 c. 25 Million
• IDPs v. vulnerable to attack, rape, disease
  highest global mortality rate
• BUT they remain within the jurisdiction of their
  home state

9
The Political Dilemma

• In many countries experiencing internal
  conflicts, the internally displaced are not only
  disposed by their own governments but are outside
  the reach of the international community because
  of the negative approach to sovereignty as a
  barrier against international involvement. While
  international humanitarian and human rights
  instruments offer legally binding bases for
  international protection and assistance to needy
  populations within their national borders, needy
  populations are for the most part at the mercy of
  their national authorities for their security and
  general welfare. International access to them
  can be tragically constrained and even blocked by
  states in the name of sovereignty, by the
  collapse of states, or by rampant insecurity.
• Francis Deng

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Solution Sovereignty as Responsibility

• IDPs remain under jurisdiction of home state
• That state has primary responsibility for
  protecting and assisting its own citizens
• No legitimate state could dispute that assertion
• In practice no state has done
• If a state is unable to fulfill its
  responsibilities it should ask for international
  assistance
• Such assistance helped states achieve full
  sovereignty by discharging sovereign
  responsibilities it does not violate
  sovereignty
• Troubled states face a choice cooperate with
  international assistance or lose their sovereign
  rights

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Key accountability

• Sovereigns made accountable to
• Their citizens
• The international community

• Sovereignty carries with it certain
  responsibilities for which governments must be
  held accountable. And they are accountable not
  only to their national constituencies but
  ultimately to the international community. In
  other words, by effectively discharging its
  responsibilities for good governance, a state can
  legitimately claim protection for its national
  sovereignty
• Francis Deng

12
Kofi Annan 1998 Ditchley Speech

• Dilemma non-interference vs. problem of allowing
  future Rwandas
• Sovereign responsibilities embedded in UN Charter
  (Article 1)
• sovereignty implies responsibility not just
  power
• But it cannot be left to individual states to
  decide when to intervene
• So the UN Security Council has to take
  responsibility
• If it fails to do so it will lose credibility and
  undermine order
• Kosovo key test

13
Annan 1999 Speech to the General Assembly

• To those for whom the greatest threat to the
  future of international order is the use of force
  in the absence of a Security Council mandate, one
  might askin the context of Rwanda If, in those
  dark days and hours leading up to the genocide, a
  coalition of States had been prepared to act in
  defence of the Tutsi population but did not
  receive prompt Council authorization, should such
  a coalition have stood aside and allowed the
  horror to unfold?
• To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a
  new era when States and groups of States can take
  military action outside the established
  mechanisms for enforcing international law, one
  might ask Is there not a danger of such
  interventions undermining the imperfect, yet
  resilient, security system created after the
  Second World War, and of setting dangerous
  precedents for future interventions without a
  clear criterion to decide who might invoke these
  precedents, and in what circumstances?

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Annans Challenge

• Resolve the tension between human rights and
  sovereignty
• Canada creates a commission to explore ways of
  doing that

• Problems
• Tensions between different origins
• Dengs focuses on working with sovereigns
• HI overriding sovereignty
• Is the issue intervention or is it wider than
  that?
• If its wider, how wide? And how do wider aspects
  relate to intervention?

15
International Commission on Intervention and
State Sovereignty

• 2001 report The Responsibility to Protect
• Focus should be on the victims not the rights of
  interveners
• States have responsibility to protect their
  citizens
• When they fail, sovereignty yields to a global
  responsibility to protect
• In such cases, international community acquires a
  responsibility to act.
• Broad continuum of measures intervention only
  one among many ways of preventing and protecting
• 3 components prevent, react, rebuild

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Responsibility to Prevent

• single most important dimension
• Early warning
• Tackle root causes
• Direct prevention

• Recommendations
• UN HQ should become focal point for information
  gathering
• UNSC should do more on root causes (e.g. good
  governance, human rights, poverty, rule of law)
• UN should strengthen its preventive diplomacy
• UNSC should make better use of targeted sanctions
• Pool of untied development funding for use in
  prevention related activities

17
Responsibility to React

• Intervention warranted when just cause criteria
  and precautionary principles satisfied
• Just cause thresholds
• Large scale loss of life, actual or apprehended
• Large scale ethnic cleansing, actual or
  apprehended
• Q what counts as large scale?

• Precautionary principles
• Right intention
• Last resort
• Proportional means
• Reasonable prospects of success

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The Question of Authority

• Host state has the primary responsibility to
  protect
• Secondary responsibility lies with the host state
  in partnership with international agencies
• When it is unable or unwilling to fulfill this
  responsibility, it transfers to the international
  community
• Legal authority vested in the Security Council
• Challenge is to make the Council work better, not
  bypass it
• Proposal voluntary restraint on veto, commit to
  the criteria
• If Council deadlocked, General Assembly
  resolution (66 majority) would confer legitimacy
• If GA not available regional organisations should
  do it (with less authority)
• If they are not available, individual
  states/coalitions
• If the UNSC fails to act it will undermine its
  credibility and legitimacy

19
Responsibility to Rebuild

• Interveners should make a long-term commitment to
  rebuilding
• Security moral duty to protect those under the
  care of interveners
• Justice process of reconciliation, assist local
  judicial system, ensure right of return
• Development use all means to foster economic
  growth

• Problems
• Not clear how this relates to other aspects
• Practicalities hotly debated
• How to maintain local ownership?

