Humanitarian Intervention in a New World Order

• The dramatic humanitarian rescue of the Kurds in Iraq has demonstrated a new international willingness to use force if necessary to protect human lives.

• The international community has traditionally allowed governments to use national sovereignty as a reason to block humanitarian action. In 1986-88, for instance, the Sudanese government frustrated international efforts to reach civilians in insurgent- controlled areas; estimated civilian casualties were 500, 000.

• The international community has become increasingly creative in devising humanitarian strategies which challenge governments the t would otherwise abuse their people with impunity.

• A positive new superpower orientation toward the United Nations has made it the place where ground rules governing more assertive humanitarian action for the post-Cold War era are being forged. But many governments, already wary of even avowedly humanitarian interventions, are reluctant to give the United Nations added authority in this area.

World public opinion supports more decisive action by the international community when people’s basic human rights are abused. Yet despite growing impatience with regimes that subject their populations to starvation, terror, and other indignities, governments are reluctant to legitimize the overriding of sovereignty to protect those rights.

This Policy Focus reviews the evolving understanding of the relationship between humanitarian action and national sovereignty, assesses the possibilities of establishing a more assertive international humanitarian approach, and identifies policy decisions that need to be made by the U.S. government in particular.

The Changing International Climate

Recent transformations in the international geopolitical landscape have been swift and startling. The crumbling of communism as a unifying economic and political principle in the former Soviet Union and the assertion of independence by countries of the former East Bloc are having multi-faceted global repercussions. The easing of superpower tensions has been felt in recent years in Cold War hotspots such as Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, E1 Salvador, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua.

All the world’s conflicts and carnage, however, do not have their roots in East-West tensions. Continued turbulence is guaranteed by deeply rooted economic disparities and demographic imbalances, by environmental degradation and human displacement, by religious fundamentalism and political extremism, and by national boundaries encompassing diverse populations which lack means of participating in their respective political processes.

Ongoing turbulence notwithstanding, the end of the Cold War has helped produce a radical shift in what the United Nations (UN) is able to accomplish. Thanks to a convergence of perceived superpower interests, the UN, earlier hamstrung by the difficulty of obtaining superpower agreement on security and humanitarian initiatives, is now a key player in conflict resolution and humanitarian aid. During the same week in January 1992, the final hitches were resolved in a UN-brokered peace agreement in E1 Salvador–now to be monitored by more than 1,000 UN peace-keepers–and the first contingent of some 10,000 UN peace-keepers arrived in Yugoslavia.

The UN’s new-found prominence also highlights an internal contradiction. Its Charter begins with a ringing declaration of the determination "to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small." Yet it also establishes an organization "based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members"–that is, of governments. Created by and accountable to governments, the United Nations is not authorized "to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state," matters traditionally understood to include the treatment of civilian populations.

Far-reaching political and institutional stirrings aside, the dominant feature of international relations since World War II–the global battle between communism and anti-communism–has yet to be succeeded by a new international organizing principle. Debates at the United Nations in late 1991, and in non-governmental, academic, and media circles as well, illuminate the effort to strike a new and more humane balance between state sovereignty and humanitarian action.

The Terms of the Debate

The UN General Assembly has become, quite appropriately, the major arena for debating the issue of humanitarian intervention. Technically speaking, matters of intervention and sovereignty are concepts of international law, the arbiter of which is the International Court of Justice in the Hague. But they are the subject of debate in the General Assembly, the world’s premier universal political forum, because they are political as well as juridical realities and the politics of the issues are changing.

On November 4-5, 1991, the UN General Assembly held two days of high-level discussions on strengthening the UN’s ability to respond to humanitarian emergencies. Member governments focused on the recommendation that a high-level position be created in the UN secretariat to improve the coordination of humanitarian activities. Other suggestions included establishing an emergency revolving fund, improving the disaster-prevention and preparedness capacities of governments, and strengthening UN staff.

