Sovereignty
is the central character of Westphalia nation-state. This very character of
state allows it to rule its people by exercising power on its entire territory
without any external intervention. In the field of international relations
since its formation, state has got legitimate right to exercise force to
administer its people, as renowned German sociologist, Max Weber says “state has got the monopoly of the legitimate
use of violence”. It is worthy to note here that according to Westphalia
treaty peace can exist amongst states only when a state lets other state govern
its people the way they want to. It means to say that sovereignty of one state
has to be respected by other state in order to establish and maintain peace within the international
community. In the eyes of international
law it recognizes only and only one player as legal entity which is state, it does
not recognize individuals or social beings as legal entity. In order to get
recognition in the eyes of international law, people have to go through the
channel of their state. Though time to
time sociologists, political thinkers (ex; John Locke) have put questions to this
concept of absolute power of state where “people” is merely its subject, and
thus subjugated under its supreme authority.
Thus “people” remained always sole responsibility of his state for his
well-being, safety and security; under adverse conditions like mass migration,
war, genocide people lose their life due to negligence of state or failure of
its machinery, another third party (state actor) had no legitimate right to
intervene militarily into other state’s territory without the consent of the
latter to save the life of innocent civilians.
The
water shed moment in questioning this tradition came during the atrocities
committed by the Nazi party in Germany during the Second World War which forced
the world leaders to think over the redefinition of power of state in
administrating its people which later culminated into the “Universal
Declaration of Human Rights” in 1947 in Paris.
With the United Nations taking the centre stage as inter-governmental
organization, a conscipicous demarcation was laid in between stat-people and
inter-state relationship in the language of UN charter. It’s worthy to note here that during the
post-’cold war era even the UN had limited authority to act in case of human
atrocity committed by a state on its people because of the balance of power
between the then the USSR and the Western block. The example of Indian army in 1971 taking
military action to save the lives of east Bengal civilians can be cited as an
exemplary and brave one. The real change in this regard took place in the
post-cold war world with the Security Council resolution of 665 in 1990-91
which allowed the UN authorized coalition forces of 34 nations led by US to
take military action against the Iraqi state for committing atrocities against the
Kuwaiti people.
It
is important to remind ourselves that such military interventions took place
under the UN resolution with the backing of big posers mainly the US and
sometimes UK and France. So in some cases they also chose not to intervene
where they found no nations interests to be served. For example, the genocide
of Rwanda in 1994 which claimed the lives of 800,000 innocent civilans, in this
classic case of human atrocity no big power chose to intervene. This is what
made in 2000 the then UN
Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Anan say out of frustration "The international community failed
Rwanda and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret."
Since
then, the intellectuals, jurists, political theorists came up with the idea
that sovereignty gives right to a state with a responsibility to protect its
people. In case, the state fails to do so then it is the responsibility of the international
community to protect innocent civilians. Thus came into being the concept of “Responsibility
to protect” proposed by Mr. Gareith Evans, a former foreign minister of
Australia and a Labour leader; the concept later got endorsed by the United
Nations General Assembly at 2005 World Summit. It is based on a set of principles
which intends to protect civilians from four kinds of crimes namely, genocide,
war-crimes, crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing. It actually provides a
guideline to use pre-existing tools against a state which fails to protect its
civilians, for example negotiation, early warning, economic sanctions and
ultimately using Chapter 7.
The Responsibility to Protect has three
"pillars".
1. A state has a
responsibility to protect its population from mass atrocities;
2. The international community
has a responsibility to assist the state to fulfill its primary responsibility;
3. If the state fails to protect
its citizens from mass atrocities and peaceful measures have failed, the
international community has the responsibility to intervene through coercive
measures such as economic sanctions. Military intervention is considered the
last resort.
