POLITICS: Global Commission to Study Humanitarian Intervention

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 15 2000 (IPS) - The Canadian government Thursday launched an international commission to study one of the most politically controversial issues facing the United Nations: humanitarian intervention.

The commission has been established at a time when most developing nations, along with China and Russia, have expressed strong reservations on whether or not the Security Council has a legitimate right to interfere in the domestic affairs of sovereign nation states.

The study is expected to provide guidelines on the terms and conditions under which humanitarian intervention would be justified – particularly in situations of military conflicts where civilians are at risk.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy told reporters that the “International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty” was a response to Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s challenge to the international community to address “the highly complex problem of state sovereignty and international responsibility.”

The 10-member commission will be co-chaired by Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister, and Mohamed Sahnoun of Algeria, a UN Special Adviser on the Horn of Africa.

“The right or responsibility of countries to intervene in other countries where human rights appear to be massively at risk has been perhaps the most troubling and difficult issue on the international policy agenda,” Evans told reporters.

Sahnoun said that he has been involved in a very hands-on way in a variety of situations in Africa that have required intervention by forces operating under the aegis of the United Nations. “The moral, legal, operational and political problems are indeed complex,” he added.

The mandate of the commission is to promote a comprehensive debate on the issues surrounding the problem of intervention and state sovereignty.

Axworthy said the purpose of the commission is to contribute to building a broader understanding of issues relating to sovereignty, and to foster a global political consensus.

The commission will focus on the appropriate international reaction to “massive violations of human rights and crimes against humanity”, as well as address the question of preventive action through an international programme of consultation and outreach, he added.

A series of meetings and roundtable discussions are to be held in the United States, Europe, Southern Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America to discuss the subject at length. The commission is expected to produce a report by late next year.

Addressing the Millennium Summit last week, US President Bill Clinton said that even though there are fewer wars between nations, there are more wars within them. “Such internal conflicts, often driven by ethnic and religious differences, took five million lives in the last decade, most of them completely innocent victims,” he added.

“These conflicts,” he said, “present us with a stark challenge: are they part of the scourge the UN was established to prevent? If so, we must respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, but still find a way to protect people as well as borders.

“The last century has taught us that there are times when the international community must take a side, not merely stand between the sides or on the sidelines.”

Clinton justified the military intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Kosovo last year and by the US-led allied forces in Iraq in 1991.

The 114 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) at the United Nations – all developing nations – argue that arbitrary humanitarian intervention is a violation of national sovereignty.

At a ministerial meeting in Colombia early this year, NAM condemned “all unilateral military actions or threats of military action, including humanitarian intervention, against the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the members of the Movement (NAM).”

Western nations argue that the United Nations has a right to intervene in domestic conflicts purely on humanitarian grounds – with or without the permission of the host country – particularly if there is massive human rights violations, as in Kosovo last year, or genocide, as in Rwanda in 1998.

During a debate on the subject of humanitarian intervention early this year, virtually all of the developing nations – including India, Egypt, Tunisia, China and Namibia – told the Security Council that they placed a higher priority on sovereignty over humanitarian intervention.

Wang Yingfan of China told the Council that all humanitarian organisations needed to fully heed the view of the country they were in, and adopt an unbiased position towards all recipients and parties. “The sovereignty of recipient countries should not be threatened,” he said. “No one should interfere with the internal affairs of a sovereign state in the name of humanitarian assistance, nor should humanitarian responses be used as a pretext to use force against a State.”

Ambassador Satyabrata Pal of India argued that because there is no comparable legal framework for humanitarian relief, it might seem to be a greyer area, “but it is the sovereign right of a state to determine whether it needs humanitarian assistance or not.”

“If it chooses not to, it can hardly be forced by the Council, or any other body, to ask for, or to accept, it,” he said.

In an opening statement during the debate, Annan told the Security Council that the legal framework for humanitarian action is provided by universal norms embodied in international humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law.

“We must re-dedicate ourselves to ensuring that the legal and principled basis for humanitarian action is maintained, respected, and strengthened,” he added.