Max Forte's List: Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

• The U.S. and its allies must change their mission to focus on protecting the Afghan people -- even if it means temporarily allowing the Taliban to operate relatively freely in sparsely populated areas, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said in an interview Saturday.

• The question of humanitarian intervention has to be rethought thoroughly for our time. Today, it is nearly impossible to commit crimes against humanity in secret; efficient communication media will bring them to light immediately. We are more intimately engaged by them and with them than we were in the past. These acts that shock human conscience evoke the question of whether it is our responsibility to intervene, and what might be the moral justifications behind such intervention. By analyzing a range of examples, I want to discuss the question of humanitarian intervention in four regards: first, the nature of its occasions; second, the question of its preferred agents; third, the means how to meet the occasions; and fourth, the decision about the time to end the intervention.

• What  are  the limits  of    that  sovereignty ?  Does  the       United    Nations  have the  right to intervene in a  state ?
          If  so, how and  when  should  that  right    be  exercised ?       Under    whose  authority ?
• In  1999,    Kofi Annan,  then  Secretary-General of  the   United  Nations ,  said  that:  "Surely  no    legal  principle  -  not  even  sovereignty    -  can  [ be allowed  to  shield  the    perpetrators
     of  these ]  crimes  against  humanity. "
• In September 2000,  Canada, with the support of several    major  US  foundations,  the  assistance   of  the UK  and  Swiss  governments  –     and  the  co-operation  of  many  others    –   established   the  ' International     Commission
     on  Intervention  and   State   Sovereignty '    (  ICISS  )  -    which  I  co-chaired,  along  with the  Algerian    diplomat  and  respected UN Special Adviser, Mohamed   Sahnoun
• ICISS  members  agreed  that  international  humanitarian    interventions  must  be: 
  
        • intellectually credible and satisfying    (not profoundly offending)  to either the       international   lawyers or the ethics philosophers
   
        • not likely to be rejected out of hand   by either North or South, the five permanent       members   of the Security Council, or any other major international constituency  
   
        • capable,  in  practice,  of    motivating  effective  action,  and  mobilizing    support,       whenever  a    situation  demanded  such  action.
• It    is  no  longer  an  argument  about
    the  ' right  to  intervene '  but  rather    about  the  ' responsibility  to  protect '.
  
• That  ' responsibility  to  protect '   must    be  picked  up  by  the  international   community  of  states,  if  the  individual    state  fails  to  fulfill  that  responsibility.
•  If  that  state    fails to protect  the  human  rights of  its   citizens,  it becomes a  'failed  state'.  Any    claims  to sovereignty  begin  to crumble
    as soon as this  primary responsibility is abdicated.  The    UN  must then  intervene
• Canada  must  recruit, train,   and  equip  an  effective,  expeditionary  force,    capable  ( at  the  very  least )
    of  engaging  in  low -  to  medium - intensity    conflict,  anywhere  in  the  world.

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• The tragedy of East Timor, coming so soon after that of Kosovo, has focused attention once again on the need for timely intervention by the international community when death and suffering are being inflicted on large numbers of people, and when the state nominally in charge is unable or unwilling to stop it.
• intervention must be based on legitimate and universal principles
• We need to adapt our international system better to a world with new actors, new responsibilities, and new possibilities for peace and progress.
• State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined—not least by the forces of globalisation and international co-operation.
• “humanitarian intervention”
• is it legitimate for a regional organisation to use force without a UN mandate?
• is it permissible to let gross and systematic violations of human rights, with grave humanitarian consequences, continue unchecked?
• Nothing in the UN charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders. What the charter does say is that “armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest.” But what is that common interest? Who shall define it? Who shall defend it? Under whose authority? And with what means of intervention?
• First, “intervention” should not be understood as referring only to the use of force.
• Second, it is clear that traditional notions of sovereignty alone are not the only obstacle to effective action in humanitarian crises. No less significant are the ways in which states define their national interests.

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• R2P Basic Principles

   

  The principles and elements of The Responsibility to Protect doctrine were elaborated in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Its basic principles are two-fold:

   
   
  1.  
     Inherent in the concept of sovereignty is a state's responsibility to protect its populations; and
      
   
  2.  
     If a population is suffering serious harm, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the responsibility to protect those people lies in the international community.
• Three core elements define what is the R2P doctrine. First, states and the international community have the responsibility to prevent atrocity crimes, which requires action to address both the root causes and direct causes of internal conflict and other man-made crises putting populations at risk. Second, states and the international community have the responsibility to react during situations of compelling human need with appropriate measures, including the use of force. Finally, states and the international community have the responsibility to rebuild in the aftermath of atrocities.
• The ICISS report articulates a well-measured and careful approach to the acceptance of military intervention for human protection purposes. Foremost, less intrusive and coercive measures must be exercised before more coercive and intrusive ones are applied. However, in cases of extreme circumstances - those that "shock the conscience of mankind, or which present danger to international security" - use of force can be considered.
• Six criteria were identified for defining when a situation is appropriate for military intervention: right authority, just cause, right intention, last resort, proportional means and reasonable prospects
• Just Cause Threshold - In order for military intervention to be warranted, serious and irreparable harm must be occurring to human beings, or imminently likely to occur

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• The term failed state is often used by political commentators and journalists to describe a state perceived as having failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government. In order to make this definition more precise, the following attributes, proposed by the Fund for Peace, are often used to characterize a failed state:
• loss of physical control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein
• erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions
• an inability to provide reasonable public services
• an inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community
• A state could be said to "succeed" if it maintains, in the words of Max Weber, a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders. When this is broken (e.g., through the dominant presence of warlords, paramilitary groups, or terrorism), the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and the state becomes a failed state.
• A failed state is one that can no longer reproduce the conditions for its own existence

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• Bearing in mind its primary responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations for the maintenance of international peace and security, and underlining the importance of taking measures aimed at conflict prevention and resolution,
• 4. Reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity;