In recent times, the United Nations has been called upon to help deliver humanitarian supplies (food and medicines) to war-torn countries or besieged cities, most prominently in Bosnia and in Somalia. It has run into many difficulties and heavy criticism, some of it deserved, in fulfilling this task. Superficially considered. it has not done enough in Bosnia and has done too much in Somalia. What would be the right amount and appropriateness of humanitarian aid, the right timing and the correct means? This is a very new area of international involvement, and new rules must be formulated, which would be universally and impartially applicable, and yet could be flexibly adapted to the circumstances of each particular case.
Humanitarian intervention is undoubtedly a violation of the principle of national sovereignty and non-interference in a nation’s domestic affairs. These have been principles of international law for the last 300 years at least, but they are no longer appropriate to our increasingly inter-dependent world. We should not shed any tears for the passing of the era of national sovereignty, if indeed that is what is occurring. That era and that principle has cost humanity dearly in both blood and treasure. It is high time to invent a better principle to rule the future. But we must be sure that it is indeed a BETTER principle, or we may slip from an imperfect world into a worse one, instead of rising to a better one. The New World Order must be not only new, but an improved version. Change is not always necessarily for the better.
What might some of the new rules for humanitarian U.N. intervention be? Some tentative suggestions are given below.
(1) Intervention should take place only if “gross violation of human rights” (defined as genocide, torture, death squads, mass rape, expulsions and ethnic cleansing) are occurring, or if the people are deprived of the basic necessities of life, such as food, clean water, housing, clothing, and basic health care, e.g. vaccination of children against preventable diseases and supply of rehydration packets to overcome cholera and similar problems.
Intervention should not occur in cases of milder violations of human rights, such as freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of the press, lack of democratic elections, the right to work or to a decent standard of living or education, i.e. the rights enumerated in the U.N.‘s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its 30 articles, and the Human Rights Covenants formulated on the basis of the Declaration. The reason for not requiring or permitting U.N. intervention in these milder cases of violation is not because they are not important – they are; but international intervention is a very serious step which may lead to armed hostilities and further suffering, and the rule of proportionality common in Just War theory must be observed.
(2) All the rules of the Just War Theory must be applied very strictly even in cases which satisfy the first criterion. These rules are: right authority, just cause, last resort, chance of success, proportionality, and no harm to civilians and neutrals.
Proportionality has already been mentioned: we must not cause more harm than we are trying to undo. Just cause here is only the prevention and mitigation of suffering; national goals such as assured access to oil or other resources are not a just cause; neither is favouring one ethnic or religious group over another. Last resort means that negotiations, diplomacy and mediation must come first, then economic sanctions (and even these under rules minimizing harm to innocent civilians, especially children), and extremely rarely military force, preferably only in a defensive or protective mode, e.g. accompanying food convoys. Chance of success would mean, concretely, avoiding intervention in Bosnia if it would actually aggravate the situation, resisting the moral pressure of public opinion and the media “to DO SOMETHING”. The two other rules require special separate comment.
(3) The principle of “Just Authority” in this case must mean only the United Nations, not delegating this responsibility to the U.S. or any other particular national government. Even the detailed conduct of operations should be under U.N. auspices and daily U.N. supervision, to prevent suspicions of anyone pursuing their own particular interests, favouring its own allies, making side deals, etc.
Even the present U.N. Security Council is not an ideal instrument, being under the thumb of its Five Permanent Members, who (being great powers) certainly have their own national interests at heart. To give the U.N. proper legitimacy as the Just Authority, it needs to be democratized. The particular reforms needed will not be described here (it would take us too far afield), but are obviously urgently necessary.
(4) The principle of causing no harm to civilians applies also to the use of economic sanctions, not only the use of armed force. Food and medicines for civilians must be allowed to pass through any blockades; and not only permitted to pass, but their safe passage must be assured by proper supervision. Otherwise, measures intended to serve the humanitarian needs of civilian populations in the long run may harm these same populations in the short run, and that is no gain. Airtight sanctions which do not let food and medicines pass are like the siege of cities, a condition we are trying to alleviate, not impose.
(5) Since we know now from peace research that democracies do not fight wars with other democracies, this might be an additional reason for strongly promoting the conversion to internal democratic regimes around the world. Note that this does not necessarily mean a market economy or capitalism; merely elections, multi-party systems, press freedom, and freedom of expression.
It was said above that we should not have international interventions in these cases of “milder” violations of human rights. This was meant to indicate that armed intervention would never be justified in such cases; but perhaps, when a democratically elected leader is ousted by a military coup, as happened recently in Haiti (or many years ago in Chile), the international community is obligated to impose economic sanctions. This in fact has been done in the case of Haiti, so far without effect. (In the case of Chile, the sanctions, by the U.S. and the IMF, were actually against democratically elected Allende, and were lifted after his forceful removal and his violent death; showing again how impartiality is not only lacking, but actually reversed at the behest of superpower national interests.)
The above recommendations are very tentative and preliminary. They are offered here merely as an illustration of the type of principles and general definitions needed for the proper and moral conduct of international humanitarian intervention. Much more thought must be devoted to refining such principles and adding to them in the light of practical experience. Not much time will be allowed to us for learning from our mistakes. The actions and operations conducted so far have been faulty on many accounts, although some credit should also be given for earnestly trying and occasionally succeeding. The main purpose of criticism should be to strive for a speedy improvement.