HUMANITARIAN

INTERVENTION IN A NEW

WORLD ORDER:

PROSPECTS FOR NGOs

LARRY MINEAR

An appropriate point of departure for this untimely topic is provided by the report by the UN Secretary-General of June 1992 entitled "An Agenda for Peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping." The report was requested by the first-ever meeting of the UN Security Council held at the level of Heads of State the previous January.

"We have entered a time of global transition marked by uniquely contradictory trends," Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali observed. Regional and continental associations of States are evolving ways to deepen cooperation and ease some of the contentious characteristics of sovereign and nationalistic rivalries. National boundaries are blurred by advanced communications and global commerce, and by the decisions of States to yield some sovereign prerogatives to larger, common political associations.

At the same tune, however, fierce new assertions of nationalism and sovereignty spring up, and the cohesion of States is threatened by brutal ethnic, religious, social, cultural or linguistic strife. Social peace is challenged on the one hand by new assertions of discrimination and exclusion and, on the other, by acts of terrorism seeking to undermine evolution and change through democratic means."¹

I

The world has taken major steps in recent years which provide the broad outlines, and some of the more specific content, of a new humanitarian order. The steps–by the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and the UN Secretary-General–have involved actual interventions in defense of civilian populations, paired with discussions about the framework in which such interventions take place.

The Gulf war, the first major international crisis in the post-Cold War era, has been widely viewed as a harbinger for how conflicts will henceforth be approached and humanitarian values protected. Less than a year and a half ago, the dramatic rescue of the Kurds in northern Iraq by Allied Coalition forces during Iraq’s subsequent civil war was heralded as the beginning of a new international humanitarian order.

Security Council Resolution 688, which labeled the plight of the Kurds a threat to international peace and security and insisted that the Iraqi authorities provide international access to them, was seen as marking a new international willingness to use force, if necessary, to protect civilian populations from abuse at the hands of their own governments.

Reflecting the UN’s experience in the Gulf and elsewhere, a second step was taken by the UN General Assembly in December of last year when it passed Resolution 46-182. Faithful to the old order, the resolution stipulated that "the sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity of states must be fully respected in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." Prefiguring a new order, however, the Resolution approved of aid in worst-case situations without a request or appeal from the affected government. Governments thus encouraged more assertive humanitarian action, though still stopping short of articulating a right, much less a duty, of humanitarian intervention.

A third step was taken when Secretary-General in April 1992 created a new Department of Hunanitarian Affairs (DHA) and appointed Sweden’s UN ambassador Jan Eliasson as the UN’s first Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. In the intervening months, the new DHA has been organized and staffed, a UN inter-agency coordinating committee established, $50 million emergency revolving fund created and several initial drawdowns made, and consolidated appeals launched for southern Africa, Kenya, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia.

Ambassador Eliasson describes his task as conducting "humanitarian diplomacy from New York and orchestrating from Geneva more effective responses by the UN’s operational agencies. Reviewing progress at the summer session of the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) last month, governments expressed general satisfaction. The Department of Humanitarian Affairs, they agreed, "has already begun to prove its worth."

II

What can be said of the new international humanitarian order as it has evolved to date? While there is still a long way to go, the shape of the future is beginning to emerge.

First, profound contradictions continue between the old and the new orders. The main political counterweight to a more interventionist humanitarian ethos remains the traditional notion of sovereignty. DHA is reminded at every turn of the constraints it imposes "The respect for sovereignty which the UN system enjoins," said the spokesman for the Group of 77 in the General Assembly debates, "is not an idle stipulation which can be rejected outright in the name of even the most noble gestures." In other words, intervention even on transparently humanitarian grounds is still not acceptable.

Behind defensive rhetoric, however, the concept of sovereignty is itself evolving.² The responsible exercise of sovereignty is now viewed as embodying clear-cut humanitarian obligations. The sphere of what were once called "domestic" or "internal" affairs wherein governments have functioned with impunity is now more open to international scrutiny.

Even if governments are now more accountable, respect for sovereignty remains the cornerstone of the international order. "The United Nations is a gathering of sovereign States," the Secretary-General reminds us, "and what it can do depends on the common ground that they create between them." The fact that there is more common ground now than at any time in the UN’s history, does not mean that sovereignty’s days are numbered. It does, however, offer hope for the future.

