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“Intervention: Then What?” Report Prepared by Corey Levine CCHS Fellow CSDS/NPSIA and Ryan Coombes, Caolan Moore and Urmi Desai CSDS/NPSIA Report and Policy Recommendations from a Conference held at Carleton University, Ottawa, October 3-5, 2003 and organized by the Centre for Values and Ethics in the Philosophy Department and the Centre for Security and Defence Studies at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. December 15, 2003 Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario 1 Acknowledgments Conference Rapporteurs were Ryan Coombs, Caolan Moore and Urmi Desai of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. This report is written and edited by Corey Levine, Canadian Consortium on Human Security Fellow, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. The organizers would like to thank the Speakers, Chairs and Lead Questioners for their roles in the Conference. For their logistical support the organizers are grateful to the Centre for Security and Defence Studies, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, and the Centre on Values and Ethics, Philosophy Department, Carleton University. This Conference was made possible through the financial assistance of the Canadian Consortium on Human Security and the Centre for Security and Defence Studies at Carleton University. About The Centre for Security and Defence Studies The Centre for Security and Defence Studies (CSDS) is internationally recognized for its advanced research; conference, workshop and guest lecture programs; graduate and undergraduate education; and public outreach programs on security and defence issues in the Ottawa community and across Canada. www.carleton.ca/csds The Centre for Security and Defence Studies The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada Tel: (613) 520-6655 Fax: (613) 520-2889 E-mail: [email protected] Director: David B. Carment About The Centre on Values and Ethics The Centre on Values and Ethics (COVE) in the Philosophy Department, Carleton University engages in research about values and ethics, especially as they apply to issues relating to policy questions in both the public and private sectors and disseminates the results to practitioners and policy makers outside academia as well as to theoreticians. www.carleton.ca/cove Centre on Values and Ethics, Philosophy Department, Carleton University 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada Tel: (613) 520-2110 Fax: (613) 520-3962 Email: [email protected] Director: Steven Davis 2 Policy Recommendations Background A great deal has been written about interventions, about their justification, about their extent, about their modalities, about whether it is justified for them to be undertaken unilaterally or whether they require the imprimatur of the UN. What has not been discussed as extensively is what happens after intervention. There were three central, interrelated issues that the conference wished to address, ethical issues, security, and development. However, the central questions of the conference were moral: What obligations, if any, do intervening entities have post-intervention? What are the obligations if any, of the entities (states, international and regional organizations, defense alliances, etc.) to a state in which intervention has taken place? The conference examined these obligations and what courses of action they justify looking also at practical issues about what is possible given the conditions of the state in which the intervention has taken place and the political and material ability of the entities that intervene to meet whatever obligations they have. Lastly, the conference attempted to relate the issues about post intervention to the increasingly recognized responsibility to intervene as the question as to whether the post intervention obligations flow from the initial obligation to intervene was explored. The conference had three plenary speakers, one in each of the three areas on which the conference concentrated: ethical issues, security and development. In addition to the plenary speakers, there were seven panels, of two speakers each, which addressed these three themes from a variety of perspectives. Recommendations The issue of resources is one of the most critical to consider – no intervention can be successful without an adequate amount of resources – human, financial, material – being committed. The greater challenge will be to keep up the substantive contribution once the country has fallen off the political radar screen and there is a temptation to pull out because of competing agendas internationally. Local ownership is a laudable end or outcome but it is not necessarily a means. Non-official actors (i.e. NGOs, media, churches) can play important roles in forgotten intractable conflicts including: (i) publicizing conflicts through the media; (ii) building local capacity for peacemaking by improving negotiation skills; (iii) facilitating contact between influential, although not necessarily official, members of the contesting parties; (iv) bolstering the official process by building support for peace in the larger community. These are not tasks usually undertaken by major states when they intervene diplomatically in other countries’ conflicts. They are, however, well within the capacities and reach of middle powers, like Canada and Norway, 3 small states and other official and non-official institutions which can