Document(s) 10 of 12

FROM ANALYSIS TO ACTION

8.1   This report has been about compelling human need, about populations at risk of slaughter, ethnic cleansing and starvation. It has been about the responsibility of sovereign states to protect their own people from such harm — and about the need for the larger international community to exercise that responsibility if states are unwilling or unable to do so themselves.

8.2   Past debates on intervention have tended to proceed as if intervention and state sovereignty were inherently contradictory and irreconcilable concepts — with support for one necessarily coming at the expense of the other. But in the course of our consultations this Commission has found less tension between these principles than we expected. We found broad willingness to accept the idea that the responsibility to protect its people from killing and other grave harm was the most basic and fundamental of all the responsibilities that sovereignty imposes — and that if a state cannot or will not protect its people from such harm, then coercive intervention for human protection purposes, including ultimately military intervention, by others in the international community may be warranted in extreme cases. We found broad support, in other words, for the core principle identified in this report, the idea of the responsibility to protect.

8.3   The most strongly expressed concerns that the Commission did hear in the course of our year-long consultations around the world went essentially to the political and operational consequences of reconciling the principle of shared responsibility with that of non-intervention. These concerns were of three different kinds. They might be described, respectively, as concerns about process, about priorities, and about delivery, with a cross-cutting concern about competent assessment of the need to act.

8.4   As to process, the main concern was to ensure that when protective action is taken, and in particular when there is military intervention for human protection purposes, it is undertaken in a way that reinforces the collective responsibility of the international community to address such issues, rather than allowing opportunities and excuses for unilateral action. The Commission has sought to address these concerns by focusing, above all, on the central role and responsibility of the United Nations Security Council to take whatever action is needed. We have made some suggestions as to what should happen if the Security Council will not act but the task, as we have seen it, has been not to find alternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority, but to make it work much better than it has.

8.5   As to priorities, the main concern was that attention in past debates and policy making had focused overwhelmingly on reaction to catastrophe — and in particular reaction by military intervention — rather than trying to ensure that the catastrophe did not happen in the first place. The Commission has tried to redress this imbalance by emphasizing over and again the integral importance of prevention in the intervention debate, and also by pointing out the need for a major focus on post-conflict peace building issues whenever military intervention is undertaken. We have argued that the responsibility to protect embraces not only the responsibility to react, but the responsibility to prevent, and the responsibility to rebuild.

8.6   As to delivery, we found the most widespread concern of all. There were too many occasions during the last decade when the Security Council, faced with conscience-shocking situations, failed to respond as it should have with timely authorization and support. And events during the 1990s demonstrated on too many occasions that even a decision by the Security Council to authorize international action to address situations of grave humanitarian concern was no guarantee that any action would be taken, or taken effectively. The Commission has been conscious of the need to get operational responses right, and part of our report has been devoted to identifying the principles and rules that should govern military interventions for human protection purposes.

8.7   But it is even more important to get the necessary political commitment right, and this is the issue on which we focus in this chapter. It remains the case that unless the political will can be mustered to act when action is called for, the debate about intervention for human protection purposes will largely be academic. The most compelling task now is to work to ensure that when the call goes out to the community of states for action, that call will be answered. There must never again be mass killing or ethnic cleansing. There must be no more Rwandas.

MOBILIZING DOMESTIC POLITICAL WILL

8.8   The key to mobilizing international support is to mobilize domestic support, or at least neutralize domestic opposition. How an issue will play at home — what support or opposition there will be for a particular intervention decision, given the significant human costs and financial costs that may be involved, and the domestic resources that may need to be reallocated — is always a factor in international decision making, although the extent to which the domestic factor comes into play does, however, vary considerably, country by country and case by case.

8.9   Contextual factors like size and power, geography, and the nature of the political institutions and culture of the country concerned are all important in this respect. Some countries are just more instinctively internationalist, and more reflexively inclined to respond to pleas for multilateral cooperation, than others: really major powers tend never to be as interested in multilateralism as middle powers and small powers, because they don’t think they have to be. Geographic proximity comes into play, simply because what happens nearby is more likely to endanger nationals, to raise significant security concerns, and to result in refugees, economic disruptions and unwanted political spillovers — and to capture media attention and generate demands for action accordingly. By contrast, cultural affinity can mean particular concern for the plight of co-religionists, or fellow language speakers, even in small countries far away. Again, an extremely inward-looking political culture, by contrast, can find it hard to accommodate any external supporting role; many political systems disproportionately reward political actors whose focus and commitments are wholly domestic in character, leaving quite isolated those willing to stand up for international engagement.