The
problem does not emanate from the first and second pillar of the principal, but
from the interpretation of the third pillar. Especially from the coercive
measures of the intervention, because it allows a state or a group of states
under the UN blessings to intervene militarily into another state’s territory
through the legal mean of Chapter 7 this is where the Pandora’s box opens. The Chapter
7 gives right to infringe the sovereignty of a state by another state. It’s
worthy to note here that whenever any military intervention took place it
always occurred in a third world nation which
includes Africa, Asia, South America or Eastern Europe. Most countries of the third
world came into existence after decolonization after second world war, 1960 and
and 1989. And the intervening nations include always developed nations like US,
UK, France and other countries of western block. Most of them have been former
colonial powers so they have sentimental attachment to their former colonized
territories. Let us remind ourselves that France has a huge military presence
in her ex-colonised countries of Africa.
Recent
case of military intervention in Libya under the name of “Responsibility to
protect” throw many questions as to why such interventions are only made in oil
rich countries by western forces under the name of UN resolutions. The fact
remains that Russia and China vetoed and expressed their disagreement for any
such intervention. It’s equally judicious to ask that in many countries of
Sub-Saharan Africa people die of similar cases but it attracts no attention of
western forces because these countries are not rich in any natural resources.
This
brings us to doubt the very intention especially on the part of big powers to
implement the norm called “Responsibility to Protect” as a just mean to save
the lives of innocent civilians in troubles states. We have many such cases in
Iraq and Afghanistan where international forces remain on the territory of weak
states for a long time, and in armed conflicts in between western armies and
belligerent groups countless civilians get killed which mostly go unnoticed in
the eyes of international media.
The
prime apprehension that India and many other developing and emerging nations have
that, when and how to implement this set of principal in just way or will this
provide a safe passage to strong nations to intervene into any state’s
(relatively a weaker one) internal affairs to serve the strategic and political
motives for their own purposes?
(1) The criteria of using the concept of R2P
should be very clear in everybody’s mind that it should only be used to deal
with four kinds of identified crimes, i.e., genocide, war crimes, ethnic
cleansing and war-crimes. In future the umbrella of R2P should not be extended
to any other level where human rights organizations of western hemisphere would
ask to deal with any case of violations of human rights, humanitarian law or
even any social evils. We should understand that in many parts of the world,
human right is considered a western
value system. Even a few human right organizations see certain social practices
being exercised in developing countries as human rights violations. They may be
regarded in certain cases as social evils but cannot be put under the category
of human rights violations. Therefore the concept of R2P should never be
extended in future up to that level where western organizations should think of
considering any human right violation taking place in developing countries as a
failure of responsibility to protect on behalf of that weak state.
(2) While interpreting the pillar III of
the concept, the international community should not make a quick response based
on Article 41-42 of Chapter 7 which allows the use of coercive measures. They
should first use to political engagement and negotiation with the concerned
group or communities of that state where the conditions seem to be worsening.
They should be given an ample of time to see if the political engagements are
producing constructive and positive results. If all measures fail then only
under the leadership of the United Nations a groups of states as collective
responsibility should try the option of coercive measures.
(3) Once decided to go for coercive
measures, the tool of dissuasion should be applied on all concerned parties of
the on-going conflict, any kind of partiality should always be avoided. Because
any such kind of favoured attitude towards one particular community encourage
another community to act violently. We must have a provision in the resolution for monitoring and reporting
mechanisms so that the principal of neutrality and impartiality is maintained.
It is worthy to note that
in this regard responsibility while
protecting as proposed by Brazil needs to be considered very positively.
The
concept of R2P was framed primarily as an ethical tool to save the lives of
innocent and vulnerable civilians from inefficient state or cruel dictatorship
so the larger goal of it is to protect humanity from any arbitrary power of state.
This is the reason it should always remain truthful to its sole reason and must
never be allowed to be used by big powers for their political and strategic
purposes, otherwise the overall ethical objective of serving humanity will get
lost in the power politics of developed nations. This will make people believe
that the UN is just a marionette in the hands of developed countries for the manipulation
of their power, and ultimately the UN itself may lose credibility as world
governing body in the eyes of the citizens of the global community.