The most sensitive item in the debate, which recurred in the observations of many of the governments taking the floor, was how to reconcile the need for more effective international humanitarian arrangements with state sovereignty–still the cornerstone of international relations. This issue was particularly highly charged in the wake of the rescue mission mounted to save Kurds in Iraq following the Gulf War.

Framing the November debate was more than a year of multi-faceted UN involvement in the crisis in the Persian Gulf. On April 5, 1991, following the defeat of Iraq, the UN Security Council, in unprecedented fashion, overrode the Iraqi government’s assertion of sovereignty, which had been used to deny humanitarian agencies access to Kurdish refugees. Viewing mass upheaval as a threat to international security, the Security Council in Resolution 688 insisted "that Iraq allow immediate access by international humanitarian organizations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq."

The subsequent creation by American, British, French, and Dutch marines of safe havens for the Iraqi Kurds within northern Iraq may prove to have been a turning point in the evolution of global humanitarian ethics. Certainly, it suggests what an aroused global

community can do when denied access to civilians imperiled within a country.

Bold action notwithstanding, however, during the General Assembly debate, many developed- and developing country governments were troubled by the negative implications of the initiative. To be sure, they wanted to correct the lack of UN institutional capacity–military and humanitarian alike–to respond quickly and effectively to international crises such as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the displacement of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites following the war.

Yet many saw in the rescue a fundamental breach of state sovereignty. "The UN cannot and must not be commandeered into forming an assistance brigade that will deliver its gifts by coercion," said the Ambassador of Ghana on behalf of the Group of 77. "The respect for sovereignty which the UN system enjoins is not an idle stipulation which can be rejected outright in the name of even the most noble gestures."

The Indian delegate took issue with "what has come to be known as ‘humanitarian intervention, that is to say, the right of the international community to intervene in a country where such a crisis situation exists and demands drastic action." While innovative solutions may be warranted, "innovation at the expense of a nation’s sovereignty, or innovation calling for a reluctant abridgement of such sovereignty, must be strictly avoided." "We should be very cautious," added the Ambassador of Egypt, "not to raise expectations regarding the capacity of the UN to deal with all types of emergency, particularly those with political aspects or caused by internal conflicts."

Other governments sought to provide assurance that state sovereignty would be respected in any and all reforms instituted. ‘‘We do not see proposals for reform of the UN’s humanitarian machinery as affecting or undermining the sovereignty of the UN’s member states," observed the Ambassador of Canada. "Indeed, such sovereignty, of equal interest to us all, is guaranteed in the [UN] Charter and under international law. Rather, we are seeking practical improvements urgently required to relief procedures which are critical to all member States, donors and recipients alike. Need I recall that any of our countries can be struck by emergencies?"

The outcome of the General Assembly debate was a resolution crafted by a working group of governments and approved unanimously by the body as a whole on December 17, 1991. It has been described as "a small but significant step toward establishing a right of

humanitarian intervention in international law that would empower relief organizations to assist the afflicted wherever they are."¹

The resolution is indeed a significant step, but it studiously avoids any talk of a "right" of humanitarian intervention, much less of the positive "duty" to intervene espoused in some quarters. Instead, the resolution takes into account governments’ reservations about intervention, while laying the groundwork for a more activist approach. In a laboriously negotiated formulation, the key sentence of the resolution speaks of assistance needing the consent (but not the request) of the affected country (but not necessarily of its government) based in principle (but not, by implication, in every instance) on an appeal (which is something less than a formal application). Moreover, humanitarian assistance should (but not necessarily will) be provided according to these ground rules. This formulation attracted the active support of some of the same governments that had earlier expressed reservations.

The new language reflects growing global solidarity with people suffering in intolerable conditions and a heightened support for more assertive international action. It legitimizes recently devised approaches to reach those in need. While governments have not embraced or endorsed "humanitarian intervention" as a concept, the resolution lends needed political support to emerging practical strategies. An array of actions is now available to the international community which embody a better, if still imperfect, balance between sovereignty and suffering.