act alone or in collaboration with higher-profile efforts by larger states to build the conditions for peacemaking in forgotten conflicts. Conflict prevention initiatives should be a direct outcome of an understanding of why states fail, and the critical role human agency plays in their failure. The lessons of state failure is that intervention is best accomplished early in the form of prevention, before a state has descended to the status of a failed one. There are plenty of early warning indicators; it is early action that is the problem. The people working on the ground should make the call of when intervention is needed and what form it should take. Intervention needs to be a collaborative undertaking with each country committing committing to that aspect of a peacekeeping mission that plays to their strengths (eg. Germans focus on prisons, Canada landmines and forensics, etc.) Addressing conflict in its early stage is clearly due to the lack of political will, not a lack of machinery. It is not that the international community cannot, but determining when is the right time to enter a sovereign state is the problem so there is a need to develop a political mechanism for dealing with conflict early. There are five elements that need to be taken into account when planning interventions: (i) there needs to be adequate financial, material and human resources available; (ii) the intervention should be field driven in terms of deciding need and therefore appropriate resources; (iii) recognize that intervention is political and invest more in the use of diplomacy; (iv) intervention needs to be collaborative; (v) the international community needs to be realistic about what can be achieved. State failure is going to multiply not lessen. The international community ignores the early warning signs and neglects these failing states until it is too late. Therefore, it is critical to intervene on the early side of a conflict with an adequate amount of resources to address the issues imposing the conflict. Five goals of intervention in order to achieve political stability should be: (i) expanding the security bubble; (ii) building early momentum; (iii) creating jobs as a stabilizing force; (iv) decentralization and the devolution of power; (v) the development of civil society as a building block for state-building. Improving the development dimension of interventions is intrinsically interrelated to doing the other facets of the intervention well. Successful interventions are costly and challenging. However, the security, political, humanitarian, and economic benefits of intervening effectively are far greater. 4 Democracy does not automatically come with intervention. Its not an export product: it needs seeds and roots to grow and flourish. Therefore, it is critical not to hold elections too soon after an intervention, as was the case in Bosnia, where the results only served to legitimize the divisions created during the war and ethnic cleansing. Before an credible post-intervention reconstruction and development can take place a sustainable level of security must be achieved – thus, more emphasis and resources need to be placed on demobilization, disarmament and reintegration policies and programs as well as a focus more broadly on security sector reform including the police, the judiciary and the military. 5 PLENARY SESSION 1: The Future of Intervention Chair and Lead Questioner: Don Hubert – Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), Canada Simon Chesterman - International Peace Academy, New York "You, the People: Iraq and the Future of State-Building" When the United Nations assumed primary responsibility for the intervention in Kosovo 1999, in typical UN fashion, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo was abbreviated to UNMIK. This name is easy to pronounce in English; however, unbeknownst to its creators, UNMIK means “enemy” in the Albanian language. This neatly highlights the disconnect that often exists between international administration goals and realities on the ground and ties into the current discussion of the UN’s role in Iraq. In the period when the UN Mission in Kosovo was established, the UN was experiencing a period of optimism. There were extraordinary expectations about what the UN should and would do; its budget was greatly increased and its staff expanded. Further, the UN was involved in activities beyond peace-keeping such as civil administration. Quickly following on the heels of Kosovo, the East Timor crisis presented a situation in which the UN could be utilized as a civil administrator, getting involved in such functions as the judiciary, etc. but like Kosovo, there were many problems attached to the UN as the executive administrator of a territory. One reason for this was that there was still a high level of sensitivity vis-à-vis the issue of colonialism. The word “trusteeship” was unworkable. Second, if the UN did pursue more involved post-conflict intervention, it was feared that it would be over-run with demands for its help in this area. There is a similar fear present in the current Iraq situation—a fear that the US will merely ask the UN to pick up its pieces. In past UN experiences, there have been three types of disconnect between the means used to reach an end and the outcome itself. These problems can be termed as inconsistent, inadequate, and inappropriate means. First, inconsistency is demonstrated by the ill-named UNMIK mission. As an example