The R2P doctrine needs tools and decisiveness to be effective in preventing mass violence
Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock
An article in the Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-unfulfilled-promise-of-un-protection/article1709144/
lundi 20 septembre 2010
mercredi 3 mars 2010
Genocide Prevention: Moral Imperative or Rational Self-Interest?
Our invited contributor this month : Maureen S. Hiebert, Assistant Professor in the Law and Society Program at the University of Calgary.
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Genocide Prevention: Moral Imperative or Rational Self-Interest?
By Maureen S. Hiebert
Like many genocide scholars I got into the field because I was outraged that genocides like the ones in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, could still happen fifty and sixty years after the Holocaust. I wanted to know two things: why does genocide happen and how can we prevent it from happening again. My outrage that genocide even occurs in the first place was (and still is) fueled by a complete inability, not from an intellectual but from a humanitarian point of view, to comprehend why political elites would ever decide that the right way to solve their problems is to exterminate whole groups of people simply because these people exist and because of who they are. In short, my moral indignation drove my need, both as a scholar and as a human being, to help find a way to wipe out the “old scourge” with a “new name” once and for all.My own understanding of genocide prevention as a moral imperative mirrors that of other scholars, policy-makers, activists, survivors, and interested ordinary people over the last several decades. The idea is simple enough: genocide is morally wrong and ought not to happen anywhere, to anyone, for any reason.The main attempt at making the moral imperative to prevent genocide real came with the crafting and signing of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNGC). As its name plainly says part of the function of the UNGC is supposed to be prevention. Here there is a clear link between a moral imperative - creating what some scholars call an “anti-genocide norm” - and codifying that norm in international law. Thus the states that sign on to the Convention commit themselves to cooperate to “liberate mankind from such an odious scourge” by agreeing to “undertake” steps to prevent genocide, among other things. But the historical record clearly shows that while the UNGC has enjoyed some success in the punishment department sixty years on, states have taken their legal and moral obligation under the Convention to prevent genocide rather less seriously.This experience gave rise, particularly after Rwanda when the major players in the international system were tripping over themselves not to use the “g-word” to describe what was happening, to the idea that if only we could get states to recognize a genocide when one is about to or is already happening and if we can get states to call a genocide a genocide, they might then actually do their moral and legal duty to stop the killing. No such luck. As the Bush administration’s approach to Darfur a few years ago demonstrated in no uncertain terms, it is entirely possible for the most powerful country in the world (and by extension every other country) to call a genocide “genocide” - repeatedly - and still do nothing to stop it. All this despite the concerted effort of several NGOs, student and other activist groups’ appeals to our moral and legal obligations to end the bloodshed.Given the apparent failure of appeals to moral and legal considerations, a different approach to motivating useful genocide prevention by governments is being proposed. The brainchild of genocide scholar Frank Chalk and Lt. Gen. (Ret) Romeo Dallaire, this new approach is spelled out in their comprehensive report Mobilizing the Will to Intervene (W2i for short). W2i changes the foundations upon which the appeal to genocide prevention should be made: national, and rational, self-interest. After considering why the international community failed so miserably in Rwanda but managed to act decisively in Kosovo, coupled with information gleaned from interviews with numerous American and Canadian officials, the authors forcefully argue that if we want to get governments to get serious about genocide prevention, we need to stop appealing to the injustice of genocide and instead appeal to cold, hard Realpolitik. The report suggests that mass atrocities and post-atrocity/conflict situations in far off lands pose real threats to Canadians and the Canadian government (ditto for the US and other countries in the North) including the risk of pandemics, the creation of safe havens for piracy and terrorism, refugees flows, and loss of access to strategic resources. To protect ourselves from the fall-out of any or all of these scenarios, governments and civil society must work together to prevent or stop genocides that are already occurring in order to ensure our own health, security, and economic prosperity.While I’m sympathetic to the idea that we need to appeal to government in the cost-benefit language to which they are most accustom, and the authors hope, are most likely to listen, I’m not convinced that the empirical record will help make the case. Take the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo for example. W2i’s thesis would have predicted that the on-going conflict in the eastern part of the DRC (which at one time involved not just the remnants of the Rwandan army that perpetrated the genocide in 1994 but several neighbouring African states and now has evolved into warlordism across various local and regional armed groups) would have sparked local epidemics and