Using a Recent Example of Your Choice, Discuss the Problems and Prospects of Un-Led Humanitarian Intervention.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
ESSAY:
USING A RECENT EXAMPLE OF YOUR CHOICE, DISCUSS THE PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF UN-LED HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION.
CHRISTY SMITH.
USING A RECENT EXAMPLE OF YOUR CHOICE, DISCUSS THE PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF UN-LED HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION.
The question above seeks to reify the inadequacy of the United Nations intercession in affairs of state begot by the rationale of humanitarian intervention. Article 39 Chapter VII of the UN charter consigns the UN Security Council (UNSC) primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security with the provision of necessary armed forces and facilities of all member states. Humanitarian intervention is directed towards two resolves; the provision of emergency assistance and the protection of fundamental human rights. Such intervention foremostly encompasses non-military forms such as the deliverance of financial, medicinal, food and expertise emergency aid and human rights promotion through diplomacy and sanctions. Forcible military humanitarian intervention is necessary in failed states to resolve on-going conflicts which threaten aid operations, and against murderous states to expunge massive human rights abuses. Forcible intervention must be legally authorised by a resolution of the UNSC in accordance with the consent of nine of the fifteen members, though any UNSC resolution can be vetoed by any one of the five permanent members.
To assess the problems and prospects of UN- led humanitarian intervention, I have drawn upon the UN's facilitation of peace and enforcement of human rights within the Bosnian conflict; firstly providing an overview of the UN involvement as the events unfolded, and secondly, addressing the problems encountered as a result of UN bureaucracy. Finally I will highlight the prospects of UN-led humanitarian intervention given constructive improvements.
The Bosnian Conflict:
Nationalistic tendencies in Yugoslavia that had been subdued by the cultivation of a socialist fraternity and unity that took precedence over ethnic differences by Yugoslavian Prime minister Marshall Tito re-emerged after his death in 1980, and were accelerated thereafter by economic decline and the end of the Cold War.
Bosnian Serbs rejected the results of the elections in Bosnia in 1990 and Bosnian independence ensued, recognised by the international community as a new-born multi-ethnic and democratic state in 1992. Bosnian independence spurred inter-communal violence and war, waged by Serbia and Croatia in collusion with Serb and Croat allies in Bosnia.
Attempts to alleviate civilian suffering eventuated the deployment of a 7,000 strong force into Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 by the United Nations Operations in former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR), defining its principal mission as assisting aid deliverance. Mandated by the UNSC to safeguard six designated enclaves of Muslim civilians surrounded by the Bosnian Serb military, UNPROFOR was not prepared to use force to push aid through road blockades or to protect civilians including those in the six facetiously named 'safe areas'.
Relying on the cordiality of Bosnian Serb extremists to facilitate aid deliveries, protect defenceless Muslim civilians, and negotiate a peace, UN policy amounted to endless appeasement which obviously did not transpire from the ethnic cleansing motivations of the same Bosnian Serbs. Whilst lacking the land power to defend aid convoys and safe areas against Serb retaliation, UNPROFOR would not undermine its credibility as in impartial peacekeeping force by resorting to air strikes to punish Serb transgression. UNPROFOR's military weakness was reinforced by UN out-ruling of a military solution to the Bosnian crisis despite Anglo-French Rapid Reaction Force of ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
Relying on the cordiality of Bosnian Serb extremists to facilitate aid deliveries, protect defenceless Muslim civilians, and negotiate a peace, UN policy amounted to endless appeasement which obviously did not transpire from the ethnic cleansing motivations of the same Bosnian Serbs. Whilst lacking the land power to defend aid convoys and safe areas against Serb retaliation, UNPROFOR would not undermine its credibility as in impartial peacekeeping force by resorting to air strikes to punish Serb transgression. UNPROFOR's military weakness was reinforced by UN out-ruling of a military solution to the Bosnian crisis despite Anglo-French Rapid Reaction Force of helicopter gun ships and artillery re-enforcement. The siege of two safe areas, Srebrenica and Zepa, and subsequent massacre of 7,000 Muslim male civilian inhabitants by Bosnian Serb forces prompted military action. Serbian shelling of Sarajevo in August 1995 resulted in retaliatory NATO air strikes; Bosnian Serbs adjured for peace following military pressure in combination with military advances by the Bosnian government and Bosnia Croat forces in the East.
