Intervention and international issues

This vital question has recently gained prominence with the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan creating a High-Level Panel on global security threats and reform of the international system. They will monitor and study the significant aspects of this topic. Their dialogue will draw particular attention, now that UN Security Council reform is again topping the agenda in international politics. It is also timely given the fact that European Union's Javier Solana is presenting the final version of a paper laying out European Security Strategy to the EU Summit in December.

In this context it was revealing to read the report prepared by Gareth Evans, the former Foreign Minister of Australia about this subject. He has focussed on how the world responded to this dilemma in the nineties. Gareth Evans discusses, in large part, the difficulties of the nineties: Rwanda, Kosovo, Somalia and similar conflicts.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

It may be recalled that these were seen as internal conflicts initially. The international community failed to assess immediately the connection between these conflicts and the instability that could result from these situations for the wider world. Some political analysts now claim that it was a "no man's land of international law" and the international community had floundered because it was without clear guidelines on "when to go in" or intervene.

Recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan have again raised the important question of when we can intervene in the affairs of another State. There is significant need to reiterate the premise of primacy of multilateralism within the international system. We have to recognise the existence of certain ground rules for the use of force and the need of getting the UN and regional organisations to perform together to create a world, in which, as former US President Clinton had put it, "the US would be comfortable living when it is no longer the top dog."

When Kofi Annan had initially called for guidelines on intervention in 1999, he met with little more than "trench digging," with developing countries keen on intervention in certain respects but nursing the "old wounds of their colonial past" and developed countries hesitant on the grounds of preserving sovereignty and integrity. As a consequence, the UN Commission focussed on determining the international consensus and changing the language of the debate. In reality, the 'when to intervene question' merely became a subset of what arose from different political contexts. There seemed to be an emerging consensus that intervention was justified in situations in which there was a clear threat to peace and security but doubt remained as to preemptive self-defence.

Discussion in different meetings generally agreed that threats emanating from internal situations, including acts of tyranny, or gross human rights violations (as had been the case in Somalia, Rwanda and Kosovo) gave rise to criteria for possible intervention. These issues were generally framed as the non-intervention in a sovereign state versus the protection of individual human rights.

In the recent past various international jurists and human rights activists have also been focussing on the issue of intervention in terms of victims' rights. They are trying to redefine the notion of sovereignty and the realisation that the Westphalian concept of it needs to be muted and reframed. They are pointing out that sovereignty needs not only to be understood in terms of integrality of territory and borders, but also in terms of responsibility of a state toward its own people. In this regard they are asserting that when a state fails or abdicates in its responsibility for taking care of its citizens, such responsibility then falls on the international community.

However, this responsibility not being clearly defined has led to a conceptual vacuum with the Iraq crisis. The problem of legality has been further compounded by the probability of internal instability giving rise to terrorism. Rationale for intervention in Iraq has now consequently shifted to tyranny and suffering of the people, which is closely linked to human rights questions. It is now being used to justify intervention in Iraq whereas the WMD argument was earlier used as primary justification.

International responsibility appears to have assumed a three-dimensional perspective to prevent the collapse of a state, to react after the first signs of collapse and to rebuild. One might say that these three fall under the umbrella term of the responsibility to protect. This responsibility also appears to be based on criteria like establishing a just cause for intervention, whether there should be military action, the possible consequences for the civilian population, whether the country would indeed be better off after invasion than before and lastly as to who is the right authority to sanction military intervention. The absence of a clear UN Security Council mandate and the absence of a self-defence principle has made the Iraqi intervention this year difficult to justify.

Military intervention in Kosovo, in a manner of speaking, was also in defiance of the UN, but the international community was won over with the argument as to what was the bigger threat, allowing mass killings to go on in Kosovo, or going against international law by circumventing the UNSC? Some jurists now claim that the action taken in Kosovo led to the UN suffering from a loss in credibility. Others argue that this might appear to be so, but in no way did such course of action reduce the scope of multilateral approval that was required for Iraq.

This debate on intervention will remain unresolved because the institutional structure of the United Nations has become incapable of dealing with large-scale humanitarian issues and is generally dysfunctional in dealing with the real impact of human security in failed states. Except in some areas, the United Nations is facing difficulty in achieving its primary objectives --conflict prevention, peace keeping and peace building. Two years ago the world re-discovered the common threat of terrorism and starkly realised the insufficiency and inefficiency of existing means to counteract this threat.

Whatever be the different views regarding intervention, one common denominator should be accepted. The consent of the United Nations Security Council should be sought prior to any military intervention. We need to have a legal basis behind our commitment. This will in turn provide the willingness to stay, help and actually resolve the problem. After the experience in Iraq, the principles of international law need to be reconfirmed. We need to stick to these rules but at the same time try to identify whether some degree of reform can be brought into he fabric.

An important factor is sometimes forgotten by us. The charter was written and focussed on the state of world affairs in 1945, when internal state situations were not integrated into plans for UN action. International relations have evolved over the last six decades. We now have the primary task of mapping out the scope of threats, identifying the gaps and giving attention to how the situation can be redressed. Addressing the problems related to internal situations of other countries should no longer be construed as a mere matter of altruism.

Now, whether the rest of the world likes it or not, the world agenda is "threat driven," from the Western point of view. The West is taking a defensive reaction against perceived threats. The world in general and the developing countries in particular need a holistic strategy. The question of terrorist attacks, the development and use of WMDs and their consequences, have a certain applicability in contemporary international relations and the evolution of international law needs to take that into consideration. The institution involved with pre-emptive action on WMDs, the international Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA), also needs to be strengthened.

It is of crucial importance that we find a common frame of policy and devise a common structure to address these issues. Unless we do that, intervention in international affairs will create more problems than answers.

Muhammad Zamir is a former Secretary and Ambassador.