then pandemics that reached North America and elsewhere, a serious security crisis that involved the strategic interests of Canada and the United states, a safe haven for transnational terrorists, and economic hardship here at home due to the loss of access to economic resources. But if we look at the impact of the misery that is the DRC on the vital interests of the Canadian and American governments and ordinary Canadians and Americans, the effect is almost negligible. While the immediate post-genocide period in eastern DRC did see a terrible cholera epidemic in the refugee camps, the epidemic did not spread outside the region even in the era of international air travel. And while the area is beset by insecurity and the perpetration of atrocities, Canadian and American national security and strategic interests have not been put at risk, largely because of the geographical remoteness of the conflict zone. Similarly, eastern DRC has not become, as in the case of Somalia or Yemen, an outpost for anti-western jihadi terrorist groups. As for our economic interests, while it is true that the DRC has vast quantities of valuable mineral resources, so do we, which is why our lack of access to them does not seem to be hurting our economic performance. Even the mineral coltan, which is used in the manufacturing of cellphones, is still somehow ending up in our abundant supply of such devices even though several armed groups are vying for control of this particular resource.The DRC example suggests that the W2i thesis is not as universal as the authors make it out to be. Governments may be persuaded to intervene to prevent genocide in far-off places, but only if those places are already of strategic and economic interest to those same governments. But if genocide is occurring, or is in the offing, in some corner of the world where Canadian or American interests are not engaged, or if the target population is poor and doesn’t travel much internationally thus keeping the risk of a global pandemic low, the cavalry is not likely to be coming.On top of all of these considerations is the concern that an emphasis on “intervention” is a revival of a term that conjures up fears of neocolonialist meddling by the North in the countries of the Global South. The idea of “humanitarian intervention” fell out of favour decades ago for a reason. Reintroducing the idea may not attract many new supporters.So where does this leave us? If governments are deaf to moral pleas for intervention and will only intervene in places where they already have a strategic interest, the other option is to concentrate on early prevention rather than intervention. Using diplomacy and development assistance wisely to support good governance could not only induce states not to commit genocide against their own people, it could produce a number of other positive dividends as well. Of course, this is a long term strategy that requires an equally long term commitment from Canada, the United States, and other nations. Let’s hope they’re sufficiently motivated and up to the challenge.
Maureen S. Hiebert is an Assistant Professor in the Law and Society Program at the University of Calgary. maureen.hiebert@ucalgary.ca
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Genocide Prevention: Moral Imperative or Rational Self-Interest?
By Maureen S. Hiebert
Like many genocide scholars I got into the field because I was outraged that genocides like the ones in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, could still happen fifty and sixty years after the Holocaust. I wanted to know two things: why does genocide happen and how can we prevent it from happening again. My outrage that genocide even occurs in the first place was (and still is) fueled by a complete inability, not from an intellectual but from a humanitarian point of view, to comprehend why political elites would ever decide that the right way to solve their problems is to exterminate whole groups of people simply because these people exist and because of who they are. In short, my moral indignation drove my need, both as a scholar and as a human being, to help find a way to wipe out the “old scourge” with a “new name” once and for all.My own understanding of genocide prevention as a moral imperative mirrors that of other scholars, policy-makers, activists, survivors, and interested ordinary people over the last several decades. The idea is simple enough: genocide is morally wrong and ought not to happen anywhere, to anyone, for any reason.The main attempt at making the moral imperative to prevent genocide real came with the crafting and signing of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNGC). As its name plainly says part of the function of the UNGC is supposed to be prevention. Here there is a clear link between a moral imperative - creating what some scholars call an “anti-genocide norm” - and codifying that norm in international law. Thus the states that sign on to the Convention commit themselves to cooperate to “liberate mankind from such an odious scourge” by agreeing to “undertake” steps to prevent genocide, among other things. But the historical record clearly shows that while the UNGC has enjoyed some success in the punishment department sixty years on, states have taken their legal and moral obligation under the Convention to prevent genocide rather less seriously.This experience gave rise, particularly after Rwanda when the major players in the international system were tripping over themselves not to use the “g-word” to describe what was happening, to the idea that if only we could get states to recognize a genocide when one is about to or is already happening and if we can get states to call a genocide a genocide, they might then actually do