Aidan Hehir

The permanence of inconsistency: Libya, the Security Council, and the Responsibility to Protect

Many observers heralded the Security Council—sanctioned intervention in Libya in March 2011 as evidence of the efficacy of the responsibility to protect (R2P). Although there is no doubt that the intervention was significant, the implications of Resolution 1973 are not as profound as some have claimed. The intervention certainly coheres with the spirit of R2P, but it is possible to situate it in the context of a trajectory of Security Council responses to large-scale intrastate crises that predate the emergence of R2P. This trajectory is a function of the decisionmaking of the five permanent members of the Security Council (P5), a group guided by politics and pragmatism rather than principles. As a consequence, the Security Councils record in dealing with intrastate crises is characterized by a preponderance of inertia punctuated by aberrant flashes of resolve and timely action impelled by the occasional coincidence of interests and humanitarian need, rather than an adherence to either law or norms. The underlying factors that contributed to this record of inconsistency—primarily the P5s veto power—remain post-Libya, and thus the international response to intrastate crises likely will continue to be inconsistent.

The Myth of the Failed State and the War on Terror: A Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom

Abstract A central hypothesis in the articulated rationale inspiring the war on terror suggests that failed states play a key role in the international terrorist nexus and require external intervention and guided democratization. This logic is based on two related premises; first that there is a direct link between failed states and international terrorism, second that democratic governance reduces the recourse to terrorism. This article suggests that there is no causal link between failed states and international terrorism and that the asserted ability of democratic governance to catalyze a reduction in terrorism is exaggerated if not wholly inaccurate.

The Responsibility to Protect: 'sound and fury signifying nothing'?

The term ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) has dominated debate on humanitarian intervention since the publication in 2001 of the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). Today ‘R2P’ has become a seemingly obligatory reference point for all researchers in this field and R2P’s near ubiquity is testament to the effective marketing of the idea. This article will argue, however, that the currency of the term obscures its hollowness. R2P has undeniably changed the discourse surrounding humanitarian intervention, and possibly broadened interest in the subject, but it has contributed little of substance or prescriptive merit. Though the report was drafted with the mandate to reconcile international human rights with state sovereignty it fudged the key issues, namely, substantive reform of the United Nations Security Council, the legitimacy of unilateral humanitarian intervention and the threshold for intervention. The shift in focus from response to prevention since 2001 evades the key issue which prompted the ICISS to draft its report and fails to provide a viable or innovative approach.

Autonomous province building: Identification theory and the failure of UNMIK

The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was established to maintain peace and security and create a functioning democratic interim administration pending determination on the provinces final status. UNMIKs tenure has been marked by a failure to achieve any meaningful reconciliation between the Albanian and Serbian communities or to halt the periodic outbreaks of violence. This paper will assert that contrary to both popular opinion and UNMIKs assertions, the administrations manifest inability to realize either inter-communal peace or significant political progress is a consequence of UNMIKs own policies rather than intransigent enmity on the part of the Kosovar population. UNMIKs inability to build a stable political system in Kosovo is a consequence of its adoption of ethnicity as the paramount political cleavage, its inability to provide basic security and its reluctance to deal with Kosovos final status.

The Impact of Analogical Reasoning on US Foreign Policy Towards Kosovo

NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo, the southernmost province of Yugoslavia, in March 1999, was legitimized as the last resort to alleviate the suffering of the Kosovo Albanians. Diplomatic initiatives at Rambouillet, France, had earlier failed to broker an agreement between the Yugoslav authorities and the Kosovar Albanians, leading NATO to assert a moral imperative to intervene. Critics of the intervention maintain that the negotiations were a charade designed to facilitate the execution of a military operation. This article suggests that the failure to reach agreement was a direct consequence of the analogical reasoning employed by the chief US negotiators at the time, Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke. It is difficult to identify what exactly Slobodan Miloševic’s military advisers said during this period without undertaking exhaustive research into Yugoslav military correspondence during the period or conducting interviews with the people themselves, many of whom, such as Miloševic and Dragoljub Ojdanić, are standing trial, or have been tried, at The Hague. The main focus of this article, therefore, is on the analogical reasoning employed by US diplomats. The analogical lens, through which the events in Kosovo were viewed, steered the negotiations down a necessarily confrontational channel, which made it impossible to achieve an agreement. The use of analogical reasoning in international diplomacy is not unique to Kosovo, and this article will argue that future, and ongoing, analysis of US interventions, and foreign policy in general, must take account of the role played by analogical reasoning. Rather than searching for imperial motives behind US foreign policy, observers and academics should initially examine the suitability of the analogies employed by US policymakers and the extent to which they dictate action. Using Kosovo as a case study, this article will outline both the dangers inherent in the over-reliance on analogical reasoning in foreign policy situations and the need to understand the role played by analogies when formulating an accurate analysis of US foreign policy.