Models and Mechanisms for Humanitarian Interventions

The intervention in Iraq is one model of humanitarian action. If a government withholds consent, the world community simply overrules it. However, the circumstances in Iraq suggest that this approach may not prove widely replicable. It seems unlikely that the international community will feel equally compelled to protect human life where it has not fought a war, where strategic political interests are less pronounced, and where there is less worldwide outrage over the plight of the civilian population. Until late January, for example, the Security Council did not even review the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, though it has been comparable since late 1990 in scope and extremity to that in Iraq. The Malaysian delegate was correct in observing during the General Assembly debate that the Gulf intervention "is not the kind of experience that could be used to provide as a model for general application."

The more traditional approach has been to allow a government to have the last word, even when its authority is invoked to block humanitarian action. Such was the case of East Timor in the 1970s, when the Indonesian government denied access to an area where a revolutionary group was fighting for independence. The civilian death toll for the years 1975-1989 is now estimated at 200,000. Fresh reports of human rights violations by Indonesian authorities have made East Timor once again a subject of international concern. International acquiescence in the genocide by the Khmer Rouge is another case in point.

In 1986-88, a recalcitrant Sudanese government successfully frustrated international efforts to reach civilians in insurgent-controlled areas of the South, even expelling UN aid officials and private relief agencies. The civilian death toll during the years 1986-88 is estimated at 500,000. There is no dearth of examples dramatizing sovereignty triumphant and humanity in shambles.²

An increasingly utilized option between overriding sovereignty to reach the vulnerable and respecting sovereignty at their expense reflects a new insistence that sovereignty carries with it clear-cut humanitarian obligations. This broad middle ground has important conceptual, practical, and institutional elements.

The conceptual point is that governments and, for that matter, insurgent groups that claim sovereignty must exercise it responsibly or risk losing it altogether. After all, sovereignty is not a blank check that authorizes all manner of behavior. Governments are bound by international law to promote and protect the welfare of their populations. The development in recent years of a more assertive human rights regime has eroded the ability of governments to claim that how they treat civilians is purely a domestic matter. Where gross human rights violations occur, sovereignty is, in effect, no longer sovereign.³

"The solution to the tension between sovereignty and humanitarian concern lies in redefining the sovereignty issue," Dr. Gazuli D’Faallah, former Prime Minister of the Sudan, has observed. "Within the sovereignty of states, all these humanitarian concerns can be addressed."⁴ Remarks by President George Bush to the UN General Assembly last fall suggest a similar approach. Nations may participate in a new world order of peace and human rights, he said, without surrendering "one iota" of their sovereignty.

The prospect of outside humanitarian assistance provides an incentive to governments to meet their acknowledged obligations. If the demands of an emergency outrun their capacities, they may, as a responsible exercise of sovereignty, call upon outside assistance. Having exercised sovereignty in 1986-88 to expel international aid personnel and agencies, the Khartoum authorities exercised it again in 1989 to enter into Operation Lifeline Sudan. "We have, in effect, conceded sovereignty over a large part of our territory to the United Nations," explained Sudan’s Minister of Social Welfare. Sovereignty would be reclaimed, he warned, if it were abused by its international caretakers or once the need for outside assistance had been met.⁵

There will, of course, be political leaders who accept neither the humanitarian obligations accompanying the sovereignty they assert nor the international resources proffered. However, clearer signs from the international community now serve notice that blatant disregard for human rights may not be tolerated. Even the distant possibility of humanitarian intervention as in Iraq enhances the attractiveness of less sovereignty-affronting options. Of course, the perception that the Iraq initiative was one-of-a-kind may reduce such pressure.

A number of innovations expand the space available for humanitarian initiatives while still working within the constraints of sovereignty.

In 1989, the United Nations won the agreement of both the Sudan government and the insurgent Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to establish certain "corridors of tranquility" through which convoys would be allowed to pass without interference. Similar corridors or "zones of peace" have been used to reach people caught in the crossfire of other internal conflicts in Angola, Ethiopia, Iraq, and, most recently, Yugoslavia.