their moral and legal duty to stop the killing. No such luck. As the Bush administration’s approach to Darfur a few years ago demonstrated in no uncertain terms, it is entirely possible for the most powerful country in the world (and by extension every other country) to call a genocide “genocide” - repeatedly - and still do nothing to stop it. All this despite the concerted effort of several NGOs, student and other activist groups’ appeals to our moral and legal obligations to end the bloodshed.Given the apparent failure of appeals to moral and legal considerations, a different approach to motivating useful genocide prevention by governments is being proposed. The brainchild of genocide scholar Frank Chalk and Lt. Gen. (Ret) Romeo Dallaire, this new approach is spelled out in their comprehensive report Mobilizing the Will to Intervene (W2i for short). W2i changes the foundations upon which the appeal to genocide prevention should be made: national, and rational, self-interest. After considering why the international community failed so miserably in Rwanda but managed to act decisively in Kosovo, coupled with information gleaned from interviews with numerous American and Canadian officials, the authors forcefully argue that if we want to get governments to get serious about genocide prevention, we need to stop appealing to the injustice of genocide and instead appeal to cold, hard Realpolitik. The report suggests that mass atrocities and post-atrocity/conflict situations in far off lands pose real threats to Canadians and the Canadian government (ditto for the US and other countries in the North) including the risk of pandemics, the creation of safe havens for piracy and terrorism, refugees flows, and loss of access to strategic resources. To protect ourselves from the fall-out of any or all of these scenarios, governments and civil society must work together to prevent or stop genocides that are already occurring in order to ensure our own health, security, and economic prosperity.While I’m sympathetic to the idea that we need to appeal to government in the cost-benefit language to which they are most accustom, and the authors hope, are most likely to listen, I’m not convinced that the empirical record will help make the case. Take the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo for example. W2i’s thesis would have predicted that the on-going conflict in the eastern part of the DRC (which at one time involved not just the remnants of the Rwandan army that perpetrated the genocide in 1994 but several neighbouring African states and now has evolved into warlordism across various local and regional armed groups) would have sparked local epidemics and then pandemics that reached North America and elsewhere, a serious security crisis that involved the strategic interests of Canada and the United states, a safe haven for transnational terrorists, and economic hardship here at home due to the loss of access to economic resources. But if we look at the impact of the misery that is the DRC on the vital interests of the Canadian and American governments and ordinary Canadians and Americans, the effect is almost negligible. While the immediate post-genocide period in eastern DRC did see a terrible cholera epidemic in the refugee camps, the epidemic did not spread outside the region even in the era of international air travel. And while the area is beset by insecurity and the perpetration of atrocities, Canadian and American national security and strategic interests have not been put at risk, largely because of the geographical remoteness of the conflict zone. Similarly, eastern DRC has not become, as in the case of Somalia or Yemen, an outpost for anti-western jihadi terrorist groups. As for our economic interests, while it is true that the DRC has vast quantities of valuable mineral resources, so do we, which is why our lack of access to them does not seem to be hurting our economic performance. Even the mineral coltan, which is used in the manufacturing of cellphones, is still somehow ending up in our abundant supply of such devices even though several armed groups are vying for control of this particular resource.The DRC example suggests that the W2i thesis is not as universal as the authors make it out to be. Governments may be persuaded to intervene to prevent genocide in far-off places, but only if those places are already of strategic and economic interest to those same governments. But if genocide is occurring, or is in the offing, in some corner of the world where Canadian or American interests are not engaged, or if the target population is poor and doesn’t travel much internationally thus keeping the risk of a global pandemic low, the cavalry is not likely to be coming.On top of all of these considerations is the concern that an emphasis on “intervention” is a revival of a term that conjures up fears of neocolonialist meddling by the North in the countries of the Global South. The idea of “humanitarian intervention” fell out of favour decades ago for a reason. Reintroducing the idea may not attract many new supporters.So where does this leave us? If governments are deaf to moral pleas for intervention and will only intervene in places where they already have a strategic interest, the other option is to concentrate on early prevention rather than intervention. Using diplomacy and development assistance wisely to support good governance could not only induce states not to commit genocide against their own people, it could produce a number of other positive dividends as well. Of course, this is a long term strategy that requires an equally long term commitment from Canada, the United States, and other nations. Let’s hope they’re sufficiently motivated and up to the challenge.
