POLITICS: UN Study Calls for New Guidelines for Intervention

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 21 2000 (IPS) - A new study by the UN University (UNU) in Tokyo warns that humanitarian intervention could “dangerously undermine” world order unless the international community agrees on a set of principles to guide such interventions.

“Kosovo confronted us with an abiding challenge of humanitarian intervention: namely, is it morally just, legally permissible and militarily feasible?” asks Ramesh Thakur, UNU’s vice-rector and one of the co-editors of the study.

Offering a compendium of viewpoints on last year’s military intervention in the former Yugoslavia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the study says that a new consensus on humanitarian intervention is urgently needed. Such intervention, it argues, must be collective, not unilateral.

Thakur points out that in today’s dangerously unstable world full of complex conflicts, concerned countries and citizens face the painful dilemma of being condemned if they do – and damned if they don’t. To use force unilaterally, he argues, is to violate international law and undermine world order.

Yet to respect sovereignty all the time is to be complicit in human rights violations sometimes, he adds. Western industrial nations say the UN should have the right to intervene in any country violating human rights or battling a humanitarian crisis. But developing nations argue that neither the UN nor any third country has the legitimate right to intervene in domestic affairs without the express permission of the country concerned.

Last year, in what was considered a highly controversial move, members of NATO, led by the United States, decided to act unilaterally to bomb Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia. The fear among NATO members, including the United States and Britain, was that any attempts to obtain UN Security Council sanction would have been shot down by two of the veto-wielding permanent members of the Council, namely Russia and China, who are opposed to any form of outside intervention in the domestic affairs of a country.

The bombings were prompted by widespread charges of genocide and human rights violations against ethnic Albanians and Kosovars by the government of President Slobodan Milosevic. Asked who should take the initiative for the new guidelines, Albrecht Schnabel, a co-author of the study, told IPS he would expect Secretary-General Kofi Annan to take a key role in such an initiative.

Schnabel said the upcoming Millennium Summit, scheduled to take place in New York in September and to be attended by more than 150 world leaders, should be the proper forum for the new initiative. There are several UN member states, including Canada and the Scandinavian countries, who have shown interest in the concept of humanitarian intervention, he said.

Given the choice, Schnabel said there are also several developing nations who would opt for UN-sanctioned interventions over unilateral interventions because the latter could be subject to abuse. The UNU study, titled “Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention,” contains the views of some 36 scholars who make a systematic assessment of the Kosovo conflict and its consequences for the changing contours of international society.

Outlining the critical reactions of the international community to the Kosovo crisis, the study notes that China is worried that “what happened in the former Yugoslavia yesterday may occur in Asia, especially in China, tomorrow.”

The problem of a strong power (or powers) using force against a weak one (or ones) based on its (their) own values will only create disorder. China supports a multipolar world order and while it does not challenge or compete with US superiority, it rejects US domination or hegemony, the study notes.

Addressing the General Assembly last September, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan brushed aside the oft-repeated argument that human rights should take precedence over national sovereignty. “When the sovereignty of a country is put in jeopardy, its human rights can hardly be protected effectively,” he said.

Sovereign equality, mutual respect for state sovereignty and non- interference in each other’s internal affairs are the basic principles governing international relations today, he said.

China’s strong stand against “humanitarian intervention” has been prompted primarily by fears of a Kosovo-type intervention in Tibet whose separatist movement has strong support among right wing politicians in the United States.

The issue of human rights is, in essence, an internal affair of a country, and should be addressed mainly by the government of that country through its own efforts, the Chinese foreign minister argued.

The UNU study also points out that many of the Islamic countries who supported the NATO operation because the Muslims in Kosovo might ultimately benefit from it, later argued that the NATO alliance committed strategic mistakes in carrying out its military operations. These mistakes include not intervening earlier, refusing to deploy ground troops to put a decisive end to the conflict, and not anticipating Milosevic’s resort to evicting hundreds and thousands of Muslims from Kosovo.

The 114-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the largest single Third World political grouping, has made it clear that unilateral intervention, no matter how noble the pretext, is not acceptable.

A broad, non-discriminatory multilateralism (in all issues including security and trade) remains the best safeguard that the developing world has against unilateral misuse of power by the strong.