Another method that has proved successful is the "humanitarian ceasefire."⁶ This involves an agreement between international actors and the warring parties to call a halt to the fighting for a stated period to allow accredited aid personnel to reach imperiled civilians. Such ceasefires have allowed the delivery of relief supplies in conflicts in E1 Salvador, Lebanon, the Sudan, and Iraq. UNICEF has been particularly creative in arranging and taking full advantage of such lulls in the fighting. While the air war over Iraq raged, it negotiated with coalition and Iraqi military authorities a cessation of hostilities during which a convoy of relief vehicles proceeded from Teheran to Baghdad.

The duration of humanitarian ceasefires has varied. In the case of Operation Lifeline Sudan, when the agreed-upon month was past, one side or the other extended the arrangement until a full six months had elapsed. In the case of E1 Salvador, the initial ceasefire agreed to by the government and insurgent forces in 1985 allowed for the successful inoculation of a large percentage of the civilian population. However, in part because each individual required three shots to complete the full immunization, the ceasefire became an annual event which continued throughout the war.

On occasion, corridors of tranquility, zones of peace, and humanitarian ceasefires have had more extended benefits. In the Sudan instance, the involved parties declared a number of the corridors off-limits to all military operations. This allowed the return of normal civilian life and economic activities around the affected roads. Elsewhere, too, the opportunity to join a humanitarian activity has at least temporarily eased the severity of the warring factions’ military and political strategies. However, while joint humanitarian efforts have helped create a positive political climate, it has proved difficult to build upon aid cooperation in and of itself to achieve durable settlements of conflicts.⁷

The need for the international community to respond to vulnerable populations has illuminated weaknesses in current aid arrangements. UN organizations, bilateral agencies, and private relief groups occasionally experience difficulties in gaining access to victims of natural disasters. Difficulties are particularly pronounced, however, when civil strife is involved. While a number of reforms were agreed upon in the latest General Assembly action, considered and implemented. Included among them are suggested ground rules stipulating when humanitarian interventions may be considered and mounted.⁸

Other unresolved issues concern the appropriateness of regional or unilateral rather than multilateral interventions and the use of force in support of humanitarian activities. Both sets of issues reflect widespread dissatisfaction with the humanitarian intervention in the Gulf, despite appreciation of the assistance it brought to the Iraqi Kurds.

Interventions authorized and implemented by the United Nations enjoy far broader support than actions by groups or individual governments. Multilateral initiatives, expressing the consensus of the international community at its most inclusive, are seen to provide a check against the political agendas of the more powerful nations. Although the United Nations was involved in the Gulf War and subsequent humanitarian rescue, key decisions were made in the Security Council, in which less powerful nations lack veto power. Critics argues that the Security Council was "hijacked" by those pressing for intervention.

Regional actions such as the peace-keeping effort by the Economic States of West Africa (ECOWAS) in Liberia’s civil war and by the European Community in Yugoslavia’s have been watched with interest. In principle, the exercise of initiative by groups of concerned governments can be positive. However, in both of these interventions, political and institutional difficulties have frustrated effective action. The warring parties in each conflict have alleged partisan agendas on the part of Nigeria and Germany, respectively, as-a means of calling into question the credibility of each intervention.

Unilateral initiatives, too, may provide welcome humanitarian relief. However, they also may suffer from lack of universality. Such was the case in the Indian army’s intervention in Sri Lanka in support of the Tamil minority and in the U.S. invasion of Grenada and Panama–ostensibly to rescue American nationals.

Several proposals are currently being studied that would develop a more authoritative UN capacity for supporting humanitarian operations. One would authorize the United Nations to make available unarmed humanitarian assistance teams of civilians wearing UN armbands to provide an international presence and deter violence. Another would create armed UN units prepared to provide higher levels of deterrence if needed.