of this, the Ombudsman of the European Commission for Human Rights has condemned UNMIK as being a violator of human rights itself. In Afghanistan, there are also a number of inconsistencies. For example, given that taxes account for a minimal amount of governmental revenue, less than 50%, how are costs being met? Illicit drug-running may be one troubling source of the revenue. When the Rand Corp. evaluated the preconflict situation in Iraq for the US government, its conclusion was to abandon the idea of implementing a democratic system as this never works in practice. It suggested that the US should put good generals in command, instruct them to do their work, and then walk away. 6 The second problem, that of inadequate means, can be gleaned from a recent statement made by President Bush where in outlining again the reasons for the intervention. he promised that America would not leave Iraq and would work to improve the situation as the US had done in Afghanistan. This is a deliberate attempt to downplay the expectations of what kind of Iraq may emerge, post-conflict. Originally, no money was budgeted by the US administration for the post-war reconstruction that is being spent in Afghanistan; although this oversight was corrected later in Congress. Yet, the UN faces bureaucratic restraints when trying to raise sufficient funds for missions. This limited capacity is demonstrated by the security bubble reality of the Afghanistan mission where there is a lack of security outside of Kabul. The third problem is that of inappropriateness. In Bosnia, it appears that then US President Clinton’s domestic election schedule determined when the post-conflict elections in Bosnia were held. Though experience has shown that elections that are held too soon after a conflict are not successful; a quick election was part of the Dayton Accord. Moreover, peacekeeping personnel are not necessarily trained to run a country; no one is trained to be a Minister of Education or Labour. Additionally, there is the expectation that by merely putting international personnel alongside local personnel, training is taking place and language barriers and the skills among international staff are not taken into consideration. Part of the solution to this requires clarity in strategic objectives, relationships and commitment. In Bosnia, they suffer from a political morass of bodies. Part of the problem is the key decisions that were made at the outset did not take into consideration evolving realities. In Kosovo, the UN is not incapable of functioning, but the US and Russia have allowed Kosovo’s future to remain in limbo. There is an assumption that after a military intervention, it is good to back away and give power back to the locals, which results in poor outcomes. Ownership is a laudable end or outcome but is not necessarily a means. Returning to the issue of the UN/US relationship, we find that there is some optimism. In the US, nation-building is back on the agenda. The US now recognizes the danger of failing states. Still the US appears to be more concerned about protecting US lives in Afghanistan, which has led it to support warlords who are fighting the Taliban. This form of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) continually seems to afflict US foreign policy. Some commentators have said that the worst outcome of the Iraqi situation would be a new, prosperous Iraq. This would run the danger of setting a precedent for future US interventions. Although the US did recognize the UN had a role to play after the invasion, it still sees a very restricted role for the UN to perform deeds such as writing constitutions. Yet, the US seems to realize that while it did not need the UN to get into Iraq, it needs the UN to get out. 7 Discussion The discussion that followed focused on the US-UN relationship; alternatives to the UN; the realities of US intervention; and the current situation in Iraq vis-à-vis the US and the UN. There is still no clear alternative to the stakeholder agenda in terms of intervention and while prevention remains the best option, it is difficult to allocate money and troops to prevention exercises due to domestic pressures. The UN is flawed, but is better than anything else operating today within the international community. There is always a danger that while a country is high on political agendas, it is loaded with resources, but may easily be ‘dumped’ later when attentions wander to the next ‘crisis’. In the end, there is a real danger that Iraq could end up the one thing that it was previously not: a theocracy. It is not clear that elections are needed quickly after a conflict. In Afghanistan, local warlords applied pressure to get representatives into the governing body, which was seen by the UN as local level buy-in to their initiatives. There is a science of constitutionalism which puts forth two possible methods. One is proportional representation—populations are converted into the proportional number of representatives. However, this encourages ethnic politicking. A second method prefers to encourage vote-swapping; thus bargaining must be used to form coalitions based on common policies, not ethnicity. Instead of elections, transparency could be a principle focus. It is telling that the two most successful cases of US action in foreign countries were those of Japan and Germany; in both of these cases, the longest delay implementing elections occurred. The US is going to the UN in Iraq because