Redefining Humanitarian Intervention: The Historical Challenge of R2P

Abstract

Through analyzing the various factors in R2P's genesis and expansion as an international norm, this article contends that the office of the UN Secretary-General has provided steady backing of R2P, allowing for its ongoing consideration within the UN bureaucracy and among member states. In this respect, R2P has been able to assert itself in a meaningful way, with member states compelled to revisit the central tenets of the norm within the General Assembly and special dialogues. The office of the Secretary-General has clearly interpreted R2P as a strong and effective reinforcement of Article 1 of the UN Charter and the overall UN mandate, using the norm to more strongly anchor existing UN principles and values.

Notes

1. The commission was established after Kofi Annan posed this question in 1999:

“[I]f 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 affect every precept of our common humanity?” (ICISS 2001)

2. The report also argued that the terms “humanitarian intervention” and “right to intervene” themselves had become inextricably linked, in the public mind to military force and needed to be reconceptualized. In addition, the coupling of the word “humanitarian” with “intervention” made humanitarian agencies uneasy. Many felt that their neutrality was compromised by the association of humanitarian work with military force. The draftees therefore concluded that the phrase “intervention for human protection purposes” was a less laden and charged term, capable of shifting the dimensions of the debate (see also Rieff 2002).

3. It is important to note that the African Union had already decided on this in 2000, well before the ICISS report was released.

4. This was first espoused by the former president of Mali, Alpha Oumar Konare.

5. Raphael Lemkin's struggle for a neologism in the late 1940s was based on his fascination with the brand name “Kodak.” It was precisely this fascination that later inspired the term “genocide.”

6. For more options, including the International Court of Justice, see Harhoff (2001: 109–112).

7. Edward Luck, interview by the author, July 9, 2010, New York (author's collection, Storrs, CT). The Outcome Document also included the concept of “incitement.” According to Paragraph 138, “This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means” (United Nations 2005).

8. For a very good description of the causal origins of US support of R2P, see Feinstein and De Bruin (2009).

9. Luck interview, July 9, 2010. The Security Council was concerned about the addition of the umbrella term “Mass Atrocities”—not defined by international law—to Deng's title. The Secretariat was told that the posts would need budgetary approval from the Fifth Committee, the General Assembly, and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions and more discussion would have to take place over the amendment to Deng's title, an initiative that was later rejected.

10. The issue for member states such as Pakistan, Sudan, Morocco, Venezuela, Iran, and Nicaragua was that it was the General Assembly's role to create posts but only the Secretary-General had the power to fill them.

11. Luck interview, July 9, 2010.

12. Luck interview, July 9, 2010.

13. Luck interview, July 9, 2010.

14. Luck interview, July 9, 2010.