Thus in the wake of recent crises, governments are exploring ways of strengthening multilateral mechanisms and of increasing the level of force available to support the work of agencies providing assistance and protection. Consensus will require time to develop. In this context, it is noteworthy to recall that UN Resolution 688 insisted that the Iraqi government provide humanitarian access, but stopped short of authorizing the use of force to assure that people in need were reached.⁹

Reorienting U.S. Policy

The global battle between the forces of communism and anti-communism has yet to be succeeded by a new organizing principle at the international level, and U.S. policy is still fighting the Cold War. As U.S. triumphalism following the demise of its superpower adversary ebbs, U.S. policy may come to reflect long-term U.S. interests in the post-Cold War world.l0

The United States has a long and proud tradition of assisting those in need. While overtaken in recent years by Japan in the overall amount of annual foreign aid provided, the United States remains ostensibly the preeminent defender of humanitarian causes worldwide and the single largest contributor to many multilateral agencies, including UNICEF, the World Food Programme, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

But the American humanitarian tradition emerges from the Cold War badly sullied. During those years, U.S. foreign policy routinely elevated the ideological over the humane. Bilateral and multilateral aid allocations, condemnations of human rights abuses, and even refugee admissions to the United States were skewed to reflect the strategic importance of the regimes in question. The very concept of humanitarian aid was politicized. Respect for international law and institutions ebbed.¹¹ The end of the Cold War opens up the possibility of reforms that reassert the importance of humanity over ideology, reinstate support for authentic humanitarian assistance and respect for international law, and serve both global humanitarian needs and long-term U.S. interests.

First and foremost, the United States needs to replace an opportunistic approach to multilateralism with a principled commitment. This will necessitate accelerated payment of arrears, which, at upwards of $500 million make the United States the UN’s largest current debtor. The United States should become not only more supportive but also less involved in the details of how the United Nations carries out its tasks. The world body needs to be freer to undertake humanitarian initiatives, even when these conflict with the wishes of major governments.

Second, the United States needs to make a firm and principled commitment to abide by and promote respect for international law. The Bush administration needs to make the major effort requested by Congress "to strengthen the rights to food in international law to assure the access of all persons to adequate food supplies."^l2 The United States also needs to join other countries that have ratified the Additional Protocols of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. An essential feature of current international humanitarian law, the Protocols underscore the protections available to civilians in situations of modern war, including non-international conflicts in which organized insurgent forces control territory within individual countries.

Third, the United States needs to commit new resources to address the continuing human effects of the Cold War. A recent study by the Overseas Development Council estimates that conflicts in the Horn of Africa, southern Africa, Central America, Afghanistan, and Indochina cost some three million lives, displaced fifteen million persons, and destroyed untallied amounts of economic and social infrastructure. ¹³

In some instances, the United States will need to help hasten the resolution of lingering conflicts, in others to speed reconstruction efforts. The United Nations has designated 1992 as the ‘‘Year of Voluntary Repatriation"; it places the additional resources needed at some $400 million. Repatriation in Cambodia is expected to cost $109 million. Reconstruction costs in E1 Salvador are estimated at $1.8 billion.

Without new and substantial resource commitments, the paradox noted in a January 1992 newspaper headline describing the signing of the E1 Salvador peace accords will continue unaddressed: "U.S. Latin Policy Yields Some Gains: Baker, Offering No Plans for New Help, Seeks Role for Others to Aid Region."¹⁴ Moral and political interests alike point toward devoting major new resources for such purposes.

Conclusion

There has always been tension between the need for access to vulnerable populations and the denial of such access by those in authority. Over the years officials have used sovereignty to dictate the terms under which access will be provided, if at all.

The balance has begun to shift perceptibly in favor of those in need. Authorities claiming sovereignty are now held more accountable for meeting the needs of their populations and/or for allowing the international community to assist. Creative devices are being found

for reaching the vulnerable, often without directly overruling sovereignty-asserting officials. On occasion, the international community has intervened with force. One way or another, the world today is less willing to take no for an answer when lives are on the line.