they are “clueless” about what to do in the post-invasion period and see the UN as a rescuer. Is this the future of the UN? The US will likely only intervene when international problems are tied to its security interests, but will use the UN to off-set US monetary and troop contributions. Yet the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” conundrum has plagued the US from Bosnia to Iraq. Yet it is not wrong that the US is interested in protecting its own interests. International aid policy, on the part of all donors, is not supply driven, but demand driven. All states like their own NGOs to go in but this piece-meal approach to peace-building is not coherent. The split between the US and the UN in Iraq was clearer before. But the August 19th attack makes it clear that this split is no longer as obvious on the ground. One reason could be that the resistant forces want to make Iraq as difficult to govern as possible. While the “honest broker” window may never have been open for the US, a once open window is now closing for the UN. 8 Fen Hampson – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa "Forgotten Conflicts and Intervention Choices" While some conflicts grab headlines, others burn on without attracting significant international attention. We need to think much more broadly about intervention strategies and choices and utilize options such as diplomacy, mediation, track-two diplomacy and varieties of “soft power”. There are five kinds of “forgotten” conflicts: neglected conflicts, orphans, captives, dependents, and wards of the system. These categories are flexible and respond to fluid conditions within or outside the immediate conflict arena. Neglected conflicts are the largest body of forgotten conflicts and often fail to make the international radar screen. The recent, and in some cases ongoing, conflicts in Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Nepal are good examples of this. Some conflicts do attract international attention and serious assistance for their resolution, only to lose that third-party interest, thus becoming orphans as third parties can become distracted, discouraged and incapable of continuing their roles. Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Rwanda demonstrate this type of forgotten conflict. Captives are conflicts where outside parties play a determining role in the conflict. These parties make it possible for the conflict to continue; they keep the goal of victory within tantalizing reach, reduce the likelihood of a negotiated settlement, and trap the parties in a conflict which cannot end without their acquiescence. This pattern of intervention lays at the root of conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Similarly, dependent conflicts suffer from violence and instability in a neighboring country or region, although in these cases, outside forces can extenuate a conflict without holding it captive or even fully intending to have an effect on it. Additionally, private non-official groups can also hold a conflict captive or make it a dependent. Finally, there is a set of conflicts that are forgotten in the sense that they often end up as wards of the system, adopted by an international institution, most often the United Nations, because no one else wants them. However, the record for this is mixed and this type of action strains the amount of resources available for dealing with multiple demands, especially at the UN level. Why don’t outsiders get involved? Among the strongest reasons for non-intervention is the tradition of respect for national sovereignty and the strong prohibition against interfering in the domestic affairs of an independent state. This assertion of state control also bars non-official organizations from being effective. Other reasons for non-intervention include: it is difficult for outside actors to gain entry because one or more internal or external power(s) prevent it; 9 the complexity of internal politics; failed third party efforts leading to disengagement; insufficient levels of violence to warrant intervention, or failing to meet the ICISS (International Commission on State Sovereignty) test; the international community judges that the conflict is containable; stopping the conflict is less important to the interveners than other strategic objectives; there is common sentiment by many outside actors that this conflict is someone else’s problem. What is to be done about forgotten conflicts? The UN and other international organizations are in the forefront of rescuing these forgotten conflicts. However, non-official organizations can play a number of different roles. For example, a Catholic lay charity played a pivotal role in the negotiations in Mozambique. Other important roles that non-official actors can play in forgotten intractable conflicts include: publicizing conflicts through the media; building local capacity for peacemaking by improving negotiation skills; facilitating contact between influential, although not necessarily official, members of the contesting parties; bolstering the official process by building support for peace in the larger community. These are not tasks usually undertaken by major states when they intervene diplomatically in other countries’ conflicts. They are, however, well within the capacities and reach of middle powers, like Canada and Norway, small states and other official and non-official institutions which can act alone or in collaboration with higher-profile