International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills

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СКАЧАТЬ and much debate about the proper balance between human rights and sovereignty, this was still a stunning reversal—three years before the World Summit—of the unflinching support for absolute sovereignty and nonintervention, and indicates continuing global normative development, even if it has yet to be invoked.

      Prevention

      The ICISS identified prevention as one of the three main elements of R2P. The World Summit recognized the responsibility of the international community to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. However, of the twenty mentions of prevention in the outcome document, more than half were focused on preventing conflict. There is a significant connection between conflict and human rights abuses, since the crimes listed above generally occur within the context of war. Yet this is not a new responsibility for the international community. Indeed, the UN was founded to prevent war. That it has failed spectacularly many times in its more than six decades does not negate that this is a well-established responsibility on the part of states. Further, such prevention can include a wide variety of activities, such as development, which, while plausibly related to preventing the conditions under which genocide might occur, are also conceptually distinct from the core idea of protecting people from the most heinous of mass crimes.⁷⁵

      Alex Bellamy argues that there are four main tasks that the international community can engage in to prevent such atrocities: early warning, preventive diplomacy, ending impunity, and preventive deployments.⁷⁶ While these are all worthwhile activities, the first two are already well-used, if not always effective, tools. Ending impunity has already been recognized through the creation of the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the creation of the International Criminal Court. However, the protective value of such measures is still in doubt. While indicting a head of state or rebel leader might serve as pressure or an inducement to stop fighting, it may also create conditions where the reverse inducements are created. Such leaders and others may have an incentive to continue fighting because otherwise they might be vulnerable to capture and transfer to the Hague. We have a very small sample of such actions taking place before or during a conflict from which to generalize. And, so far, the latter dynamic seems more prevalent. Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony was reluctant to sign a peace agreement in Uganda as long as there was an ICC arrest warrant for him, and Omar al Bashir of the Sudan has, so far, been defiant of the ICC since an arrest warrant was issued for him. Similarly, Qaddafi demonstrated little interest in ending his human rights abuses and stepping down before he was forcibly removed from power. Thus, such international criminal justice measures do not, at present anyway, properly fall under the heading of prevention. The fact that the Rwandan genocide might have been prevented if the UN peacekeeping mission on the ground had been listened to when its commander presented evidence of the impending genocide, calls into question the willingness of the international community to engage in the necessary preventive activities.

      Thus, prevention may include activities only tangentially related to heading off such mass atrocities, and it includes activities that have long been in the international community’s toolbox but have not been implemented to the extent necessary. As such, they are not necessarily the most important part of the newly recognized responsibility to protect. Further, in a rather fundamental sense they do not (with the possible exception of preventive deployment) protect in the sense of defending or shielding from harm. Preventive activities are obviously extremely important, but in the context of an ongoing genocide not as relevant as other activities.

      Reaction

      Paragraph 139 of the Outcome Document, which lays out the international community’s commitment to react to genocide and similar situations, begins by mentioning peaceful means of response, including humanitarian means. And paragraphs 132 and 133 (although not under the heading of R2P) discuss protecting IDPs and refugees, two of the most vulnerable groups in such situations. The question becomes, however, to what extent are humanitarian activities actually protective. As we shall see below, while many claims are made by humanitarians about protection, the actual protection they can provide is quite modest.

      Paragraph 139 then continues to commit the UN, on a case by case basis, to taking collective action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter—that is, using force against the wishes of a state. Such military protection (as opposed to the humanitarian protection discussed above) involves what is frequently called humanitarian intervention—the use of military force to compel a government to stop human rights abuses or to otherwise stop such abuses. The force may overthrow a government committing human rights abuses, apply other military pressure (such as the NATO bombing in Kosovo), serve as an interpositional force between warring parties committing human rights abuses, physically protect vulnerable populations, provide relief aid and ensure that food, medical supplies, and so forth can be delivered. This last activity may not have the same protective value as physically shielding people from harm, at least not in the long term. Since humanitarian military action can have many goals and outcomes, it is important to be clear about what one is advocating or pointing to as a responsibility in a particular situation. Bellamy argues that the term humanitarian intervention was avoided because many developing countries especially were wary of such terminology, seeing it as little more than a cover for neocolonial interventions.⁷⁷ Yet this is what the UN recognized, and it represents perhaps the most important element of the R2P as elaborated by the World Summit. In fact, while the ICISS, Bellamy, and others make valid arguments that all the other activities mentioned by the ICISS and the Outcome Document are necessary in the context of mass atrocities, they pale in comparison to the potential effects—both on the ground and in the international legal and normative realm—of military intervention.

      Rebuilding

      The third element of R2P identified by the ICISS entails a commitment to rebuilding a society after a conflict. This includes economic development, institution building, and developing the rule of law, among other activities. Such a commitment, identified under the heading of peacebuilding rather than responsibility to protect in the Outcome Document, is relatively uncontroversial—although it raises questions of neocolonialism for some developing countries and the extent of the international community’s presence in postconflict societies. Such activities, to the extent that they contribute to the strengthening of a viable, peaceful state, may aid in preventing recurrence of conflict. However, with regard to the issue at hand, how the international community responds to an extant genocide or complex humanitarian emergency is of secondary importance. It may contribute to the protection of people after a conflict ends, but it does not protect people in the midst of conflict.

      Thus, while the original conception of R2P as put forth by the ICISS, and partly endorsed by the World Summit, was very wide-ranging, if one is interested in effective, long-term protection of people caught in mass atrocity situations, the potentially most important element is the commitment to use Chapter VII enforcement mechanisms. This is because in some situations this may be the only way to protect people from being slaughtered. Further, it is a significant, if still somewhat ambiguous, affirmation of evolving normative and practical developments away from strict adherence to sovereignty. This is not to say that such actions may be appropriate in all instances, or that there may not be genuine disagreement about the relevant course of action. And it certainly does not mean that such tools will be used in all, or even many, situations where large numbers of people are being killed. Indeed, as we have seen, there are two other main responses the international community uses, which are conceptually distinct from military intervention, are possibly less effective, and may actually impede the use of more effective measures.

       Protection

      From the previous discussion, we have seen the development of three broad areas of human rights norms and practices that have been recognized in some manner or another as responsibilities of the international community: (1) palliate—ensure that people caught in the midst of conflict are fed and sheltered and provided with medical attention; (2) prosecute—eliminate impunity for those who commit genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes; and (3) protect—ensure СКАЧАТЬ