Problems of UN humanitarian intervention:
The depth and breadth of any U.N. intervention is based on inter-changing and evolving factors which vary with each unique situation. The UN rarely faces criticisms of imperialism or hegemony in its efforts to help resolve internal conflicts, however, the United Nations, by its mandate, can only intervene when requested to do so by the country in turmoil. The mitigation of egregious humanitarian intervention despite claims of national sovereignty remains a divisive issue, whilst the assurance of such intervention is hampered by UN bureaucracy.
The UN Security Council's provision of the power of veto to its permanent five members (P5) underpins the realist viewpoint that states intervene on humanitarian grounds to protect their national interests and not because of the altruistic moral imperative. Any one of the P5 can refuse to contemplate a UN intervention which it considers threatening to its interests, thereby hindering potential humanitarian intervention and subsequently acting unrepresentatively of the international community world opinion. This was evident in Russia's approach to Kosovo in the late 1990's when Serbian forces once again committed ethnic atrocities. Russia was clearly prepared to Veto a UN intervention through its refusal to recognise the humanitarian need were it not for the independent action by NATO which argued that force was justified on the grounds of overwhelming humanitarian necessity.
P5 members may also withhold support in conjunction with the threat of veto for humanitarian intervention unless support is exchanged for their interests elsewhere in the world. This is known as the log-rolling problem.
Even if all P5 agree to authorise a UN peace keeping operation they may still encounter postulation and coordination problems; the former arise when sounding resolutions are passed without sufficient military force. The creation of 'safe areas' in Bosnia highlights this postulating problem; the UNSC was not prepared to deploy additional military forces to ensure their protection rendering them 'safe less'. The latter coordination problem occurs when disagreements among the P5 arise over the nature of the humanitarian crisis as well as the most effective response. The USA and its European allies perceived the Bosnia conflict in completely different fashions; the European powers saw an ethnic conflict with a necessary partition resolution, whilst the USA was unprepared to support partition in the light that Serbia had started the war and partition would support Serbian aggression. The USA resolved the coordination problem by accepting that partition was a necessary outcome and permitted the international community's effective action to end the war.
UN humanitarian intervention is also highly responsive to public opinion, which can prompt military intervention spurred by media images of mass suffering, and likewise withdraw support for forcible humanitarian intervention in the light of home casualties. This is called the 'CNN effect'. The international community's response to the mass atrocities occurring in Bosnia was largely a result of Western public opinion which put pressure on governments to act. Similarly the 'body bags' effect can have an equal and opposite reaction toward humanitarian intervention such as the US withdrawal in Somalia.
The counter-restrictionist argument of the legal right of unilateral and collective humanitarian intervention in the society of states is unmatched by UN capacity. The UN remains frightfully under-resourced for peace operations with annual costs of UN peacekeeping personnel and equipment peaking at over $3.6 billion in 1993 with 80,000 peacekeepers deployed, reflecting the expense of operations in Bosnia and Somalia. Resurgence of larger scale operations in the late 1990s maintained peace keeping costs at $3 billion in 2001. All Member States are legally obliged to pay a portion of the UN budget for peacekeeping costs under the UN charter with each State's contribution calculated on the basis of its share of the world economy. Although this payment is mandatory, as of 31 December 2003, Member States owed approximately $1.07 billion in current and back peacekeeping payments. The failure of Member States to pay their assessments for peacekeeping has, in effect, shifted the burden of peacekeeping onto those States which have not been reimbursed for essential personnel, equipment and other elements they have supplied.
Consequently, the UN department of Peacekeeping operations (DKPO), in particular, is under-staffed. In August 2000 it had 15 political desk officers running 14 missions, and 32 military officers providing operational support to 27,000 troops in the field. The DKPO staff, overwhelmed by routine headquarters related tasks in New York are unable to provide adequate support to missions in the field. UN missions are also complicated by the need to coordinate the operations of several departments and agencies. The UN's bureaucratic procedures make matters worse by making it over laborious to equip field missions. NATO deployed massive peace forces in Bosnia and Kosovo on behalf of the UN, necessitated by the regionalisation of peace operations due to UN capacity limitations.