efforts by larger states to build the conditions for peacemaking in forgotten conflicts. Discussion There is an indication that intervention does work, or is at least starting to work, as more civil wars have ended through negotiations in the 1990s than in the previous 200 years. Much of the current framework is based on the principle of “just war.” They are tough questions and the ICISS report on the responsibility to protect is both a political and a moral statement. Intervention can make conflicts worse, so actors should be careful to work with allies to make sure intervention works. The ICISS report calls for military intervention in certain situations. But, if a conflict is not considered significant, they should let it burn. NGOs are only effective though if they are used strategically, working in combination with other actors, using their ‘soft’ power. It is important to note that we should be skeptical about the ‘humanitarian’ justifications for the current war against Iraq. Humanitarian motives were coincidental. We should also examine political will in these situations. 10 SESSION 1: Preventing Conflicts Lead Questioner: John Cockell – DFAIT, Canada Chair: Erin O’Gorman – Department of National Defence (DND), Canada Robert Rotberg – Program on Intrastate Conflict, Harvard University “Intervention and Peacebuilding as Prevention: Lessons from Africa and the Developing World” I am going to speak about two long standing projects: one on why states fail and the other on peacekeeping. The lessons of our project on state failure are dramatic. One conclusion of the project shows that there is a direct relationship between the decay of a state and conflict. In addition, it shows that all conflict in the developing world can be linked to human agency. Therefore, prevention must flow from an acknowledgement of why states fail, and what role human agency plays. Human agency has transformed participatory states into non-participatory states. This shutting out of the marginalized or disadvantaged groups leads to the conflict that we are trying to prevent. The conflict is determined by the strength of the oppressor’s economic climate or misadventures and intervention needs to take this into account. Somalia is a failed state not due to linguistic, religious, or ethnic division, but rather human agency and the top-down corruption and clan fighting. Siad Barre transformed Somalia from a weak state into a failed one because he concentrated the power of the state in his hands for the benefit of his clan. Thus Somalia’s collapse can be traced directly to him. Sierra Leone, under Shaka Stevens, from late 60s-90s, saw the same thing happen. Ignoring the citizens of the state for his own political gain led to the formation of the RUF and the civil war that followed. The point of these two cases is that the civil wars did not arise primarily from peoples of the states but from leaders who unleashed this force. In other words, both men destroyed their respective states for their own egotistical purposes. The lessons of state failure is that intervention is best accomplished early in the form of prevention, before a state has descended to the status of a failed one. There are plenty of early warning indicators; it is early action that is the problem. Clearly, if we were conscious of how to organize preventive regimes or the UN or world order, we could focus on these issues early enough and could take needed initiatives. The UN can help by providing its good offices. Also, third party intervention such as the role Norway has played in Sri Lanka can offer much in the way of useful intervention. 11 Turning to the post-conflict phase it is more important for an intervention to be fast than perfect. In addition, responses should be field driven. Unfortunately, many bureaucracies do not want their ground people to make the call. However, they must trust their people on the ground, and these people in turn must act quickly and decisively. Intervention is a collaborative undertaking. The international community has come far in the last decade. Respective members of the international community have learned their strengths: Germans do prisons well, Canada does landmines and forensics well, and the US likes muscle jobs but not door to door commitments. Recognition of these strengths make action easier to sell in Western domestic populations. Burden-sharing is developing, but the international community has not been able to produce a burden sharing arrangement on Iraq, and this will be the most difficult obstacle to overcome. Ultimately, intervention is going to messy. Intervention cannot put in place democracy and economic stability that did not exist before. Discussion If political stability is a problem to begin with, how much of the action is elite-driven and how much is a symptom of a weak state to begin with? Institutional weakness has recently been emphasized by the UN Secretary General in a report which focuses on the importance of making government take responsibility for structural weakness before conflict might begin. Early action is emphasized, but not in the pre-conflict sense. Addressing conflict in its early stage is clearly due to the lack of political will, not a lack of machinery. It is not that the international community cannot, but determining when is the right time to enter a sovereign state is the problem so there is a need to develop a political mechanism for dealing with conflict early. Weak states