Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T15:38:42.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Humanitarian Intervention: Which Way Forward?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Richard Caplan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

States have long taken exception to the notion of humanitarian intervention because it threatens to undermine a bedrock principle of international order: national sovereignty. In the case of Kosovo, however, NATO's nineteen member states chose not only to put aside their concerns for national sovereignty in favor of humanitarian considerations, but also to act without UN authorization. This essay examines the ways in which states – European states in particular – are rethinking historic prohibitions against humanitarian intervention in the wake of the Kosovo war. It focuses on two approaches:

Efforts to reinterpret international law so as to demonstrate the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention and

Efforts to build a political consensus regarding when and how states may use force for humanitarian ends

While efforts to weaken prohibitions may succeed, thereby facilitating future interventions, resolution of the tension between legitimacy and effectiveness in defense of human rights will continue to elude the international community unless a political consensus can be achieved.

Type
The Meaning of Kosovo
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 14 , March 2000 , pp. 23 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Press Conference at Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, October 6, 1998, cited in Guicherd, Catherine, “International Law and the War in Kosovo,” Survival 41 (Summer 1999), p. 28Google Scholar.

2 Some states seem also to have been concerned that adoption of the resolution would have encouraged Yugoslavia in its repressive action, especially since the resolution made no mention of Yugoslavia's failure to comply with earlier UN Security Council demands. See Krisch, Niko, “Unilateral Enforcement of the Collective Will: Kosovo, Iraq and the Security Council,” Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 3 (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999), pp. 84–85Google Scholar.

3 Text of the address of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the 54th General Assembly, UN Press Release SG/SM/7136, September 20, 1999.

4 Humanitarian Intervention: Legal and Political Aspects (Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Affairs, 1999), pp. 11–12Google Scholar. Many of the minority rights “regimes” established in Europe from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century contained provisions for great-power intervention that were prone to abuse. See Macartney, C. A., National States and National Minorities (London: Oxford University Press, 1934Google Scholar).

5 See the discussion of Article 2(4) in Simma, Bruno, ed., The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 106–28Google Scholar.

6 GA Resolution 2625 (XXV), October 24, 1970Google Scholar.

7 Article 51 and Chapter VII of the UN Charter, respectivelyGoogle Scholar.

8 UN Security Council Resolutions 1160 (March 31, 1998), 1199 (September 23, 1998), and 1203 (October 24, 1998).

9 Christopher Greenwood, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, is one of the principal exponents of this view. See his “Yes, but is the war legal?”The Observer, March 26, 1999.

10 In his testimony before Parliament on April 14, 1999, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook explained: “The [Yugoslav] spring offensive was planned; we knew it was coming; we knew it would be accompanied by ethnic cleansing and I am quite sure, if I were here in front of this Committee and we were doing nothing, [you] would be the first to criticize us.” See House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1998–99, Kosovo: Interim Report, HC 188, para. 111.

11 The memorandum is reproduced in Roberts, Adam, “NATO's ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo,” Survival 41 (Autumn 1999), p. 106CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the FCO memorandum “Kosovo: Legal Authority for Military Action” (January 22, 1999), reproduced in Kosovo: Interim Report, p. 1.

12 See, for instance, the statement of George Robertson, the British defense secretary, in the House of Commons on March 25, 1999 (Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, March 25, 1999, cols. 616–17).

13 See the testimony of Aust to the Foreign Affairs Committee on December 2, 1992 (Parliamentary Papers, 1992–93, House of Commons, HC Paper 235–iii, p. 85).

14 Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Is Intervention Ever Justified?” (Foreign Policy Document No. 148), para. II.22, reproduced in British Year Book of International Law 57 (1986), p. 619Google Scholar.

15 Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, November 16, 1998 (written answers), col. 140Google Scholar.

16 Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia v. Belgium), ICJ Doc. CR/99/15, p. 16Google Scholar.

17 A similar approach is reflected in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's plenary resolution of November 15, 1999, which urges member governments to strive “to legitimize a new interpretation of article 2 para. 4 of the UN Charter according to which humanitarian intervention no longer be considered as ‘inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations,’ but rather as a contribution to the realization of these purposes.”Plenary Resolution: NATO and Humanitarian Intervention, adopted by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, November 15, 1999, para. 16(f), available at the assembly's web site: http://www.naa.be/publications/resolutions/99as-res319-e.htmlGoogle Scholar.

18 Cited by Simma, Bruno in “NATO, the UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects,” European Journal of International Law 10 (1999), p. 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 “La bataille de Jacques Chirac,”Le Figaro, April 26, 1999Google Scholar.

