May 5th, 2009
The Responsibility to Protect - Sovereignty vs. Humanity
The responsibility to protect, an idea currently sweeping through the international community in response to emerging security dangers in the world, is beginning to take root in the international institutions designed to protect the world. Following the genocides in Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia and the crimes against humanity in Kosovo, East Timor, and Darfur in the late 20th century, the international community began to wonder what it could do to prevent such atrocious attacks on human life. In 2001, in response to the UN’s question of when it was appropriate to intervene to protect human life, dignity, and basic rights, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) formed and initiated the idea of the responsibility to protect, or R2P. R2P is a concept designed to encourage UN member states to intervene when a state can not or does not protect its citizens, whether from intrastate or interstate action. The World Summit on R2P in 2005 established the following guidelines for intervention:
• Each state has a responsibility to protect its population from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing and for preventing such crimes.
• The international community should encourage and assist states in this responsibility.
• The international community has the responsibility to use diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means to protect people threatened by such crimes. If a state fails to protect its citizens and peaceful means do not succeed, the international community must take stronger measures, including the collective use of force when authorized by the Security Council.1
There has long been a debate in the international community as to whether sovereignty trumps human rights concerns. Under the original establishment of the UN, the concept of sovereignty reigned supreme. Based around Woodrow Wilson’s ideal of national self determination, the UN and the international community claimed a respect for sovereignty, which could only be overridden when facing threats to international peace and security. However, the changing landscape of international politics in the past sixty years has shown that interstate war is not the only threat to international peace and security, and gross human rights violations have challenged the supremacy of the concept of sovereignty. Over the years, the UN has restricted the idea of domestic jurisdiction (where states are responsible for their own populations and what occurs within their own borders) and sought to intervene in human rights violations and crimes against humanity.
This change in UN policy has developed as a direct result of the changing international politics and the changing norms that guide international policy. Whereas norms of just war and international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions guided the treatment of civilians and prisoners in interstate war, no normative rules have been established to protect citizens who live in areas torn by intrastate conflict. In the past sixty years, intrastate conflict has become extremely prevalent; from 1900 to 1941, 80 percent of all wars were interstate, but from 1945 to 1976, 85 percent of all wars were intrastate. Intrastate wars have increased civilian deaths to 90 percent of all war related deaths and created approximately 13 million refugees and 38 million displaced persons.2 In response, the international community has shifted the norm of sovereignty to allow for intervention in the form of peacekeeping missions to re-establish peace in war torn regions and protect civilians from the horrors of intrastate conflict. More recently, norms have shifted even more to provide the international community with the incentive to prevent future crimes against populations.
However, the question remains as to how much of a responsibility the international community has to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The concept of sovereignty still plays an important role in influencing international decisions, and the UN Security Council suffers from the veto clause when passing resolutions authorizing the use of force. This makes it difficult for individual states to commit to international standards to provide humanitarian protection. It is imperative for states to recognize their obligation to the international community to ensure that everyone is free from fear and to guarantee basic human rights. States must work together to gain international support for R2P. To get past the idea of sovereignty trumping all other international initiatives, states should also recognize the benefits that R2P brings to peace and security. War torn communities are inherently unstable, which can lead to regional instability and the spread of conflict, as often neighboring states will become involved. The global consequences of regional instability can be economic or security based—failed states are one of the most important concerns in the new era of nuclear proliferation. R2P can also promote the spread of democracy. By assisting states in the midst of civil conflict or genocide with peace and state building, the international community can introduce democratic principles without forcing a destabilizing regime change. R2P is an important goal for the international community, both in what states should do and what can benefit states, and every state should encourage R2P at the international level.
Written by Holly Lindamood, Program Director and Research Associate
Daisy Alliance