Second, there is continued tension between the old Cold War approach of valuing human life according to its strategic importance and the new humanitarian approach which affirms the sanctity of all life. This summer it has become painfully clear that the world has not responded with equal alacrity or resourcefulness to the problems in Somalia and Yugoslavia. "If tragedy were measured simply in numbers of human lives destroyed," noted one analyst from Mogadishu in August 1992, "the one in Somalia would, by many accounts, be judged greater than that in Croatia and Bosnia. Here, civil war has been compounded by a famine that is starving entire villages. But unlike the Balkans, the Somali crisis has attracted little international attention or aid, and only faint, distant calls for Western military involvement."³

The implied point is an important one. The ultimate test of a new humanitarian order is not the security of Bosnians and Croats or of Kurds and Shi’ites but rather the well-being of Somalis and Palestinians, of Guatemalans and Burmese.

Here, too, there is a central role for the United Nations. "The principles of the Charter must be applied consistently, not selectively," notes the Secretary-General. It is essential that there be "a sense of confidence that the World Organization will react swiftly, surely and impartially and that it will not be debilitated by political opportunism or by administrative or financial inadequacy."

Third, the euphoria from the dramatic rescue of the Kurds has ebbed in the face of a sea of problems around the world. The crises in the former Yugoslavia which now preoccupy many in Europe and North America, and in Somalia, which someone has described as "less a country than a memory," convey the impression of a world of ethnic tumult resistant to the best efforts of outsiders. Serious problems are also encountered in Iraq, where still-sovereign authorities reject continued UN aid. Is the world in danger of losing its "humanitarian nerve"?

Indeed, how can one talk of a new humanitarian order when the world is hewn with fresh carnage every day? Intervention takes intervenors. It involves risk, political and physical alike. It requires careful judgment and weighing of options, none of them fully satisfactory. In the final analysis, the advent of a new humanitarian order may be delayed more by a short international attention span and a failure of political nerve than by the obstreperousness of individual governments. But new order there must be.

Finally, the need for more effective humanitarian machinery is clear. The UN’s response to the Gulf crisis itself, as our project s evaluation recently documented, left a great deal to be desired. The welcome and constructive deployment of staff from the Danish and Norwegian Refugee Councils in a sense underscored the UN’s weakness. There were also serious problems of coordination between and among UN agencies and between UN agencies and other aid groups.

As the humanitarian situation in various theatres has worsened during the course of 1992, debate has focussed on the need for more effective military machinery and on whether the UN should have its own enforcement capacity or should rely on military contingents provided by member states. This has, for the moment, overshadowed the need for more effective use of access once achieved.

In short, the world is at a point where brave rhetoric about a new international humanitarian order and selective interventions based upon it are bumping up against problems of a conceptual institutional, political, and financial nature. In fact, at summer’s end in 1992, our mood recalls that described in the Old Testament by the prophet Jeremiah more than two millenia ago:

"Harvest is past, summer is over, and we are not saved… Would that my head were all water, my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for my people’s dead.⁴

III

Against the background of these birthpangs of a new humanitarian order, what are the particularly creative roles for NGOs? Four are suggested here. While the roles may strike some as unduly modest, NGOs have to guard against becoming agents of interventionism at a time when the UN and governments are reluctant to assume their appropriate roles.

First, offering constructive but critical support for the UN system. NGOs are uniquely situated to remind the UN–and the Secretary-General himself–that the UN is more than a club of governments defending their respective national interests, narrowly viewed. The United Nations Charter begins with the words, "We the peoples of the United Nations" and commits governments to promote an array of social and economic, civil and political rights.

Thus at the Earth Summit in Rio, as at earlier United Nations conferences on the environment, food, health, and agrarian reform, NGOs focussed the spotlight of world opinion to help achieve more progressive outcomes than governments and the UN, left to their own devices, might have attained. Follow-up at local and national as well as international levels is also a strong suit of NGOs.