20 North Atlantic Assembly, NATO in the 21st Century, October 2, 1998, summary recommendations, available at the assembly's web site: http://www.naa.be/publicationslspecial/ar5gen-e.htmlGoogle Scholar.

21 “The Alliance's Strategic Concept Approved by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., on 23rd and 24th April 1999,” Press Release NAC-S(99)65, April 24, 1999, para. 15Google Scholar.

22 For a discussion of procedural and factual requirements that might serve as the basis for a humanitarian intervention regime in the light of NATO's actions over Kosovo, see Charney, Jonathan I., “Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo,” American Journal of International Law 93 (October 1999), pp. 834–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Murphy, Sean D., Humanitarian Intervention: The United Nations in an Evolving World Order (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 382–87Google Scholar. Noteworthy in this regard are proposals that have been made recently within the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to extend the right of self-defense to embrace the “defense of common interests and values, including when the latter are threatened by humanitarian catastrophes, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.” See North Atlantic Assembly, Resolution 283, Recasting Euro-Atlantic Security: Towards the Washington Summit, November 1998, para. 15(e).

24 Most notable among these efforts were those of the International Law Association, which between 1970 and 1976 explored the possibility of drafting a protocol of procedure for humanitarian intervention that included criteria for legitimate intervention. The initiative was abandoned when it became apparent that there was little chance of achieving consensus among the members. See International Association, Law, Report of the Fifty-Fifth Conference 1972 (London: ILA, 1974), pp. 608–24Google Scholar; Report of the Fifty-Sixth Conference 1974 (London: ILA, 1976), pp. 217–22Google Scholar; and Report of the Fifty-Seventh Conference 1976 (London: ILA, 1978), pp. 519–23Google Scholar.

25 Transcript of speech by Tony Blair to the Economic Club of Chicago, Hilton Hotel, Chicago, April 22, 1999, available at the FCO's web site: http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp?2316Google Scholar.

26 IbidGoogle Scholar.

27 Transcript of speech by Tony Blair at the Lord Mayor's Banquet, Guildhall, London, November 22, 1999, available at the FCO's web site: http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp?3026Google Scholar.

28 For the view that it is better to accommodate the occasional infraction than to change the law with respect to humanitarian intervention, see Franck, Thomas M., “Break It, Don't Fake It,” Foreign Affairs 78 (1999), pp. 116–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Blair, speech to the Economic Club of ChicagoGoogle Scholar.

30 U.S. Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), signed on May 3, 1994, allows for the operational control of U.S. forces by a non-American only under exceptional circumstancesGoogle Scholar.

31 For a critique of the dual-key arrangements, see Righter, Rosemary, “The UN & NATO: A Marriage Made in Hell,” in Cohen, Ben and Stamkoski, George, eds., With No Peace to Keep: United Nations Peacekeeping and the War in the Former Yugoslavia (London: Grainpress, 1994), pp. 21–28Google Scholar.

32 Urquhart, Brian, “For a UN Volunteer Military Force,” New York Review of Books, June 10, 1993, pp. 3–4Google Scholar.

33 Daws, Sam, “Seeking Seats, Votes and Vetoes,” The World Today 53 (October 1997), pp. 256–59Google Scholar.

34 “Imitating NATO: A Script Is Adapted for Chechnya,” New York Times, September 28, 1999Google Scholar.

35 “China Maps Changes in Defense Strategy,”International Herald Tribune, June 12–13, 1999. One must be careful, however, not to overstate the importance of closer ties between these two neighbors, who still harbor considerable mutual distrustGoogle Scholar.

36 Former Indian foreign secretary J. N. Dixit, claiming in July 1999 that Pakistan was hoping to create a Kosovo-like situation in Kashmir which might lead to U.S. intervention, argued that Pakistan had failed to realize that (nuclear) India was no Bosnia or Kosovo and the United States would think several times before interfering. See “Kargil Conflict Occurred Because the Country Has a Caretaker Government: J. N. Dixit,”India Today, July 8, 1999, http://www.india-today.com/ntoday/newsarchives/99.7/08/n24.sthmlGoogle Scholar.

37 See, for instance, the French government report on lessons learned from Kosovo, Les enseignements du Kosovo (Paris: Ministry of Defense, November 1999), pp. 7–12Google Scholar.

38 “EU Completes Plan for Own Forces,” International Herald Tribune, December 10, 1999Google Scholar.

39 “The Alliance's Strategic Concept,” para. 10Google Scholar.

40 Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, UN Doc. A/46/1, September 13, 1991, p. 5Google Scholar.

41 Plenary Resolution, para. 16(e)Google Scholar.