As a result of the under-resourced and understaffed predicament, the UN currently lacks adequate capacity for rapid deployment, lacks adequate infrastructure to support substantial interventions, and has difficulties with its command structure. Agreements by member nations to provide troops may prove unreliable due to domestic political factors. Similarly, member nations are often unwilling to risk harm for their troops or to make sufficiently long-term troop commitments, formulating exit strategies. The USA's unwillingness to commit for more than one year to The Peace Implementation Force sent into Bosnia following the Dayton peace agreement delayed peace progress.
The UN's work in situations of conflict is often regarded as being based on a top-down and rigid approach. The code governing UN procedures is often bureaucratic, concerned more with the safety of its own personnel than with contributing to peace; illustrated by the use of exit strategies and currently observed by the UN withdrawal of peacekeepers in Iraq.
Prospects of UN-led humanitarian intervention:
In order to determine the justice of humanitarian intervention, the UN should adhere to the five criteria of just cause, last resort, proportionality, non-combatant immunity and right intention. A sixth criterion which might be worth adding is welcomed intervention.
Internal conflicts do not respond well to traditional peacekeeping or enforcement operations; the U.N. must develop new techniques for operating in the violent circumstances typical of internal conflicts, producing clearer Security Council mandates and developing its rapid reaction capabilities in order to speed deployment. Better early warning systems must be developed and the international community must become willing to react in the early stages of a conflict and not once conflict has subdued.
Member nations have proven to be unreliable as a source of troops. This force must be able to secure specific areas, provide security for relief operations and stop violence from escalating. The U.N. must unify and solidify its command and control over peacekeeping operations, prevailing over the postulation and coordination problems illustrated in the Bosnian conflict.
The U.N. must develop the needed infrastructure to support its operations. It must improve its capacity for planning, training and deployment, and improve its command and staff capacities. In a closely related point, the U.N. needs to develop a reliable source of financing for its peacekeeping operations. Clearly, more is needed from Member States in clearing their arrears and meeting their financial obligations in full and on time to restore the UN to financial stability which alone can ensure its ability to fulfil its many roles with maximum impact. The international community must be prepared to stay the course and abstain from exit strategies.
To conclude; in light of the potential structural hindrances to UN humanitarian intervention, the UN has profoundly contributed to the facilitation of peace and restructure of Bosnia, reiterating the prevailing success of the organisation. According to the Secretary General's UNMIBH Report (1) (S/1999/989) the UN mission in Bosnia to contribute to the implementation of peace involved the establishment of the rule of law through police restructuring and judicial monitoring, the structuring of good governance and civil society and the promotion of economic and social recovery; notwithstanding the address of humanitarian needs and the creation of an environment conducive to the return of refugees and displaced persons. To which ends the UN distributed some 980 metric tons of aid to 38,700 refugees; provided over 3,000 child refugees with medicine, hygiene items, clothes and educational supplies; organised educational and psychosocial support for children and pregnant women; registered the return of some 43,830 refugees and 32,695 internally displaced persons, of whom 18,604 and 9,522 were from ethnic minorities; installed municipal governance computer software packages and trained local administration officials accordingly in six municipalities in north-western Bosnia, facilitating the organisation of events on cultural renewal, media, protection of the environment, sports and education.
UNMIBH achieved considerable progress in police restructuring and reform witnessing the gradual decline in the national crime rate and increasingly professional work of the police and judiciary. The establishment of the Law Enforcement Personnel Registry resulted in the first ever register of all the approximately 20,000 authorised police officers in Bosnia.
Bibliography:
Globalisation of World Politics: John Baylis and Steve Smith Pages 349, 477, 488-491
http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/dof/yugoslavia/yugo.htm
UN & Conflict Monitor Issue 6 Europe: http://www.bradford.ac.uk/acad/confres/monitor.html
Questions and Answers on UN peacekeeping http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/dpko/ques.htm#one
Humanitarian Intervention and Peace Operations: Theo Farrell. http://www.ex.ac.uk/~tgfarrel/courses/theo-chapter.pdf
Is the United Nations good value for money? http://www.un.org/geninfo/ir/ch5/ch5_txt.htm
Problems and Prospects for Humanitarian Intervention. http://reports.stanleyfoundation.org/UNND00pb.pdf
Humanitarian Intervention Principles, problems and prospects: Shashi Tharoor http://web.gc.cuny.edu/icissresearch/Wilton.Park.Tharoor.htm
Discussion paper on the UN and military intervention. http://www.wri-irg.org/statemnt/interven.htm