NGOs also have a special role in highlighting humanitarian issues, or the humanitarian consequences of political issues. In the civil wars in the Sudan and Iraq, our research demonstrated the UN’s bias toward governments and its difficulties in dealing with insurgent movements. In Iraq, it was clear that political decisions taken by the UN Security Council had major negative humanitarian consequences which the UN neither anticipated nor responded to effectively. NGOs should "hold the UN’s feet to the fire."

Second, NGOs can hasten the advent of more just international order by providing specialized competence in key areas. Two different approaches toward conflict resolution in Somalia taken by the UN and NGOs provide a case in point.

The UN has taken a decidedly top-down approach, seeking to prevail directly on the leaders of the warring factions to allow safe passage of relief supplies. Yet the agreement negotiated in Mogadishu and New York and signed in early 1992 in Mogadishu failed to hold, delaying access to starving civilians while the carnage proceeded unchecked. Meanwhile the International Red Cross and other private groups were pressing ahead, if with limited success, to reach those in need.

Others tried a bottom-up approach, convening meetings of Somalis in exile to understand and bridge the tensions beneath the conflict. One such group, the Somali Peace and Consultation Committee, has met regularly since late 1990, making progress in winning agreement upon broad principles and procedures for a peace initiative. Only belatedly has the UN reached out to the elders of warring clans and sub-clans to hasten a viable accommodation.⁵

The moral of the tale is not that every NGO should try its hand at peacemaking, that there is no role for high-level UN initiatives, or that aid should be provided whether or not the warring parties agree. It is rather that NGOs can help bridge conflicts, provided they have patience and skills not generally associated with the NGO sector. Peace-making and peace-building are too important to be left to governments and the UN.

Among the specialized skills needed is increased professionalism in traditional programs of emergency relief. In our research on various conflicts, we have yet to give the NGO community high marks for performance in even routine operational tasks. Based on interviews with more than two hundred persons involved in the Gulf crisis, for example, we concluded that the prevailing picture of NGOs was one of energy and determination, mixed with confusion and disarray. Distinguishing the charlatan from the humanitarian proved difficult in the panic of the crisis.

Third, NGOs can model mutuality. For at least a generation NGOs have been struggling to put relationships between northern and southern groups and peoples on a basis of greater mutuality. At a time when intergovernmental relationships are beginning to acknowledge the need to do the same, the experience of NGOs may be useful.

NGOs have unique connections with people, groups, and institutions around the world. Northern NGOs now regularly use these contacts to alert their own governments and constituencies to needs in the South. Northern NGOs can provide a strong and clear voice in northern societies for humane international policies, particularly now that southern NGOs are picking up greater responsibility for programs in their own countries.

A good example of the networking among NGOs is provided by Arne Piel Christensen’s visit to the former Yugoslavia in July l992. His visit to the conflict area made use of contacts developed over the years by NGOs, including the Danish Refugee Council. Upon returning to Denmark, his impressions were shared with private groups struggling to provide assistance in the war-torn region. With today’s technology, it should be possible to knit the world’s people together systematically through networks of interactive communication.

In recent years, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies has become a more effective vehicle for such interaction. Its task force on the emergency in the former Yugoslavia is a creative example of institutionalizing communication on an item of shared NGO concern.

As ethnic, religious, environmental, and economic forces dislocate increasing numbers of people, northern NGOs have a particular responsibility to encourage their governments and citizens to meet their legal and moral obligations. In a recent editorial, Reginald Moreels, President of Médecins sans Frontières International Council, wrote, "A sign of the times, Western governments are erecting new barriers against migrants, whatever their reasons for expatriation may be. Faced with this new wave of xenophobia, we must reassert the right of asylum.... Asylum is not a luxury."⁶

Some northern NGOs over the years have come to view "advocacy" as central to their calling. I myself spent fifteen years seeking to help church-related organizations influence US. government policies on International humanitarian and development issues. Yet the fact remains that many contributor to the work of NGOs would rather see funds spent on activities of direct benefit to those in distress. The more controversial the issues, the more seriously tested becomes the commitment of individual contributors and of NGO organizations to providing the necessary advocacy voice.

Finally, NGOs need to protect and employ their independence from governments and even from the United Nations itself. This recommendation is offered with some reluctance in view of the fact that the author’s own government over the years has done more than its share to politicize humanitarian work in general and the work of the UN in particular.

