A rchive Date
[ 24-07-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.N ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
Handling rogue regimes
By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun
July 24, 2003
The recent gathering in England of an assortment of 14 so-called "progressive" world leaders, including Jean Chretien, discussed global affairs from a liberal-left perspective in politics.
The key issue of this conference, the Progressive Governance Summit, became how to deal with rogue regimes and failed states trampling on the human rights of their own helpless populations.
The conference could only agree upon urging the UN General Assembly to devise a legal code to enable the international community, when required, to protect civilians abused by their government.
This issue of "humanitarian intervention" was raised by Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, at the UN's Millennium Assembly in September 2000.
The Canadian government responded by sponsoring the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) to advise the international community on the matter. The commissioners, 12 eminent citizens from around the world, presented their report, "The Responsibility To Protect," at the end of 2001.
The report begins with the observation that controversy surrounds the issue of "humanitarian intervention," and "Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction."
The problem was posed by Annan: "If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica - to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity?"
The theory of state sovereignty, viewed as supreme and inviolate, has allowed violators of human rights to behave with impunity beyond the reach of the UN. The overwhelming majority of member representatives - the UN being an exclusive club of sovereign states - remains opposed to any diminution of this theory which would enable the international community to rightfully breach, when circumstances demand, the sovereignty of a state.
But this maximalist meaning of sovereignty was seriously questioned by Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, the predecessor of Kofi Annan. In a June, 1992 report to the UN, "An Agenda for Peace," Boutros-Ghali stated: "The time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty, however, has passed; its theory was never matched by reality."
Boutros-Ghali repeated this argument in the winter 1992/93 issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, noting: "It is undeniable that the centuries-old doctrine of absolute and exclusive sovereignty no longer stands, and was in fact never so absolute as it was conceived to be in theory."
The ICISS travelled to countries in all five continents, and heard from an array of diplomats, politicians, scholars and civil society representatives on how to confront the challenge posed by the multiple crises in the Balkans and Africa.
It struggled inconclusively with the issue of sovereignty, yet made the recommendation "that the responsibility to protect implies an accompanying responsibility to prevent."
The ICISS deliberations and writing of the report were completed before 9/11 occurred. It did not anticipate international terrorism as the newest threat to global security.
In the creation of the UN, political leaders were concerned with inter-state conflicts, and how to prevent them.
The contemporary problem post-9/11 is both preventing future Rwandas and dealing with the impunity of international terrorists making victims of innocent people.
In Afghanistan, the world witnessed a new phenomenon of an international terror network taking hostage a sovereign state for its own purpose.
In Iraq, what could no longer be masked was the reality of a despot with his genocidal army making a sovereign state an instrument of his maniacal ambitions.
The rightful response to the challenge posed by failed states and regimes violating human rights, including the need to make the world safe from international terrorism, rests with the UN. But the "coalition of the willing" showed, in effecting regime change in Iraq, what can be done when the UN remains impotent.
The ICISS may be excused for not divining 9/11. Yet in recognizing the need for prevention, the ICISS provided the "progressive" leaders reason to endorse the operative principle of the coalition of the willing. Its leaders chose instead to continue being ostriches with their heads in the sand in keeping with the failed traditions of the UN.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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