20
Reaction to ICISS Report

• Endorsed by Annan
• NYT captured international state of mind
• revolution in sovereignty

• Critics
• Too much
• Too little
• Too vague

21
ICISS

• Succeeded in changing terms of debate
• Reconceptualising the problem
• Put protection at the core
• Identified a broad continuum of measures
• Changed question to what is the most effective
  way of protecting endangered populations

22
After ICISS

• Canada tries and fails to get R2P recognised by
  UNGA
• Annan commissions a High Level Panel on UN
  Reform which endorses R2P
• Annan himself endorses R2P in his blueprint for
  UN reform
• Many states remain skeptical due to link with
  humanitarian intervention
• This skepticism made more pointed by Iraq
• But with some revisions, consensus found on the
  principle at 2005 World Summit.
• Reaffirmed by Security Council in 2006 (Res. 1674)

23
2005 World SummitR2P Adopted by All World Leaders

• 138. Each individual state has the responsibility
  to protect its populations from genocide, war
  crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
  humanity. This responsibility entails the
  prevention of such crimes, including their
  incitement, through appropriate and necessary
  means. We accept that responsibility and will
  act in accordance with it. The international
  community should, as appropriate, encourage and
  help States to exercise this responsibility and
  support the United Nations in establishing an
  early warning capability.
• 139. The international community, through the
  United Nations, also has the responsibility to
  use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and
  other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters
  VI and VIII of the Charter of the United Nations,
  to help protect populations from war crimes,
  ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. In
  this context, we are prepared to take collective
  action, in a timely and decisive manner, through
  the Security Council, in accordance with the
  Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by-case
  basis and in cooperation with relevant regional
  organizations as appropriate, should peacefully
  means be inadequate and national authorities are
  manifestly failing to protect their populations
  from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and
  crimes against humanity. We stress the need for
  the General Assembly to continue consideration of
  the responsibility to protect populations from
  genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes
  against humanity and its implications, bearing in
  mind the principles of the Charter and
  international law. We also intend to commit
  ourselves, as necessary and appropriate, to
  helping States build capacity to protect their
  populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
  cleansing and crimes against humanity and to
  assisting those which are under stress before
  crises and conflicts break out.

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2005 Key Points

• All states accept that they have a responsibility
  to protect their own citizens from genocide,
  ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against
  humanity.
• The international community will encourage and
  assist states in the fulfillment of their
  responsibility, including by helping states to
  build the necessary capacity and assisting states
  under stress prior to conflict.
• The international community has a responsibility
  to use diplomatic, humanitarian and other
  peaceful means to protect people from genocide,
  ethnic cleansing, mass atrocities and war crimes,
  through either the UN or regional arrangements.
• The Security Council stands ready to use the full
  range of its Chapter VII powers, with the
  cooperation of regional organizations where
  appropriate, in cases where peaceful are
  inadequate and national authorities fail to
  protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes,
  ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

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From ICISS to 2005 changes

• R2P addresses only genocide, ethnic cleansing,
  war crimes, crimes against humanity
• ICISS criteria dropped no support in UNSC
• Veto restraint dropped no support
• Continuum of measures dropped
• Hierarchy of authority replaced with UNSC
• Threshold raised from unable and unwilling to
  manifestly failing

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Reactions

• Negative
• 2005 R2P lite
• R2P without substance
• Doesnt advance the debate at all
• Rhetoric without substance

• Positive
• Universal endorsement of sovereign responsibility
  major step forward
• Implies a massive policy agenda
• Clarifies R2P agenda (eg. relevant crimes)
• Identifies focus on prevention
• Provides a mandate for operationalisation

27
Operationalising R2PPrevention

• Tasks
• Early warning how do we know when genocide and
  mass atrocities are likely
• Capacity building helping states develop
  capacities
• Early intervention with diplomacy, economic
  measures, assistance etc.

• Reforms necessary
• Improve global capacity for early warning
• Ensure information gets into right hands
• Build institutional capability to assist in
  capacity building
• Human Rights Council
• Peacebuilding Commission
• Improve and systematise preventive diplomacy
• Build regional capacities for prevention
• Develop coherent political and economic
  strategies
• DPA
• World Bank/IMF

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Operationalising R2PReaction

• Tasks
• Ensure that the international community responds
  effectively and speedily to crises
• Improve non-violent strategies for protection
• Ensure that peacekeepers are capable of
  protecting civilians

• Reforms necessary
• Improvement to administration of sanctions/arms
  embargoes
• Mainstream protection
• Develop protection doctrine
• Develop global and regional reaction capabilities
• Strengthen the ICC and other legal measures

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Operationalizing R2PRebuilding

• Tasks
• Ensure effective follow on from peace operations
• Ensure adequate financial resources
• Long-term political commitment
• Coordinate roles of different agencies

• Necessary Reforms
• Clarify peacebuilding best practice
• Improve and strengthen UN Peacebuilding
  Commission
• Develop mechanisms for improved coordination
• Develop ways of sustaining political will over
  the long term

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Operationalizing R2PWhats Being Done?

• Ban Ki-moon central task is to translate R2P
  from words to deeds
• Edward Luck special adviser to Ban Ki-moon
  tasked with advancing R2P at the UN
• R2P Civil Society Coalition
• 2008 Global Centre for R2P established
  established in New York
• 4 Associates of Global Centre Accra, Oslo,
  Madrid and
• Asia-Pacific Centre for R2P based at UQ

31
Launch of the Asia-Pacific Centre for R2P,
Bangkok, February 2008