provide partial political goods to its citizens (education, platforms for citizen participation, law and order, environmental programs). A failed state is not able to supply these goods: roads, hospitals, economy, etc. are all in disrepair. A failed stated is also noted by a lack of border security (state integrity). At UBC, a ranking system is being developed in order to compare human security in a failed state vs. a weak state. A failed state is, oversimplified, a barely functioning government. A collapsed state on the other hand is a black hole into which things fall. Warlords take over in many failed collapsed states, like in Somalia. There is an element of human agency in civil war to be sure, but there is a global pattern in place as well. Most civil wars take place in Africa, where you see most of the state failure and phenomenal collapses. If human agency is at play, why is it worse in Africa? There is a whole set of structural conditions that allow these bad leaders to emerge and do so much damage. Bad leadership exists in Europe, but they are better constrained. You will always have to put out fires in Africa if these organizational and structural problems are not addressed. Malawi in 1993 was a successful early intervention by pushing 12 Uganda out. However, there are many cases where early intervention worsened the situation. The question is prescription. How can we intervene without weakening the state’s ability to contain its violence? How can we intervene without fueling these civil wars? John Norris – International Crisis Group, Washington, D.C. “Elements of a Successful Post-Conflict Intervention” There are five elements that need to be taken into account when planning interventions: First, there needs to be finances and resources available to create jobs post-conflict and make changes on the ground. Second, intervention needs to be field driven. Often, lip service is paid to advice from the field. There needs to be greater trust in the advice of people on the ground. Humanitarian aid needs to better match need, and the people on the ground are the most capable of providing this information. Third, acknowledge that intervention is political. People make money off of conflict and intervention. To improve intervention we must realize and contemplate its realities. Security is needed for meaningful reform. Also, there is a considerable lack of the use of diplomacy. Fourth, intervention should be collaborative. Different actors can bring different actions, abilities and options to the table. Burden sharing also develops some effective mechanisms. Iraq highlights a number of problems as it demonstrates the difficulties of working unilaterally, as well as the desire of members of the international community to shirk responsibility. Finally, interventions will be messy. We should be realistic about expectations as restoration and intervention are both difficult, especially when improperly implemented. 13 SESSION 2: Defining Success Chair: James W. Dean – Economics Department, Simon Fraser University Lead Questioner: Peggy Mason – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University M. Ishaq Nadiri – Department of Economics, New York University "Afghanistan: A Case for Assessing International Intervention & Cooperation" In 1978 the USSR invaded Afghanistan, destroying its infrastructure and its human capital. The US helped organize the jihad within Afghanistan with the help of Pakistan but lost interest after the Cold War. Had Bin Laden been surrendered to the US, Afghan women rights and human rights would not be the prominent issues they are today in Afghanistan. These issues though have become part of the larger issue of failing states which, as 9/11 demonstrated, can have a profound affect on international security. There are many failing areas; and many of them are in the African and Muslim world. In these areas, birth rates are sky-rocketing and the majority of the population is young. Where is the economic growth to sustain this? The answer is unclear, and the result has local unrest and emigration from these to richer countries such as Germany. The Afghan case is not going well and there is still much ground to cover to pull it out of a failed state status, although, thanks to the UN and other actors, much starvation has been avoided and steps have been made to increase the education level of the population. But educational initiatives are not enough to address current problems and issues like agriculture are being ignored. Afghanistan is a case of external forces having pull; first with the Soviets, then the Taliban and now the US but in the process of rebuilding the country, it is wrong to try to “stage” intervention and reconstruction. In this complex and interdisciplinary process, you might be able to achieve security (and that is not happening outside Kabul in any case) but where is the economic growth? The solutions we are providing for Afghanistan are admirable but almost too late. We should have started the political process while the bombing began. By now the political spots have been taken and solidified. The Northern Alliance which entered Kabul during the military campaign is now in power in the government and warlords are being funded and courted to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda resistance. Democracy is very expensive and it is hard to say whether or not it will work in Afghanistan. There is no one way to solve state failure, or to rebuild failed sates. Another problem also arises: should we constitutionalize the same divisions that brought trouble in the first place? 