Maureen S. Hiebert is an Assistant Professor in the Law and Society Program at the University of Calgary. maureen.hiebert@ucalgary.ca
mardi 2 mars 2010
Response to Maureen Hiebert
Below Frank Chalk's response to Maureen Hiebert's post
Frank Chalk is professor of history and director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. With Gen. Romeo Dallaire, he directed the Will to Intervene project
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I want to thank Maureen Hiebert for starting a discussion thread about MOBILIZING THE WILL TO INTERVENE: LEADERSHIPAND ACTION TO PREVENT MASS ATROCITIES (W2I), before I disagree with her and offer my understanding of our report, which differs from hers. Maureen attended two of my presentations in Calgary and was a much appreciated participant in the discussions there. She is a fine colleague and I take very seriously the questions she has raised, but I must disagree with her reading of what we wrote.I see three differences in emphasis and possible misinterpretations of our report and its recommendations in Maureen's appraisal.First, she and I really agree on the need for early warning and the early use of diplomacy and development assistance to support good governance and to head off conflicts before they escalate into mass atrocity crimes, including genocide. Recommendation 2 to the Government of Canada under “Building Capacity” (p. ix of W2I) and the explanation which follows state this clearly: "W2I recommends that the Government of Canada increase its diplomatic and development presence in fragile countries" The elaboration of this point in the report on pages 38 to 41 calls for the Canadian government, through CIDA, to "increase and target development assistance to reach countries where the threat of mass atrocities is most likely."Our report also very strongly recommends substantial increases in the development budgets and staffing of CIDA and DFAIT. We buttress this recommendation by noting that, as I am sure Maureen would agree, "Development, if conducted strategically, can alleviate the structural conditions that engender violence and repression. Economic growth and development, when wisely planned, reduces poverty and inequality by generating employment opportunities for youth in vulnerable countries. This, in turn, reduces the recruitment of unemployed and disaffected youth into radical movements or criminal gangs while decreasing large-scale illegal migration." (W2I, p.40) You can read a fuller discussion and elaboration of these points in the remainder the section on Building Capacity. The full report is posted on our web site in English and French at: http://migs.concordia.ca/W2I/W2I_Project.htmlI might add that we wrote these recommendations with due regard for Peter Uvin’s important findings in Aiding Violence regarding the negative consequences of poorly conceived aid to Rwanda, which only made matters worse and contributed to the conditions leading to the genocide. That is why we emphasized planning aid “strategically” and noted that it must be “wisely planned”. I am sure that Maureen agrees. In her concluding paragraphs, she calls for “Using diplomacy and development assistance wisely to support good governance . . . .” W2I agrees completely with her view and vice versa.Second, the argument in W2I, which is based on interviews with over 80 decision makers and shapers of opinion at the time of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the 1999 events in Kosovo, is that Canada and the US must build both (my emphasis) "hard power" (military forces specifically trained and equipped to protect civilians against mass atrocities and to deter spoilers) and "soft power" (development and diplomatic aid), so that we never again get into another situation like that which followed the Arusha Peace agreements for Rwanda, when the "spoilers" recognized that no country would be willing to stop them if they overthrew the peace deals and murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, as well as Hutu advocates of peace and human rights. We conclude in W2I that diplomatic interventions are only credible when the potential spoilers recognize that the peace agreements they sign are backed up with force and they will be stopped if they try to destroy them. If we haven’t learned that lesson by now, we have really missed the boat.We argue in the W2I report that the deployment of soft and hard power to prevent mass atrocities is no longer only a matter of humanitarianism and morality, but is also of vital national security concern. We contend that Canadian and American Realpolitik imperatives have fully converged with humanitarian concerns as a consequence of the rapid increase in globalization, characterized by huge increases in international and domestic air travel and unprecedented changes in the quantity and quality of global trade. W2I calls for applying the rigorous criteria specifying trip wires and boundaries for action elaborated in the Responsibility to Protect report; in appendix G of W2I, at the end of the W2I report (p. 139), we specifically label Bush’s Iraq Two war as a violation of R2P’s precautionary principles and distance ourselves from retrospective rationalizations of the war as implementing R2P. Our call for mobilizing the willingness to intervene is nuanced; like R2P, our report is not a blueprint for neo-colonialism or imperialism.Third, Maureen hints that to meet empirical tests our argument requires us to demonstrate that the widespread mass atrocity crimes in the DRC have already produced North American pandemics, created sanctuaries for terrorists and pirates, and denied Canadian and American business access to key raw materials in order for us to demonstrate that they threaten the vital interests of Canada and the United States. And even if we could demonstrate that these consequences already exist, she continues, using