The responsibility to protect in international political discourse: encouraging statement of intent or illusory platitudes?

In July 2009 the General Assembly held a three-day debate on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). While many NGOs described the debate as a success, this article argues that though there was a general endorsement of the idea of a ‘Responsibility to Protect’, closer analysis reveals that the agreement reached was largely superficial. Neither the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document nor the 2009 General Assembly debate can be considered to constitute a reform of existing international law and even as a purely normative development the current ‘consensus’ on R2P is thin and marked by significant contention around certain key areas. This article argues that while these issues remain unresolved R2Ps practical utility will be limited, if not negligible.

Assessing the influence of the Responsibility to Protect on the UN Security Council during the Arab Spring

This article challenges those perspectives which assert first, that the Security Council’s engagement with the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) during the Arab Spring evidences a generally positive trend, and second, that the response to the Arab Spring, particularly Syria, highlights the need for veto restraint. With respect to the first point, the evidence presented in this article suggests that the manner in which R2P has been employed by the Security Council during this period evidences three key trends: first, a willingness to invoke R2P only in the context of Pillar I; second, a pronounced lack of consensus surrounding Pillar III; and third, the persistent prioritisation of national interests over humanitarian concerns. With respect to veto restraint, this article argues that there is no evidence that this idea will have any significant impact on decision-making at the Security Council; the Council’s response to the Arab Spring suggests that national interests continue to trump humanitarian need.

Intervention in the emerging multipolar system: why R2P will miss the unipolar moment

Abstract With the rise of China and Russia, the international system is poised to shift from unipolarity to multipolarity. This article argues that this structural reconfiguration will have—and is having—a profound effect on the future efficacy of the responsibility to protect (R2P). The rise of R2P, we argue, must be situated in the context of the end of the Cold War and the ‘unipolar moment’ this heralded. The efficacy of R2P is predicated on the assumption that moral advocacy can influence liberal democracies to re-orientate their foreign policy priorities towards human rights protection. We argue that the emerging multipolarity will expose the temporal specificity of this strategy and, ultimately, weaken the influence of R2P.

Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo

As discussed in Chapter 2, following the intervention in Kosovo and the subsequent publication of The Responsibility to Protect optimism abounded regarding the capacity of human rights advocates, and global civil society in particular, to influence the behaviour of Western states and, more ambitiously, alter the norms governing international relations. The prescriptions advanced by the ICISS tallied significantly with the goals expressed by global civil society and those generally concerned with promulgating the human security agenda. The intervention in Kosovo and the publication of The Responsibility to Protect thus appeared to respectively constitute a precedent and a blueprint for the new interventionism.

An Analysis of Perspectives on the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide

In April 2004, on the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, the UN secretary-general established the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG). While the OSAPG has been hailed in some quarters as major institutional reform of significant importance, there has been no focused academic analysis of its mandate and work to date. This article addresses this gap and is based on a series interviews conducted with prominent members of the OSAPG itself and experts in the field of human rights. The article analyzes the differing perspectives on the OSAPG and identifies the major institutional weaknesses, methodological failings, and ongoing challenges facing the OSAPG as cited by the interviewees. While there is clearly broad—though not universal—support for the establishment of the OSAPG, there are a number of factors, both endogenous and exogenous, which appear to have limited the influence of the OSAPG, and it is not clear whether the office, as presently conceived, can realize the task it has been mandated.