El debate que se viene. El derecho de los paises desarrollados, de las coaliciones y de los organismos internacionales a intervenir en los Estados fallidos. ¿Dónde queda el concepto de soberanía nacional? Sobre el que se basa la Carta de la ONU.
R2P: Liberalizing War
By Robert Jackson | 28 Jun 2011
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| S. Francisco 1945: firma de la Carta de la ONU. |
Proponents of the responsibility to protect (R2P) doctrine contend that it is necessary to reform the post-1945 United Nations noninterventionist regime in order to come to grips with armed conflicts that take place entirely inside independent countries but that produce grave human rights violations. As it stands, the U.N. regime is fundamentally restrictive, resting on a doctrine of nonintervention as set out in Article 2 of the U.N. Charter. Armed force can lawfully be employed only for two basic purposes: national defense and international peace and security. Those two elements of the U.N. justification of lawfully going to war, known by the Latin term "jus ad bellum," are enshrined in Article 51 and Chapter 7 of the Charter. They undergird and reinforce the U.N. political regime of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and nonintervention as set out in Article 2.
That noninterventionist regime should be seen in the historical context from which it emerged: the end of World War II. That war was waged by the allies against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, whose foremost war crimes were acts of aggression, armed intervention, military occupation and political control of various European and Asian countries. Indeed, the first crime enumerated at Nuremberg was the crime of aggression. Surviving leaders of Nazi Germany were accused of military conquest and the occupation of numerous countries of Western, Northern and Eastern Europe. The Tokyo war crimes tribunal leveled the same charges against leaders of Imperial Japan. That vital historical context provides the backdrop to the U.N. Charter and its central principles of nonintervention and a limited right of war.
The R2P doctrine seeks to reform that U.N. noninterventionist regime by expanding and liberalizing the jus ad bellum to include civil wars and other conflicts internal to countries that produce grave human rights violations but have no damaging international consequences. In the language of the "Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty":
Sovereignty implies a dual responsibility: externally, to respect the sovereignty of other states, and internally, to respect the dignity and basic rights of all the people within the state. In international human rights covenants, in U.N. practice and in state practice itself, sovereignty is now understood as embracing this dual responsibility.
That dualist doctrine of state sovereignty asserts that international society has moved well beyond the restrictive 1945 doctrine. By advocating an international responsibility to protect civilian populations from all who might threaten or harm them from within their own countries, including their governments, R2P proponents assert what amounts to a revision of the U.N. Charter at its most vital war-authorizing point.
This liberal interventionist doctrine must similarly be understood in its historical context: a post-Cold War world of failed or collapsed states; of domestic conflicts resulting in genocide or other massive human rights violations; of campaigns of forced displacement and "ethnic cleansing"; and of comparable atrocities carried out from within countries, either by their governments or by armed groups that are effectively beyond the control of governments. All of that is seen to be in contempt of an international society that rests upon liberal principles of human rights, civil society and the rule of law.
The R2P doctrine asserts an international duty to intervene, if necessary by armed force, in the domestic jurisdictions of sovereign nations that present no threat to their neighbors or to international peace. That constitutes an expansion of the right of war in international relations. The most significant action taken by the U.N. Security Council, to date, which seems to give legal underpinning to this expanded jus ad bellum, is Resolution 1973 (.pdf) in regard to the humanitarian crisis in Libya. The Security Council authorized the employment of armed force -- "all necessary measures" -- to protect the civilian population of Libya from the abusive regime of Moammar Gadhafi.
This new liberal doctrine of humanitarian war is well-known and need not be enlarged upon here. What still remains to be examined and discussed are the assumptions of the doctrine and the consequences of applying it in practice. This discussion can only touch upon a few of these issues, hopefully some of the most important.
The advocates of R2P leave an impression that armed intervention is a practical solution to humanitarian crises in broken countries, that it is the only morally defensible approach and that any criticism of it is morally dubious.
The R2P doctrine clearly assumes the international will and capacity sufficient to repair countries and reverse the civil chaos into which they have fallen, or out of which they have never emerged. That is a huge assumption on almost any historical view. Countries will not readily commit to humanitarian intervention if the expectations are of a lengthy duration and heavy cost -- particularly in casualties among their own soldiers or civilian personnel -- and if the prospects are those of a quagmire with no easy exit.
It is also a fact that governments that contemplate humanitarian war will have genuine difficulty in clearly foreseeing the consequences of their actions. Armed humanitarian intervention is almost inevitably fraught with practical difficulties and moral hazards.
Western countries typically embark on humanitarian interventions with expectations or hopes of success, usually defined as restoring civil conditions and decent government to countries in chaos. But foreign statesmen and soldiers are clearly limited in what they can reasonably expect to accomplish in seeking to reverse civil breakdown in a nation-state, or in seeking to end a civil war by their intervention. International forces usually run up against the difficulties of not really knowing, in any detailed and subtle way, the society and culture of the target peoples. How will the people on the receiving end of their benevolent military action react to it?
The chances are that foreign interveners will not know the language, the religion, the mores, the habits and attitudes, the frame of mind or the historical memories of the people they are trying to help. If they do know something of it, their knowledge is likely to be superficial. In other cases, only a small minority of the interventionists will have a solid grasp of those facts, particularly the language or languages involved. Translators and interpreters will usually be necessary and may have to be widely used, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, not to mention Iraq and Afghanistan. The resulting difficulties and problems are likely to be substantial and in some cases may prove insurmountable. Putting Humpty Dumpty back together on a permanent basis may turn out to be "a bridge too far."
Furthermore, the people being rescued may not behave in the ways the interveners expect. They may or may not be receptive. If they are receptive, it may not be in the way the intervening powers desired or planned for. Alternatively, some may be receptive and some may not. Once they are rescued by international intervention, they may turn to the ancient moral logic of reprisal and revenge against their former persecutors.
More broadly, what typically can be changed by external armed force is not a culture or society, but only those local people in a position of dominance. Intervention can take the place of elections, typically by displacing the government and installing some other section of the population. But without the continuing presence of the intervening powers, there can be no guarantee that the successor regime will not resort to means and measures of rule similar to those of the overturned regime. What then? Must another round of international intervention be embarked upon?
Sooner or later, the intervening powers must draw down the size of their occupation force and eventually return home. The conclusion to their efforts and sacrifices may turn out to be withdrawing without leaving behind anything approaching a solution to the problem that provoked international intervention in the first place. At that point, the financial cost in wasted treasure might have to be reckoned. The moral hazards in the deaths or injuries of intervening troops -- not to mention the destruction, casualties and deaths that the intervention will almost certainly have inflicted on some, perhaps many, among the target population -- will surely have to be faced. Will the financial and human cost of the intervention be vindicated by the situation left behind? The interventionists may have to find what amounts to an excuse for leaving the job unfinished after significant expenses have been incurred and sacrifices made. They may claim some kind of success, but with what conviction?
Behind much if not all of the foregoing is a basic Western predilection, namely that of rationalism or the progressive outlook that grew out of the Enlightenment. Fundamental to this attitude is the seemingly unquestioned assumption that if we, the enlightened, apply our knowledge and good will, we can solve the problems of human existence -- not only for ourselves but for everyone, everywhere.
But what if some people refuse that knowledge or resist its application to them? Can it be forced upon them? For all its moral certainty, the R2P doctrine offers no real answer to that fundamental moral question.
Robert Jackson is a professor of international relations at Boston University. He is an expert on war and intervention and has written numerous books and articles on those subjects.
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