our approach, the “cavalry” would not be mobilized to help countries in those parts of the world where Canadian and American interests were not engaged. But these points oversimplify our argument.It is true that national security concerns alone will not mobilize the will to intervene when Realpolitik issues are absent. But we who advocate preventing mass atrocities should recognize that security planners are already aware that mass atrocities threaten national security and are widening their horizons to include early warning and early action to prevent mass atrocities. Delivering the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment to Congress on 2 February 2010, the Director of National Intelligence, retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair raised the threat of a new outbreak of mass killing or genocide in southern Sudan (http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20100202_testimony.pdf, p. 37).Note that from discussing such “Mass Killings,” he moved on to consider “Strategic Health Challenges and Threats.” Adm. Blair’s testimony is so important, that I will quote it here at length:“The current influenza pandemic is the most visible reminder that health issues can suddenly emerge from anywhere in the globe and threaten American lives and US strategic objectives. It also highlights many of the United States’ critical dependencies and vulnerabilities in the health arena. But like an iceberg, the visible portion is just a small fraction of the myriad of health issues that will likely challenge the United States in the coming years. Significant gaps remain in disease surveillance and reporting that undermine our ability to confront disease outbreaks overseas or identify contaminated products before they threaten Americans. The policies and actions of foreign government and non-state actors to address health issues, or not address them, also have ripple effects that impair our ability to protect American lives and livelihoods and impair Washington’s foreign policy objectives. . . . As seen with H1N1-2009 pandemic, travel between countries links our population’s health to the health and sanitary conditions of every country, and our knowledge of the potential threats is limited by the inadequacies of international disease surveillance in animals and man. We have warned in the past that surveillance capacity to detect pathogens in humans varies widely.” (Ibid., p. 41)The Obama administration is paying attention to a far broader range of security threats than its predecessors. The recently released US Department of Defense’s Quadriennial Defense Review (February 2010,p. vi, at: http://www.defense.gov/QDR/QDR%20as%20of%2029JAN10%201600.pdfdeclares that:“the Defense Department must be prepared to provide the President with options across a wide range of contingencies, which include supporting a response to an attack or natural disaster at home, defeating aggression by adversary states, supporting and stabilizing fragile states facing serious internal threats, and preventing human suffering due to mass atrocities [emphasis added] or large-scale natural disasters abroad.”Of course, we must also recognize that even in the best of all possible worlds the governments of Canada and the US will not intervene everywhere or every time to prevent mass atrocities. R2P proposes that there should be “reasonable prospects” for success, specifying: “There must be a reasonable chance of success in halting or averting the suffering which has justified the intervention, with the consequences of action not likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.” (R2P, p. xii) There will be times when our governments must not intervene and we should learn to live with that fact.As in epidemiology, as in actuarial calculation by insurance companies, and as in security planning, W2I’s new approach pivots on the probabilities. Leading experts in public health, national security, and business share our concerns about the consequences of mass atrocity crimes and agree with our conclusions. Rather than dismiss their insights which are based on having monitored the spread of HIV/AIDS from the DRC to the rest of the world, the known risks of tropical and other drug-resistant epidemic infectious diseases jumping to North America via air travel or vice versa before they can be spotted, the dangers from terrorism and piracy, and the vulnerability of the world economy to warlords and their allies holding rare minerals essential to our prosperity for ransom and destabilizing the world economy, we should be paying attention to their concerns and enlisting them as allies in our efforts to mobilize in Canada and the US the will to intervene to prevent mass atrocities.We already know the fundamentals. Mass rape, population displacements propelled by mass atrocities, confinement in camps lacking safe water, basic health care, and adequate sanitary facilities are formulas for the development and spread of drug-resistant infectious diseases, the recruitment of child soldiers, the growth of militias and the destabilization of entire regions. Our world is criss-crossed by air travelers flying in every direction, to and from every continent. Container ships and oil tankers are the lifeblood of international commerce today, yet our ports are as porous as sieves, as Carolyn Nordstrom demonstrates in her book, Global Outlaws. Trade, tourism, immigration and overseas missions put millions of us on the move daily. Must we wait to reduce the threats heightened by mass atrocities until our defences are fatally breached and the victims once more are butchered before our eyes? If we delay, the odds are against us. We need to act now to mobilize the will to intervene with soft and hard power to prevent mass atrocities. That is the message of our report and I hope that Maureen will come to endorse the way we have formulated it.