Whether a new world order will establish mechanisms to assure that major emergencies receive appropriate attention and, where necessary, humanitarian intervention, seems uncertain. As the vaunted harbingers of the new world order, the Gulf War and post-war rescue of the Kurds were justified not by the intrinsic claim of human suffering on international assistance but because such suffering posed a threat to international peace and security.

New world order aside, recent developments do offer hope that in a changed international environment, humanitarian needs will be viewed with more and more seriousness. Recognition that unmet human needs exert a destabilizing effect on international peace and security is surely a milestone, even if that fails to acknowledge humanitarian imperatives as compelling in their own right.

With concerted effort, progress may indeed be accelerated toward a humanitarian system that more effectively provides universal assistance and indispensable protection.

Larry Minear

for the Overseas Development Council

February 1992

Larry Minear, a former ODC Visiting Fellow, is Co-Director of the Humanitarianism and War Project of Brown University and the Refugee Policy Group.

NOTES

1. Paul Lewis, "UN To Centralize its Relief Efforts: Move Comes After Criticism for Lack of Coordination of Humanitarian Aid," The New York Times, Dec. 18, 1991, p. Al9.

2. For further information, see Christer Ahlstrom, Casualties of Conflict: Report for the World Campaign for the Protection of Victims of War (Uppsala, Sweden: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1991). See also Larry Minear "Civil Strife and Humanitarian Aid: A Bruising Decade," World Refugee Survey–1989 in Review (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Committee on Refugees, 1990), pp. 13-19.

3. For a review of the erosion of sovereignty and the evolution of applicable international law, see Jarat Chopra and Thomas G. Weiss, "Sovereignty is No Longer Sacrosanct: Codifying Humanitarian Intervention, in Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 6, 1992, forthcoming.

4. Quoted in Larry Minear, Humanitarianism under Siege: A Critical Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan (Trenton, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1991), p. 99. For a more extensive discussion, see Chapter 4, "Sovereignty and Suffering."

5. Op. cit., p. 101.

6. A conference on "Humanitarian Ceasefires: Peace-building for Children" was held in Ottawa, Canada, November 27-29, 1991, under the auspices of the Centre for Days for Peace. A publication of the proceedings is in progress.

7. A study of recent experience in this and related areas is the subject of a research project currently underway, entitled "Humanitarianism and War: Learning the Lessons of Recent Armed Conflicts." It is co-sponsored by the Thomas J. Watson Institute for International studies of Brown University and the Refugee Policy Group of Washington, D.C. The publication is available from the Watson Institute in Providence, R.1.

8. See Erskine Childers and Brian Urquhart, "Strengthening International Response to Humanitarian Emergencies," Recommendations of a study financed by the Dag Hammarskjold and Ford Foundations, October 1991; Jeffrey Clark, The U.S. Government, Humanitarian Assistance, and the New World Order: A Call for a New Approach (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Committee for Refugees, 1991 ); Roberta Cohen, Human Rights Protection for Internally Displaced Persons (Washington, D.C., Refugee Policy Group, June 1991 ); Minear et al., A Critical Review of Operation Lifeline Sudan: A Report to the Agencies (Washington, D.C.: The Refugee Policy Group, 1991).

9. For a more in-depth discussion of these issues, see James O.C. Jonah, "Developing a United Nations Capacity for Humanitarian Support Operations," and other essays in Leon Gordenker and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Soldiers, Peacekeepers and Disasters (London: Macmillan, 1992).

10. A report by the recently appointed National Commission on America and the New World of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is expected to address such issues when completed in mid-1992.

11. For an elaboration of this thesis, see Larry Minear, "The Forgotten Human Agenda," Foreign Policy, No. 73, Winter 1988-89.

12. Section 1401(b), International Cooperation Act of 1991. Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 2508 (House Report 102-225), Sept. 27,1991, p. 259.

13. Anthony Lake, After the Wars: Reconstruction in Afghanistan, Indochina, Central America, Southern Africa, and the Horn of Africa (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990).

14. Barbara Crossette, The New York Times, Jan. 18, 1992, p.5.