The "responsibility to protect" is the United Nation's latest attempt to shield people against mass atrocities. Professor Noam Chomsky warned the General Assembly that powerful states would use "humanitarian intervention" to exploit the weaker nations -- but this time there were very few takers.
R2P
So far, the Security Council can only authorize use of force when a situation poses a threat to international peace and security. Sovereignty is sacrosanct to preserve global order.
With millions killed by their own governments, several attempts were made, seventies onwards, to pierce the sovereignty armor. None worked. The principle of "humanitarian intervention," which involved unilateral military action was rejected by states that were recovering from a colonial legacy, and feared selective interference of big states in smaller ones.
Until very recently, the North-South clash brought the whole issue to naught with -- as top UN official Edward Luck puts it -- "verbal missiles flying thick and fast."
Confronted with the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Kosovo and Darfur, world leaders in 2005 agreed that human rights must be defended within a nation's borders -- this was the "responsibility to protect" principle, or R2P.
As Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister and a key player in the formulation of the doctrine, says -- it "bridges the gap between absolute sovereignty and send in the marines."
Its proponents painstakingly mark the difference between R2P and its predecessor "humanitarian intervention." They claim a fundamental shift from the "right" of intervention by big states to the "responsibility" of all states to protect.
However, R2P attracts the same suspicions. Will the principle be applied equally in theory and practice? The international community is not ready to apply R2P fairly, according to Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, the president of the General Assembly, who asks, if Darfur then why not Gaza?
Fewer Fans for Chomsky...
After four years, UN chief Ban Ki-moon delivered a report on how to implement R2P in real life. The Assembly discussed its recommendations and invited prominent intellectuals including Chomsky to share their views.
The debate was not to renegotiate the philosophical underpinnings or reassess the political implications of R2P. Still, the professor from MIT brought out all the "skeletons in the closet" linked to R2P and its "cousin" humanitarian intervention -- "The strong do as they wish while the weak suffer as they must."
The scholar stressed that it was unwise for weak states to forget history since most use of force cases have been justified in humanitarian terms -- Japan's attack on Manchuria, Hitler's invasion of eastern Czechoslovakia and Mussolini's entry in Ethiopia -- this basic pattern continues.
When it comes down uniform application, Chomsky asked why R2P had not been applied to the horrendous impact of sanctions on the Iraqi people. Even the characterization of a crisis was subject to selectivity.
The killing fields courtesy of Khmer Rouge was genocide but what about indiscriminate bombings of rural Cambodia in 1972. The professor described the Henry Kissinger's orders to hit, "anything that flies against anything that moves," -- as a call for genocide.
There was nothing controversial about R2P principles, Chomsky noted, but its implementation would be hijacked by big powers and regional alliances like NATO that charts its own area of operations.
The linguist highlighted the atrocities committed against the East Timorese people in the late seventies following an invasion by western-backed Indonesian forces. "In 1978, was also the year in which Britain and France joined the United States in supporting extermination as a crime against humanity and continued to do so right through 1999," he said.
Surprisingly, delegates from several "North" and "South" nations cast off the professor's arguments against R2P as rooted in the past and unhelpful.
The representative of East Timor recalled, "Running from British Broncos, US M16, Puma helicopters and wondered why the Australians never came to help us." Then, he requested Chomsky to move forward, "We support R2P precisely because we don't want what has happened to us to happen to anybody else in this world."
The Chilean ambassador noted that while Latin American states had suffered from repeated interference in their internal affairs -- the need to ward of intervention was balanced by the necessity to protect human rights.
The German ambassador said, "Professor you have enumerated a long list of examples about the cousin and about the skeleton, we have not heard anything about R2P."
The Big Boys
Two speakers, Chomsky and Belgian professor Jean Bricmont, underlined the most tenuous aspect of the principle -- who decides when the troops actually need to be sent. In humanitarian intervention the use of force was the only course of action but in R2P it is the last resort.
The gamut of alternatives -- prosecutions, sanctions, jamming radio signals, diplomatic and regional mechanisms -- can yield results. Rwanda was averted in post-election Kenya because of Kofi Annan's diplomatic engagement with its leaders. Kenya -- not Kosovo -- is the poster child for R2P.
But even under the new principle, when all else fails the Security Council authorizes the use of force. So has anything really changed?
First, this puts control back with the big boys of the Permanent Five who pick and choose their battles. The jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, for instance, was forced on Sudan by a Council resolution. The U.S. and China, also non-parties to the court, would not face the international tribunal for Iraq or Tibet.
"As long as the Security Council has the power of veto, selective prosecution will continue to exist in this world, no matter what kind of mechanism we create for R2P," the representative of Saudi Arabia remarked.
The ambassador of Djibouti asked that the role of the Security Council be defined for the principle to be applied consistently. The Egyptian representative wanted to know if the GA would have more power to make the decisions in applying R2P?
Second, there is a high probability of a deadlock between the big boys even within the within the R2P framework. The regular rules of geo-politics will play out. As long as nations are slaves to their self-interest, the Council remains crippled.
And so...
Millions died not because the right doctrine was missing. There was no political will to act. The Council did not need R2P to intervene in Rwanda and it doesn't need it now.
The real change that counted in this latest dialogue was the "get over it" factor. Bashing the U.S. became passé. The dangers of skewed power-play were acknowledged but "the weaker states are screwed over" routine was laid to rest.
R2P ceased to be a western norm. What emerged was the willingness and excitement to give this principle a fair chance.
Displaced in Darfur -