Frank Chalk
Frank Chalk is professor of history and director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. With Gen. Romeo Dallaire, he directed the Will to Intervene project
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to thank Maureen Hiebert for starting a discussion thread about MOBILIZING THE WILL TO INTERVENE: LEADERSHIPAND ACTION TO PREVENT MASS ATROCITIES (W2I), before I disagree with her and offer my understanding of our report, which differs from hers. Maureen attended two of my presentations in Calgary and was a much appreciated participant in the discussions there. She is a fine colleague and I take very seriously the questions she has raised, but I must disagree with her reading of what we wrote.I see three differences in emphasis and possible misinterpretations of our report and its recommendations in Maureen's appraisal.First, she and I really agree on the need for early warning and the early use of diplomacy and development assistance to support good governance and to head off conflicts before they escalate into mass atrocity crimes, including genocide. Recommendation 2 to the Government of Canada under “Building Capacity” (p. ix of W2I) and the explanation which follows state this clearly: "W2I recommends that the Government of Canada increase its diplomatic and development presence in fragile countries" The elaboration of this point in the report on pages 38 to 41 calls for the Canadian government, through CIDA, to "increase and target development assistance to reach countries where the threat of mass atrocities is most likely."Our report also very strongly recommends substantial increases in the development budgets and staffing of CIDA and DFAIT. We buttress this recommendation by noting that, as I am sure Maureen would agree, "Development, if conducted strategically, can alleviate the structural conditions that engender violence and repression. Economic growth and development, when wisely planned, reduces poverty and inequality by generating employment opportunities for youth in vulnerable countries. This, in turn, reduces the recruitment of unemployed and disaffected youth into radical movements or criminal gangs while decreasing large-scale illegal migration." (W2I, p.40) You can read a fuller discussion and elaboration of these points in the remainder the section on Building Capacity. The full report is posted on our web site in English and French at: http://migs.concordia.ca/W2I/W2I_Project.htmlI might add that we wrote these recommendations with due regard for Peter Uvin’s important findings in Aiding Violence regarding the negative consequences of poorly conceived aid to Rwanda, which only made matters worse and contributed to the conditions leading to the genocide. That is why we emphasized planning aid “strategically” and noted that it must be “wisely planned”. I am sure that Maureen agrees. In her concluding paragraphs, she calls for “Using diplomacy and development assistance wisely to support good governance . . . .” W2I agrees completely with her view and vice versa.Second, the argument in W2I, which is based on interviews with over 80 decision makers and shapers of opinion at the time of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the 1999 events in Kosovo, is that Canada and the US must build both (my emphasis) "hard power" (military forces specifically trained and equipped to protect civilians against mass atrocities and to deter spoilers) and "soft power" (development and diplomatic aid), so that we never again get into another situation like that which followed the Arusha Peace agreements for Rwanda, when the "spoilers" recognized that no country would be willing to stop them if they overthrew the peace deals and murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, as well as Hutu advocates of peace and human rights. We conclude in W2I that diplomatic interventions are only credible when the potential spoilers recognize that the peace agreements they sign are backed up with force and they will be stopped if they try to destroy them. If we haven’t learned that lesson by now, we have really missed the boat.We argue in the W2I report that the deployment of soft and hard power to prevent mass atrocities is no longer only a matter of humanitarianism and morality, but is also of vital national security concern. We contend that Canadian and American Realpolitik imperatives have fully converged with humanitarian concerns as a consequence of the rapid increase in globalization, characterized by huge increases in international and domestic air travel and unprecedented changes in the quantity and quality of global trade. W2I calls for applying the rigorous criteria specifying trip wires and boundaries for action elaborated in the Responsibility to Protect report; in appendix G of W2I, at the end of the W2I report (p. 139), we specifically label Bush’s Iraq Two war as a violation of R2P’s precautionary principles and distance ourselves from retrospective rationalizations of the war as implementing R2P. Our call for mobilizing the willingness to intervene is nuanced; like R2P, our report is not a blueprint for neo-colonialism or imperialism.Third, Maureen hints that to meet empirical tests our argument requires us to demonstrate that the widespread mass atrocity crimes in the DRC have already produced North American pandemics, created sanctuaries for terrorists and pirates, and denied Canadian and American business access to key raw materials in order for us to demonstrate that they threaten the vital interests of Canada and the United States. And even if we could demonstrate that these consequences already exist, she continues, using our approach, the “cavalry” would not be mobilized to help countries in those parts of the world where Canadian and American interests were not engaged. But these points oversimplify our argument.It is true that national security concerns alone will not mobilize the will to intervene when Realpolitik issues are absent. But we who advocate preventing mass atrocities should recognize that security planners are already aware that mass atrocities threaten national security and are widening their horizons to include early warning and early action to prevent mass atrocities. Delivering the U.S. intelligence community’s annual threat assessment to Congress on 2 February 2010, the Director of National Intelligence, retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair raised the threat of a new outbreak of mass killing or genocide in southern Sudan (http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20100202_testimony.pdf, p. 37).Note that from discussing such “Mass