The crisis in Darfur calls for urgent action by Western states that goes beyond their narrow national interests, writes Aidan Hehir.
The crisis in Darfur has refocused attention on one of the most intractable problems in international politics: how to resolve intra-state humanitarian crises in unco-operative states.
Championed as a potential solution, the concept of humanitarian intervention, which dominated international relations discourse in the post-Cold War era, was eclipsed by the events of September 11th, 2001. The attacks precipitated the war on terrorism and a reversion to traditional national security agendas amongst Western states. The ongoing debate about "just" intervention was sidelined and left unresolved.
At its core the notion of humanitarian intervention holds that there are certain acts that no state can commit, and that individuals have the right to appeal for external assistance when subjected to egregious human rights abuses. If a state engages in acts that "shock the conscience of mankind", and rejects diplomatic initiatives aimed at stopping the abuse, then other states have a moral right to intervene to protect the victims.
In principle, the concept appears both straightforward and worthy. In reality, humanitarian intervention has enormous consequences for the structure of the international political system and there has been no consensus as to its status.
During NATO's ostensibly humanitarian intervention in Kosovo in 1999, Václav Havel, then president of the Czech Republic, gave a speech to the Canadian parliament that succinctly illustrated the rationale behind NATO's operation. He declared: "This war places human rights above the rights of the state although it has no direct mandate from the UN, it did not happen as an act of aggression or out of disrespect for international law. It happened, on the contrary, out of respect for a law that ranks higher than the law which protects the sovereignty of states."
The problem with this concept is its inherent lack of clarity. As Havel notes, the UN did not sanction the intervention in Kosovo, and NATO's actions were not in accordance with any existing provision of international law. Humanitarian intervention is not mentioned in the UN Charter or international legal doctrines, and no customary notion has evolved of humanitarian intervention that is widely accepted by the community of states.
While Havel and others appealed to "a law that ranks higher than the law which protects the sovereignty of states", no such law actually exists and, therefore, the application of this "law" is inherently subjective. From the "white man's burden" of the British empire to Hitler's "humanitarian intervention" in Czechoslovakia in 1938, the assertion of a moral motive for intervention has been widely abused throughout history.
The application of ethical imperatives to political action risks facilitating unwarranted aggression through the imposition of subjective moral principles. For this reason states that emerged from under the yoke of colonialism have been most vociferous in their opposition to the development of a principle that would potentially legitimise expansive Western intervention. Afghanistan and Iraq would seem to have confirmed these fears.
As noted by Prof Nicholas Wheeler: "The danger [of accepting a right of humanitarian intervention] is that US policy-makers will come to believe that they can use force without legal or moral censure as long as they couple force with token humanitarianism that will nullify dissent at home."
While there are dangers inherent in usurping the sovereign state model, the fact remains that periodically the international community will be faced with intra-state humanitarian crises. Surely inaction in the face of genocide is abhorrent? Yet, in Rwanda, where the clearest case of state-supported genocide occurred, inaction was precisely the international community's response.
In addressing the opposition to humanitarian intervention, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan employed the Rwanda analogy, stating: "Imagine for one moment that, in those dark days and hours leading up to the genocide, there had been a coalition of states ready and willing to act, but the Security Council had refused or delayed giving the green light. Should such a coalition then have stood idly by while the horror unfolded?"
Given the choice between breaking international law and saving thousands of lives, surely the morally correct thing to do is break the law? Given that the UN is dependent on the Security Council to sanction action, and that China and, to a lesser extent, Russia, have voiced their strident opposition to the concept of intervention for the purpose of protecting human rights, it seems clear that situations that demand action, such as appears increasingly likely in Darfur, will necessitate states taking unilateral action if there is to be relief.
But states are not moral actors. A state's primary interest will be to its citizens and their security. In his criteria for undertaking a humanitarian intervention, Tony Blair, perhaps the most effusive of all pro-intervention statesmen, included as his final determinant the question, "Is it in our national interest?" Thus, as Rwanda so dramatically illustrated, there will be no interventions unless there are clear national interests at stake.
The tragedy in Darfur attests to the twin reality that eruptions of intra-state violence are inevitable and that the international community has not yet acquired the means to address these situations. While efforts must be made to prevent these situations reaching crisis point, such as structural aid programmes, there is a clear and compelling need for a restructuring of the UN system that will enable the organisation to deal with such disasters.
If humanitarian intervention to prevent Rwanda-like catastrophes is to be welcomed, and if the lack of a legal doctrine incorporating this right has led to illegal unilateral interventions with the inherent risk of subjectivity and self-interest, then it is surely time for the adoption of a codified right of humanitarian intervention in international law and the creation of an international force capable of acting outside of narrow national interests.
If this tension between state sovereignty and human rights is not resolved then we will continue periodically to bear witness to the abhorrent juxtaposition of human suffering and international political inertia and obfuscation.
Aidan Hehir lectures in politics at the University of Limerick