14 I believe state failure is going to multiply. We neglect these states and then attack the issues after they have become a problem. The amount of aid we give is despicable. We are suffering from internationalization. The international community must think about the effects of well-intentioned initiatives. We can start by advocating for substantial economic aid for failing states like Afghanistan. Joseph Siegle – Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C. "Changing the Definition of Success in Military Interventions" I have been asked to talk today about the development challenges faced in interventions and post-interventions. Unsurprisingly, this topic is inextricably linked to issues of security. The scope for effective development in interventions is more strongly shaped by security than any other single factor. There are all too many recent examples of this. This is the post-intervention development environment of the early 21st century. The better we understand this environment, the more effective intervention efforts will be. Beyond insecurity, understanding the contemporary intervention context means explicitly recognizing that nearly all recent interventions have occurred in failed states. This means that the humanitarian and security crises we face in interventions are acute symptoms of a deeper phenomenon: political disintegration. Whether they crumble from within, or from external pressure, the political systems in these troubled states lack legitimacy. The political institutions that exist are largely focused on perpetuating the cronyistic, predatory, and criminal methods that are both a means and an ends of their rule. The state has been effectively hollowed-out. Therefore, when an intervention is undertaken in such contexts, we should recognize from the outset that this will necessarily be a state-building exercise. So what makes an intervention successful? The question cuts to the core of a fundamental tension observed in recent interventions. Military and some political leaders frequently want to define the objective of the intervention as narrowly as possible: “regime change,” “securing a capital city,” “opening up corridors of humanitarian assistance.” This is understandable. The more narrow the objective, the greater the extent to which its attainment remains within the control of these actors. Narrow objectives are also attractive in that they are seen to protect against “mission creep.” They reduce the risk of getting bogged down and shorten the steps to an exit strategy. Establishing a clear definition of success in interventions is imperative if we are to see a more stable and peaceful world. At this juncture in history, collapsed or collapsing states pose a persistent threat to international stability and are the most likely precipitants of future interventions. This instability is typically manifest in civil conflict, which over the past decade has comprised 9 out of 10 of the world’s armed conflicts. Civil conflicts – and their tragic humanitarian and development consequences - nearly always arise in weak, autocratic states. Furthermore, when left to fester, these conflicts spill over into their neighbors. As we look over the horizon, it does not require great imagination to envision situations in which new interventions will soon be needed – be they in Burma, 15 North Korea, Haiti, Zimbabwe, or elsewhere. Simply put, the problem of effectively undertaking interventions is not going away any time soon. Recognizing that political stability is the goal going into these interventions frames how a whole series of related issues affecting development effectiveness are approached. Five of the most important, in my view are: Expanding the Security Bubble; Building Early Momentum; Jobs as a Stabilizing Force; Decentralization and Devolution of Power; and Civil Society as a Building Block for State-Building. By highlighting these topics, I am trying to underscore that interventions involve building institutions. I realize this makes many people uncomfortable. Either it is too ambitious, too presumptuous, or perceived as some form of neo-colonialism. Yet, if we recognize that success is dependent on reconstituting failed states, then building viable institutions is indispensable. Approaching interventions comprehensively raises a number of general policy questions. I’ll touch on just a few: Resources: Undertaking more timely and comprehensive development operations in conflict and post-conflict interventions will require a significant commitment of resources. Planning for Post-Interventions: One of the “advantages” of interventions is that they allow for a certain degree of planning beforehand – a luxury not available in most natural disaster situations. International commitment: While there is a wide variance in the level of complexity of interventions, it is important to acknowledge that the costs of intervening effectively are high. This reality should enter into the debate about whether or not to undertake an intervention in the first place. In conclusion, the demands of conflict and post-conflict intervention are one of the leading security challenges of our time. Improving the development dimension of interventions is intrinsically interrelated to doing the other facets of the intervention well. Successful interventions are costly and challenging. However, in my view, the security, political, humanitarian, and economic benefits of intervening effectively are far greater. 