Protecting the unique independence of the NGO sector does not require NGOs to forego all cooperation with governments and intergovernmental bodies. However, too close an association can be bad for both parties. If the United Nations is to become more focussed on the field, as the Secretary-General proposes, it must expand and nurture its own competence rather than relying on outsiders to provide the missing linkage. Conversely, if NGOs are to throw their lot in with the United Nations, they need to help protect it from abuse by the powerful rather than simply delivering services on its behalf.

The current disarray in humanitarian activities in Iraq provides an illustration. At stake is the viability of UN programs and the safety of UN officials. At issue as well, however, is the viability of activities of NGOs associated with the UN and the safety of personnel seconded to it.

Our evaluation concluded that identification with the United Nations–that is, with the Security Council–had harmed the work of UNICEF, UNHCR, WFP, and other UN and associated programs in Iraq and throughout the region. "Feelings ran high about the war and also about the roles of the United Nations," one person told us, referring to economic sanctions and military action. "The United Nations kills, and then hurries to walk in the funeral," observed another. In other words, the UN’s humanitarian assistance was compromised from the start by its political context.⁷

More recently, humanitarian aid has become caught up in a host of disputes between the UN and Iraqi authorities, including weapons inspection, war reparations, oil sales, and national borders. The perception that the UN is simply an extension of the Allied Coalition, that is, of the United States, makes it difficult to deal with humanitarian issues in their own right. There is also evidence to support, however, that people in the region, however disenchanted with the UN, see US government policy as the real problem.

When Under-Secretary-General Eliasson was in Baghdad in August 1992 to negotiate an extension of humanitarian programs, the Allied Coalition was moving ahead to impose a no-fly zone in southern Iraq, ostensibly to protect the Shi’ites. Even though agreeing to the continued presence of UN personnel in the south might have undercut the rationale for a no-fly zone, the Baghdad authorities were unwilling to deal with the UN on humanitarian issues apart from their broader political context.

Underlying the disturbing impasse between the UN and Iraq are fundamental policy issues:

- should the Security Council consult more fully with the UN’s humanitarian

organizations on decisions with major humanitarian consequences?

- is the use of military force compatible with the objective of protection of vulnerable populations?

- if military force is to be used, should it not be carried out under UN command and control?

- how can the post-Cold War United Nations be given greater independence from the agendas of individual member nations7

Until such matters are resolved–and depending on how they are resolved–institutional connections between NGOs and the UN will remain somewhat perilous.

In sum, this is a time when in the face of widespread human need the limitations of the concept of sovereignty and the weaknesses of the United Nations at the local level are more and more apparent. It is also a time of major opportunity for NGOs. After all, respect for sovereignty is not an overriding NGO priority and NGOs have already developed effective connections to people and their institutions around the world. It is thus a time for NGOs to demonstrate boldness and creativity.

But it is also a time for caution. It would be easy for NGOs to attempt too much to take over the UN’s humanitarian activities to expand the current scale and range of NGO activities to solve problems beyond NGO capacity and competence to mount or encourage intervention wherever people are oppressed. Faced with new opportunities NGOs would be well advised to concentrate on doing better what they do best.

We hope that the work of our project as it proceeds may help the various actors in the humanitarian regime of the future identify what they do best, thus contributing to an improved international system of assistance and protection.

Notes

1. The United Nations Document a/47/277 S/24111, June 17, 1992, p. 3.
2. "The Evolution of the Right to Assistance" was the topic of the XVIIth Round Table on Current Problems of Humanitarian Law, sponsored by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law and held in San Remo, Italy, September 2-4, 1992.
3. Keith B. Richburg, "Somalia’s Overshadowed Tragedy," Washington Post, August 12, 1992, p. A1.
4. Jeremiah 8:20-9:1, The New English Bible (Oxford University Press: New York, 1971).
5. For example, the UN included leaders and leaders at the consultation on Somalia in Addis Ababa, Dec. 3-5, 1992.
6. Médecins sand Frontières, International Newsletter (Quarterly No. 2, March 1992), p. 1.
7. For the full report, cf. Larry Minear et al., United Nations Coordination of the International Humanitarian Response to the Gulf Crisis, 1990-1992 (Providence, RI: Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 1992).