8.10   Particular caution is also routinely to be expected from those countries in possession of the military, police, economic and other assets that are most in demand in implementing intervention mandates. Given the magnitude of continuing operations in the Balkans (more than 50,000 troops), as well as the shrinking military budgets of most countries in the post-Cold War era, there are real constraints on how much spare capacity exists to take on additional burdens. UN peacekeeping may have peaked in 1993 at 78,000 troops. But today, if both NATO and UN missions are included, the number of soldiers in international peace operations has soared by about 40 per cent to 108,000. Even states willing in principle to look at new foreign military commitments are being compelled to make choices about how to use limited and strained military capabilities.

8.11   In mobilizing political support for intervention for human protection purposes, as for anything else, a great deal comes down to the leadership of key individuals and organizations. Someone, somewhere has to pick up the case and run with it. Political leaders are crucial in this respect, but they are not the only actors: they are, for the most part, acutely responsive to the demands and pressures placed upon them by their various political constituencies, and the domestic media, and they are much influenced by what is put to them by their own bureaucracies. NGOs have a crucial and ever increasing role, in turn, in contributing information, arguments and energy to influencing the decision-making process, addressing themselves both directly to policy makers and indirectly to those who, in turn, influence them. The institutional processes through which decisions are made will vary enormously from country to country, but there are always those who are more responsible than others and they have to be identified, informed, stimulated, challenged, and held to account: if everyone is responsible, then no one is actually responsible.

8.12   The trouble with most discussions of "political will" is that more time is spent lamenting its absence than on analyzing its ingredients, and working out how to use them in different contexts. To reduce the issue to its bare essentials, what is necessary is a good understanding of the relevant institutional processes, as just mentioned, and good arguments. What constitutes a good argument will obviously depend on the particular context. But it is not too much of an oversimplification to say that, in most political systems around the world, pleas for international action of the kind we are dealing with in this report need to be supported by arguments having four different kinds of appeal: moral, financial, national interest and partisan.

8.13   As to moral appeal, preventing, averting and halting human suffering — all the catastrophic loss and misery that go with slaughter and ethnic cleansing and mass starvation — re inspiring and legitimizing motives in almost any political environment. Political leaders often underestimate the sheer sense of decency and compassion that prevails in their electorates, at least when people’s attention is engaged (just as they also underestimate the public willingness, when well informed, to accept the risk of casualties in well designed military interventions aimed at alleviating that suffering). Getting a moral motive to bite means, however, being able to convey a sense of urgency and reality about the threat to human life in a particular situation. Unfortunately, this is always harder to convey at the crucial stage of prevention than it is after some actual horror has occurred.

8.14   The best financial argument is that earlier action is always cheaper than later action. If prevention is possible, it is likely to be cheaper by many orders of magnitude than responding after the event through military action, humanitarian relief assistance, postconflict reconstruction, or all three. In Kosovo, almost any kind of preventive activity — whether it involved more effective preventive diplomacy, or the earlier and sharper application of coercive preventive measures like the credible threat of ground-level military action — would have had to be cheaper than the $46 billion the international community is estimated to have committed at the time of writing in fighting the war and following up with peacekeeping and reconstruction.

8.15   National interest appeals can be made at many different levels. Avoiding the disintegration of a neighbour, with the refugee outflows and general regional security destabilization associated with it can be a compelling motive in many contexts. National economic interests often can be equally well served by keeping resource supply lines, trade routes and markets undisrupted. And whatever may have been the case in the past, these days peace is generally regarded as much better for business than war.

8.16   There is another dimension of the national interest which is highly relevant to intervention for human protection purposes: every country's national interest in being, and being seen to be, a good international citizen. There is much direct reciprocal benefit to be gained in an interdependent, globalized world where nobody can solve all their own problems: my country’s assistance for you today in solving your neighbourhood refugee and terrorism problem, might reasonably lead you to be more willing to help solve my environmental or drugs problem tomorrow. The interest in being seen to be a good international citizen is simply the reputational benefit that a country can win for itself, over time, by being regularly willing to pitch into international tasks for motives that appear to be relatively selfless.

8.17   Making an argument with a partisan appeal for a government concerned about its political support at the ballot box or elsewhere is a more delicate matter. The point is simply that in any particular country, arguments which may not have a strong or sufficient appeal to the community at large may still have that appeal to a key section of the government’s own particular support base, and be extremely influential for that reason. Governments often have to do things without knowing what is the majority view, and even when they know that the majority sentiment might be against the proposed action. What often matters more is that they have arguments that will appeal to, or at least not alienate, their immediate support base; and that they have arguments that they can use to deflate, or at least defend against, the attacks of their political opponents.

