A Protocol for Intervention
DANIELS, ROBERT V.
FIVE BASIC PRINCIPLES A Protocol for Intervention By Robert V. Daniels At least one critical lesson can already be learned from the Kosovo tragedy: Clear principles need to be established...
...Turkey in Cyprus...
...We know the answer: That would overwhelm both the resources and the will of the saving nations...
...With its decision to go it alone in Kosovo, NATO excluded the possibility of agreement among the Big Five because it might fall short of the alliance's goals...
...may have to accept half a loaf, satisfied that it has tried to pursue its sense of moral obligation without creating greater problems in the long run for the rule of law internationally...
...The first is self-evident...
...hopefully it could be shamed or inhibited as the experience of intervention takes hold...
...or where a sovereign government violently abuses part of its own population, especially ethnic minorities...
...Similarly, noises are made about China's treatment of Tibet, but nothing more...
...it is, as the record shows, a matter of political and moral concern, albeit a selective one...
...3. No state, or group of states, may decide independently that intervention is appropriate if military force is contemplated...
...The European Union ought to be capable of handling the Balkans without the United States hovering over it...
...The matter is not so clear-cut where a government breakdown threatens disaster...
...No one is going to go so far as to wage war against a major power on account of its undemocratic practices or its mistreatment of a minority...
...In the Kosovo crisis, NATO nevertheless skirted the UN to avoid a possible veto by Russia or China...
...An apportionment of regional responsibilities, while maintaining the requirement of UN approval of any specific action, might actually encourage broader resolution of neglected human rights tragedies...
...It is easy to disparage the UN's effectiveness, particularly in the light of its futile rule in Bosnia...
...Then there is the issue of the feasible scope of intervention...
...Without mandatory approval by some established authority like the UN Security Council, such action could not only relegitimize international anarchy but invite a return to the old days when might made right...
...For better or worse, examples of how this might work are already being provided by the Organization of African Unity, and by Russia under the umbrella of the Commonwealth of Independent States in such trouble spots as Abkhazia and Tadzhikistan—not to mention the U.S...
...To minimize delay in helping victimized groups and countries, some have proposed a standing UN force...
...It should also determine the intensity of whatever course is chosen, and govern its ultimate duration and intended outcome...
...terrorism...
...The UN needs a better mechanism to help it anticipate trouble spots and try to defuse them before crises break out...
...and the rest of the NATO powers viewed Chechnya as an internal Russian affair and did nothing about it...
...The Cold War also explains the failure to intervene when American allies attacked small neighbors (Indonesia in West New Guinea and East Timor...
...There is always a danger of political escalation on the part of an intervening country turning a humanitarian action into an end in itself: "We have to win...
...In contrast, constant publicity about a humanitarian disaster in a relatively small country may make it politically impossible for moralistic democratic governments not to respond...
...But it cannot be left to the political whims of self-appointed guardians of the New World Order...
...Sometimes the U.S...
...The last case, involving the enforcement of international human rights standards and the prevention of genocide, is exemplified by the NATO action against Yugoslavia...
...During the Cold War it was justified by both sides to foil the expansion of the adversary's influence...
...If Bosnia and now Kosovo, why not everywhere the human rights situation is equally bad...
...Obvious difficulties remain in implementing an international protocol for intervention...
...4. The World's Only Superpower needs to let other powers take primary responsibility for breaches of the peace or of human rights in areas of the globe where their experience is more compelling...
...the rest need explication...
...In effect, foreign policy is made by TV crews...
...Five principles can readily be suggested that would form a protocol for governing human rights intervention more systematically...
...Moscow forcibly put down a rebellion in a minority-populated province it considered to lie within its sovereignty...
...FIVE BASIC PRINCIPLES A Protocol for Intervention By Robert V. Daniels At least one critical lesson can already be learned from the Kosovo tragedy: Clear principles need to be established for taking future action against a miscreant nation like Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia...
...In this imperfect world, the problem of intervention is going to stay with us...
...5. An interventionist response must be proportional to the severity of the problem that prompted it...
...The alternatives to an intervention protocol are international anarchy or a costly and ultimately self-defeating attempt by some power bloc to impose global hegemony...
...And trouble arises when the cost or negative effects of an intervention begin to outweigh the reasons for initiating it...
...Robert V. Daniels, professor emeritus of history at the University of'Vermont, is a frequent NL contributor and the author of 21 books on Soviet and post-Soviet affairs...
...It would still require a go-ahead from the Security Council, and serious situations would still require the national forces of one ormore major powers...
...in Somalia and Haiti, to counter governmental breakdowns...
...business is business...
...One kind of initiative is easy to support, namely steps taken to rectify crossborder aggression by one country against another...
...2. National sovereignty cannot be an absolute shield...
...But the U.S...
...Also vital would be a modicum of pressure on regional powers and organizations to assure the discharge of their assignments...
...At the same time, it allowed all manner of local conflicts to emerge, opening up even more occasions for intervention...
...Russia's violence in Chechnya, after all, was an exact parallel with Milosevic's conduct in Kosovo...
...Intervention by strong countries in the internal affairs of weaker ones is an old story...
...On this point the director of the USA Institute in Moscow, Sergei Rogov, comments ironically, "The U.S...
...Perhaps most important, a successful intervention protocol would depend on at least informal agreement within the Security Council about the apportionment of potential responsibility for troubling situations...
...Obviously, human rights obligations are not seriously pursued where the violator is a big country, or the costs of intervention would be prohibitive, or the scene of the crime is remote and underreported...
...For starters, giving more muscle to the UN Human Rights Commission would be a good move...
...and even against Yugoslavia for its human rights violations, to the extent of imposing economic sanctions and introducing monitors...
...That brings us to the question of whether the unrestricted right to undertake a humanitarian mission, important as it might be to the credibility of an organization like NATO, should transcend objections to international anarchy...
...This principle should control the means of intervention, all the way from financial sanctions and trade embargoes to military action...
...would have to get over the urge to take charge all the time because it fears other countries or institutions will not do the right thing on their own...
...1. Mass murder and genocide, anywhere in the world, is no less intolerable than cross-border aggression...
...where a governmental or nongovernmental group is suspected of aiding international terrorism...
...But humanitarian intervention is not a matter of vital national interest or selfdefense...
...The Sudan was bombed not because of its years of killing its non-Muslim blacks, but because of alleged links to anti-US...
...Yet is there a reasonable basis for selective humanitarianism, or are there simply different elements at play in different places...
...It contradicts and supersedes Article 2 of the UN Charter prohibiting outside interference in the internal affairs of any sovereign state...
...As for the tenuous distinction between peacemaking and peacekeeping, it might as well be abandoned...
...At the opposite extreme, to act nowhere would be to default in the face of obvious crimes committed behind the screen of national sovereignty...
...But the U.S...
...role in the Western Hemisphere...
...In these circumstances a new, universally accepted protocol for action is required...
...and its allies started to act like Bolsheviks, who also claimed that the end justifies the means...
...This principle has already been set forth in the United Nations Genocide Convention and is now widely recognized...
...The end of the East-West rivalry eliminated the imperative for maintaining a balance of power...
...Yet the Security Council has in fact been able to agree on authorizing intervention in a variety of situations since the end of the Cold War: against Iraq, for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait...
Vol. 82 • May 1999 • No. 6