Killings,” he moved on to consider “Strategic Health Challenges and Threats.” Adm. Blair’s testimony is so important, that I will quote it here at length:“The current influenza pandemic is the most visible reminder that health issues can suddenly emerge from anywhere in the globe and threaten American lives and US strategic objectives. It also highlights many of the United States’ critical dependencies and vulnerabilities in the health arena. But like an iceberg, the visible portion is just a small fraction of the myriad of health issues that will likely challenge the United States in the coming years. Significant gaps remain in disease surveillance and reporting that undermine our ability to confront disease outbreaks overseas or identify contaminated products before they threaten Americans. The policies and actions of foreign government and non-state actors to address health issues, or not address them, also have ripple effects that impair our ability to protect American lives and livelihoods and impair Washington’s foreign policy objectives. . . . As seen with H1N1-2009 pandemic, travel between countries links our population’s health to the health and sanitary conditions of every country, and our knowledge of the potential threats is limited by the inadequacies of international disease surveillance in animals and man. We have warned in the past that surveillance capacity to detect pathogens in humans varies widely.” (Ibid., p. 41)The Obama administration is paying attention to a far broader range of security threats than its predecessors. The recently released US Department of Defense’s Quadriennial Defense Review (February 2010,p. vi, at: http://www.defense.gov/QDR/QDR%20as%20of%2029JAN10%201600.pdfdeclares that:“the Defense Department must be prepared to provide the President with options across a wide range of contingencies, which include supporting a response to an attack or natural disaster at home, defeating aggression by adversary states, supporting and stabilizing fragile states facing serious internal threats, and preventing human suffering due to mass atrocities [emphasis added] or large-scale natural disasters abroad.”Of course, we must also recognize that even in the best of all possible worlds the governments of Canada and the US will not intervene everywhere or every time to prevent mass atrocities. R2P proposes that there should be “reasonable prospects” for success, specifying: “There must be a reasonable chance of success in halting or averting the suffering which has justified the intervention, with the consequences of action not likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.” (R2P, p. xii) There will be times when our governments must not intervene and we should learn to live with that fact.As in epidemiology, as in actuarial calculation by insurance companies, and as in security planning, W2I’s new approach pivots on the probabilities. Leading experts in public health, national security, and business share our concerns about the consequences of mass atrocity crimes and agree with our conclusions. Rather than dismiss their insights which are based on having monitored the spread of HIV/AIDS from the DRC to the rest of the world, the known risks of tropical and other drug-resistant epidemic infectious diseases jumping to North America via air travel or vice versa before they can be spotted, the dangers from terrorism and piracy, and the vulnerability of the world economy to warlords and their allies holding rare minerals essential to our prosperity for ransom and destabilizing the world economy, we should be paying attention to their concerns and enlisting them as allies in our efforts to mobilize in Canada and the US the will to intervene to prevent mass atrocities.We already know the fundamentals. Mass rape, population displacements propelled by mass atrocities, confinement in camps lacking safe water, basic health care, and adequate sanitary facilities are formulas for the development and spread of drug-resistant infectious diseases, the recruitment of child soldiers, the growth of militias and the destabilization of entire regions. Our world is criss-crossed by air travelers flying in every direction, to and from every continent. Container ships and oil tankers are the lifeblood of international commerce today, yet our ports are as porous as sieves, as Carolyn Nordstrom demonstrates in her book, Global Outlaws. Trade, tourism, immigration and overseas missions put millions of us on the move daily. Must we wait to reduce the threats heightened by mass atrocities until our defences are fatally breached and the victims once more are butchered before our eyes? If we delay, the odds are against us. We need to act now to mobilize the will to intervene with soft and hard power to prevent mass atrocities. That is the message of our report and I hope that Maureen will come to endorse the way we have formulated it.
Frank Chalk
vendredi 24 juillet 2009
Protecting the Responsibility To Protect (R2P)
Allan Rock & Lloyd Axorthy position on the upcoming UN General Assembly debate around the SG report on the implimentation of the R2P
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-axworthy/protecting-r2p_b_243938.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lloyd-axworthy/protecting-r2p_b_243938.html
jeudi 23 avril 2009
Bearing witness
Below, Uzma Jamil is reflecting back on the circle of conversations ‘Through the eyes of Resisters and Rescuers: Embracing the Will to Act’ organized in April 2009 by Human Above All as part of our Genocide Prevention Campaign.
We thank her for taking the time to share her reaction with all of us.
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I was a member of the audience at the panel discussion about resisters and rescuers in the face of genocide, as part of the series of discussions to mark the Day of reflection on the prevention of Genocide adopted in Canada. I was particularly struck by the words of one of the panelist, Berthe, the fact that she described her story about the nun who gave up her own life to save those of others, including Berthe’s, in the Rwandan genocide as a testimony and a testament to that woman’s moral courage, her life and her actions. Her story was moving, and drove home her point. But it caused me to reflect. Berthe, and the other two women who spoke, all have their stories as survivors of genocides and/or crimes against humanity, which they are willing to share as a way of keeping up awareness. What about the rest of us who do not have personal links to histories of civil conflicts or political violence? What can we do to prevent genocide in the future?