MOBILIZING INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL WILL

8.18   What happens in capitals is a crucial ingredient in international decision making. But it is only part of the story. International political will is more than just the sum of attitudes and policies of individual countries. What happens between states and their representatives in bilateral and multilateral contacts, and within intergovernmental organizations, is obviously also crucial. To get the right words uttered, and to turn them into deeds, requires — at international as at domestic level — the same kind of commitment and leadership, and the same kind of constant campaigning. Mobilizing support for specific instances of intervention is always a challenge, because there will always be a compelling rationale for inaction. The same strictures apply internationally as domestically about understanding where in the various processes responsibility for decision making actually lies, and how to pin it down. And it is just as important in the international arena as it is in the domestic to be able to produce arguments appealing to morality, resource concerns, institutional interests and political interests. This whole report is, in a sense, an expression of just such arguments in the context of intervention for human protection purposes.

8.19   An obvious starting point when looking for multilateral leadership on questions relating to intervention is the UN Secretary-General and senior officials in the Secretariat. Although the Secretary-General’s formal role under Article 99 of the UN Charter could, as we have suggested, be further developed, his routine activities and interaction with the Security Council, and his international profile with governments and the media, give him a unique opportunity to mobilize international support; an important further part of his multilateral leadership role lies in constructing and maintaining the multinational coalitions which are an essential element in the contemporary implementation of UN-authorized peace operations. The Secretariat, particularly through its reports and recommendations to the Security Council, makes a major contribution to shaping the deliberations and determining the range of options considered. That contribution, it must be said again, can be negative as well as positive: Rwanda in 1994 involved a failure, not only by key member states, but in the leadership of the UN and in the effective functioning of the Secretariat as well.

8.20   Beyond the UN itself, including all the organs and agencies in the system beyond the Secretariat, there are multiple other international actors whose roles are immensely relevant to the intervention issue, in particular regional and sub-regional organizations, and international NGOs, and the media. We have mentioned the key institutional players throughout this report, and need not here do so again.

8.21   As to the media, there is no question that good reporting, well-argued opinion pieces and in particular real time transmission of images of suffering do generate both domestic and international pressure to act. The "CNN effect" can be almost irresistible, unbalanced in its impact though it may be, with similarly troubling crises not always receiving similar attention. On the other hand, by focusing attention on human suffering, media attention sometimes tends to divert policy makers from hard diplomatic and military decisions, with time pressures sometimes pushing them to become involved before serious analysis and planning can occur. That is perhaps a lesser sin than those of total inertia or excessive delay, but it can create problems nonetheless.

8.22   International NGOs have been significant advocates of cross-border human protection action, extending in some cases to military intervention, and their positive influence in stirring response — especially in the West — has been great. Yet they too, from the perspective of the decision makers they seek to influence, can have their limitations as advocates: they are seen often as lacking in policy making experience, frequently as unhelpfully divided over which precise policy course is optimal, and sometimes as reluctant publicly (as distinct from privately) to endorse coercive measures which may be necessary, but which are not easy for governments or intergovernmental institutions to deliver without overt support.

8.23   The goals of policy makers and humanitarian advocates are not so different from each other. Given that the application of deadly force should remain an option of last resort, there is still a range of choices between doing nothing and sending in the troops. There are always options to be considered before, during, and after lethal conflicts. Both policy makers and humanitarian advocates would like to see public policy succeed in tackling the most crucial issues of the day. One of the most pressing such issues is how to make good the responsibility to protect those facing the worst sort of horrors the contemporary world has to provide.

NEXT STEPS

8.24   The Commission’s objective from the outset has been for our report to have a practical and concrete political impact, rather then simply provide additional stimulation to scholars and other commentators — though we hope to have done that as well. Consistent with our practical focus we have been mindful, throughout our work and consultations, of the need to ensure a solid foundation for the discussions that will take place at the United Nations and in other international forums after the presentation of the report, as well as within governments and among those who seek to influence them.

8.25   Our immediate hope is that by helping to clarify and focus the terms of the debate — not as a contest between sovereignty and intervention, but as involving "the responsibility to protect" as a common theme — a way forward will be found through the current polemics and present impasse in that debate. We want, above all, to strengthen the prospects for obtaining action, on a collective and principled basis, with a minimum of double standards, in response to conscience-shocking situations of great humanitarian need crying out for that action. If our report can help to stimulate support for such action by reminding states of their common responsibilities, then it will have made a very significant contribution indeed.

