The concept is surreal. A gang of thugs and thieves, aided by infernally cyncical regimes like the Cadre, the Delhi and Bangkok gangs, can refuse food and water for starving millions. The little voice demands to say: Law and order, sovereignty, are not suicide pacts. Fascinating. Fear of action outweighs fear of pandemic death.
Rejection of Aid Tests New U.N. Doctrine
By LOUISE RADNOFSKY
May 14, 2008
WASHINGTON -- As the United Nations tries to push the Myanmar junta into accepting food aid, it is hamstrung by problems relating to a new doctrine designed to address exactly that situation.
The legal doctrine of "responsibility to protect," established in 2005 to address the failures to intervene in the Rwandan genocide, is being promoted by France, which wants to see more-aggressive action to aid victims of the recent cyclone. Champions of the principle, which authorizes intervention to prevent crimes against humanity, say it could be used to take action against a regime blocking lifesaving aid from its people.
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If Myanmar ignores calls to let more aid through, "we have to do something," the French ambassador to the U.N., Jean-Maurice Ripert, told reporters last week. "If we don't do anything, people will continue to die."
But the French mission is struggling to garner support from Security Council members. The U.N. is historically slow to react to crises and lacks any enforcement mechanism beyond the good graces of its member states. This time, it is facing wrangles over the meaning of the largely untested doctrine as well as hostility from big international players.
A senior diplomat for the French mission said its efforts have been blocked by China, South Africa, Libya, Vietnam and Indonesia, and faced a cold reception from Russia. The official said France was resuming attempts to seek nine votes for a text demanding intervention as the humanitarian crisis worsened.
South Africa, Libya and Vietnam cited procedural reasons for opposing discussions so far, including assertions that the debate isn't a matter for the Security Council, representatives said. A spokesman for the Chinese permanent mission to the U.N. wouldn't comment on whether China had opposed discussion of the doctrine. A spokesman for the Indonesian mission was unavailable.
The agreement is considered to have overturned centuries-old ideas of national sovereignty, harnessing support for intervention that grew in the 1990s during and after the Rwandan genocide. Although the doctrine has been adopted by the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly, advocates are reluctant to test support by pushing ahead with a discussion of how it would be applied.
As people suffer, the U.N. weighs whether it can force Myanmar to let aid in.
That leaves no guidelines for when the Security Council should authorize action or the form such action should take.
Thomas Weiss, who was research director for the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, the independent body that helped devise the doctrine, says the strategic interests of the veto-wielding members of the council effectively limit intervention to a handful of African countries. China, for example, is protective of economic concerns in countries such as Sudan, as well as in China's Asian neighbors. Russia is anxious about Eastern Europe.
In addition, the agreement was reached based on "the most egregious, conscience-shocking" examples of human-rights abuses, such as mass murder and ethnic cleansing, said Mr. Weiss.
In the aftermath of the cyclone, Britain has expressed doubts about whether crises arising from natural disasters would fall within those definitions.
Few countries are willing to set precedents on the new limits of national sovereignty, fearing increased international responsibilities as well as the threat that the principle could be turned against them. China, a key presence in the Myanmar drama, given its proximity and its sway with the regime, is especially wary, said Jeremy Sarkin, visiting professor of international human rights at Tufts University.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed "immense frustration at the unacceptably slow response" by the junta but said that forcing the regime to accept aid was a matter for the Security Council.
Don Steinberg, President Clinton's Africa adviser during the Rwandan genocide and deputy president of the International Crisis Group, which campaigns for conflict resolution, said the doctrine could be used in "simple," clear-cut massacres but that politics and the nature of the crisis in Myanmar probably made it too complicated for the doctrine to be invoked there. Anyone expecting swift adjustments to the new interpretation of sovereignty "is kidding him- or herself," he said. "This is going to be an effort that is decades long, and we're really just at the start of it."
Write to Louise Radnofsky at louise.radnofsky@dowjones.com
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