We can bear witness. In doing so, however passive our role as listeners may be, we are also taking a moral position in the world and the horrific events that have happened and are happening around us. We are not just audience members. We create a moral relationship with the person sharing their experience. By bearing witness, I say that I am here to hear your story. I give it its space, its due, its place. I acknowledge your personal experience as a survivor. I bear witness. With my presence, by my presence, simply by my presence, I acknowledge your presence, your history as an individual and your story of survival and resistance and courage in the face of horrific circumstances. But beyond that, beyond the individual, I bear witness to the evil of genocide. I bear witness to the complexity of human beings, from their capacity to torture and kill and inflict tremendous pain and injustice, to their equal capacity to stand up to evil and to give up their own lives in order to save those of others.
To prevent genocide in the future, at the very least, this is what we can do. As human beings who think morally about our place in the world and our relationships with fellow human beings, we can bear witness.
Uzma Jamil
April 19, 2009
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I was a member of the audience at the panel discussion about resisters and rescuers in the face of genocide, as part of the series of discussions to mark the Day of reflection on the prevention of Genocide adopted in Canada. I was particularly struck by the words of one of the panelist, Berthe, the fact that she described her story about the nun who gave up her own life to save those of others, including Berthe’s, in the Rwandan genocide as a testimony and a testament to that woman’s moral courage, her life and her actions. Her story was moving, and drove home her point. But it caused me to reflect. Berthe, and the other two women who spoke, all have their stories as survivors of genocides and/or crimes against humanity, which they are willing to share as a way of keeping up awareness. What about the rest of us who do not have personal links to histories of civil conflicts or political violence? What can we do to prevent genocide in the future?
We can bear witness. In doing so, however passive our role as listeners may be, we are also taking a moral position in the world and the horrific events that have happened and are happening around us. We are not just audience members. We create a moral relationship with the person sharing their experience. By bearing witness, I say that I am here to hear your story. I give it its space, its due, its place. I acknowledge your personal experience as a survivor. I bear witness. With my presence, by my presence, simply by my presence, I acknowledge your presence, your history as an individual and your story of survival and resistance and courage in the face of horrific circumstances. But beyond that, beyond the individual, I bear witness to the evil of genocide. I bear witness to the complexity of human beings, from their capacity to torture and kill and inflict tremendous pain and injustice, to their equal capacity to stand up to evil and to give up their own lives in order to save those of others.
To prevent genocide in the future, at the very least, this is what we can do. As human beings who think morally about our place in the world and our relationships with fellow human beings, we can bear witness.
Uzma Jamil
April 19, 2009
mardi 31 mars 2009
30 things to do during genocide prevention month
http://blog.genocidepreventionmonth.org/2009/03/30-things-you-can-do-during-genocide.html
jeudi 26 mars 2009
Genocide & Crimes against Humanity Prevention Campaign
HUMAIN AVANT TOUT-HUMAN ABOVE ALL
Presents/Présente
Presents/Présente
THROUGH THE EYES OF RESISTERS AND RESCUERS:EMBRACING THE WILL TO ACT
À TRAVERS LES YEUX DES RÉSISTANTS ET DES SAUVETEURS: SAISIR LA VOLONTÉ D’AGIR
Genocide and Crimes against Humanity Prevention Campaign
Campagne de prévention des génocides et des crimes contre l’humanité
April 1st-3rd, 2009- 1er au 3 avril 2009
McGill University/Université McGill April 1st 2009 12h30-14h00
McGill University/Université McGill April 1st 2009 12h30-14h00
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) 2 avril 2009 19h00-21h00
University of Ottawa/Université d’Ottawa April 3rd 2009 13h00-15h00
For detailed schedule, visit our website/Pour la programmation détaillée: http://www.humainavanttout.net
In collaboration with/En collaboration avec :
Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism/ Centre des droits de la personne et du pluralisme juridique (McGill Faculty of Law/Faculté de droit, McGill)
Institut d’études internationales de Montréal (UQAM)
Centre for international policy studies & the African Study and Research Laboratory/ Centre d’études en politiques internationales et Laboratoire d’études et de recherches sur l’Afrique (University of Ottawa-Université d’Ottawa)
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre /Centre commémoratif de l’Holocauste à Montréal
With the support and generosity of/Avec l’appui de: Rights and Democracy - Droits et Démocratie
Info: info@humainavanttout.net
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