8.26   The principles of action around which we would like to see consensus develop are summarized in the Synopsis set out in the first pages of this report. What should happen next to advance them? There has been much discussion, at national, regional and international levels, on how best to approach the practical task of trying to embody any new consensus among states on the question of intervention for human protection purposes. Some suggest that the focus should be on drafting guidelines for the internal use of the Security Council; some support the passing of a more formal resolution by the General Assembly; and others have gone so far as to suggest that work should begin on the drafting of a new international convention, or even an amendment to the UN Charter itself.

8.27   The Commission believes that it would be premature to make a judgement now as to what will ultimately prove possible if consensus around the idea of "the responsibility to protect" builds to the extent that we hope it will. The important thing now is to make a start, with member states working with the Secretary-General to give substantive and procedural content to the ideas we advance. There are major roles to be played by the Secretary-General himself, by the Security Council and by the General Assembly, and we make some suggestions in this respect in the following recommendations. The Commission makes no judgement as to the most appropriate sequence in which these steps should be taken.

8.28   The Commission recommends to the General Assembly:

That the General Assembly adopt a draft declaratory resolution embodying the basic principles of the responsibility to protect, and containing four basic elements:

• an affirmation of the idea of sovereignty as responsibility;

• an assertion of the threefold responsibility of the international community of states — to prevent, to react and to rebuild — when faced with human protection claims in states that are either unable or unwilling to discharge their responsibility to protect;

• a definition of the threshold (large scale loss of life or ethnic cleansing, actual or apprehended) which human protection claims must meet if they are to justify military intervention; and

• an articulation of the precautionary principles (right intention, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects) that must be observed when military force is used for human protection purposes.

8.29   The Commission recommends to the Security Council:

(1)   That the members of the Security Council should consider and seek to reach agreement on a set of guidelines, embracing the "Principles for Military Intervention" summarized in the Synopsis, to govern their responses to claims for military intervention for human protection purposes.

(2)   That the Permanent Five members of the Security Council should consider and seek to reach agreement not to apply their veto power, in matters where their vital state interests are not involved, to obstruct the passage of resolutions authorizing military intervention for human protection purposes for which there is otherwise majority support.

8.30   The Commission recommends to the Secretary-General:

That the Secretary-General give consideration, and consult as appropriate with the President of the Security Council and the President of the General Assembly, as to how the substance and action recommendations of this report can best be advanced in those two bodies, and by his own further action.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

8.31   Throughout its deliberations, the Commission has sought to reconcile two objectives: to strengthen, not weaken, the sovereignty of states, and to improve the capacity of the international community to react decisively when states are either unable or unwilling to protect their own people. Reconciling these two objectives is essential. There is no prospect of genuine equality among peoples unless the sovereignty of states is respected and their capacity to protect their own citizens is enhanced. Equally, the very term "international community" will become a travesty unless the community of states can act decisively when large groups of human beings are being massacred or subjected to ethnic cleansing.

8.32   The Commission is optimistic that these dual objectives — enhancing the sovereign capacity of states and improving the ability of the international community to protect people in mortal danger — can be reconciled in practice. Our work reflects the remarkable, even historic, change that has occurred in the practice of states and the Security Council in the past generation. Thanks to this change, no one is prepared to defend the claim that states can do what they wish to their own people, and hide behind the principle of sovereignty in so doing. In the international community, just as there can be no impunity for unwarranted unilateral uses of force, nor can there be impunity for massacre and ethnic cleansing. No one who has perpetrated such horrors should ever be allowed to sleep easily.

8.33   This basic consensus implies that the international community has a responsibility to act decisively when states are unwilling or unable to fulfill these basic responsibilities. The Commission has sought to give clear articulation to this consensus, and calls on all members of the community of nations, together with non-governmental actors and citizens of states, to embrace the idea of the responsibility to protect as a basic element in the code of global citizenship, for states and peoples, in the 21st century.

8.34   Meeting this challenge is more than a matter of aspiration. It is a vital necessity. Nothing has done more harm to our shared ideal that we are all equal in worth and dignity, and that the earth is our common home, than the inability of the community of states to prevent genocide, massacre and ethnic cleansing. If we believe that all human beings are equally entitled to be protected from acts that shock the conscience of us all, then we must match rhetoric with reality, principle with practice. We cannot be content with reports and declarations. We must be prepared to act. We won’t be able to live with ourselves if we do not.

Document(s) 10 of 12