16 SESSION 3: Ethical Dimensions in Intervention I Chair: Peter Stockdale – Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC), Conflict Prevention Working Group Lead Questioner: Rosemary Nagy – Law Department, Carleton University Jacqueline Bhabha "War's Aftermath: Human Rights Obligations Beyond Borders" The international community is being pulled into the post interventionist situation to help rebuild Iraq. Despite the removal of a universally loathed dictator, there is much to do. Although we are not yet in a post-conflict situation in Iraq, winning the war was easier than winning the peace will be. There was not much talk on what would happen after military intervention. Whether or not it was an imperialistic intervention, we are not prepared for what is happening in Iraq. Democracy is not an export product: it needs seeds and roots to grow and flourish. In terms of international law, there are clear set of international rules on what is meant by intervention. War victims are safeguarded by international law as well civilians and prisoners. Treatment of civilians in times of peace is also protected by international law. The state has a responsibility to protect regardless of the ethnicity of the individual. However extreme the situation, these rights can not be denied. In addition to general instruments, there are specific tools and conventions that we must follow. One example is the 1951 Refugee Convention. This states that the international community is not to send back refugees if their life or freedom would be jeopardized. All the states that are signatory to these conventions have a responsibility to uphold these laws, yet what we see on the ground is different. Some states are more willing to take responsibility for problems abroad but not at home. For example, in Britain, asylum seekers (especially from targeted countries) are not fully receiving the benefits of these laws. Another example is children’s rights. UNICEF states that two million children have died in war in the past decade and up to ten million suffer from the consequences of war. Women and children constitute 80 % of refugees. They also have greater difficulty reaching safety from zones of conflict. I am focusing on this group because there is a consensus that something should be done to protect children. But, in practice the situation is largely lacking. Canada has failed to meet its child refugee targets and has also introduced new laws which make it more 17 difficult for child refugees to enter the country and in 2002 a new law was passed making it easier for the Canadian government to detain refugee claimants. In conclusion, policy makers must deal with the following problems. One is that many children do legitimately seek refuge; and their numbers are increasing. We need to change the framework of decision making away from an adult-centered concept. Second, we need to be wary of penalizing children who travel alone. Paradoxically, those who seem most vulnerable are also treated the worst by the country they are trying to immigrate to. While Canada does not usually detain children, the US detains almost 5000 a year. This problem of punitive treatment is a world-wide problem. Discussion A number of questions were raised in the discussion that focused on immigration, state failure and terrorism, such as the issue that refugees are now linked synonymously with terrorists. It was noted that there was a lot of sympathy generated for Kosovo refugees for a while, as well as for the Kurds during the Persian Gulf War and previously for the Tamils but this changed in the post Sept.11 climate. There is a tension as our political commitments fluctuate more toward security. Different types of intervention do not make much difference to asylum seekers as their lives are still at risk. Many refugees would return if the situation in their homeland made it feasible to do so. Thus, in order to address the issue of refugees and stop the flow of people across borders, the root causes of war must be addressed. Terrorism and state failures are linked in the eyes of policy makers but seeing state failure as linked to terrorism breeds a policy of select engagement. There are other factors including attitudes towards culture and race which determine the link of interventions to national self-interest; but at least it mitigates against isolationism. There are situations when humanitarian intervention is needed, for example in Rwanda; when intervention would incur far less casualties than non-intervention. And, delay in some situations can be fatal. Intervention too, can also be very costly. Humanitarian intervention is mandatory in some situations. The discussion then turned towards legal rights and their ability to transfer over into moral rights. For example, is torture ever justified? We don’t know that torture saves lives, but we do know that those who are tortured will say anything. Morally, it is unacceptable considering the level of sophistication and development of our society but those who torture believe it produces positive results. But if the right not to be tortured is fundamental, what is the responsibility to ensure it is protected? The international prohibition on torture is directed at the state. But, it is unrealistic to justify intervention based on torture, as every state has produced some kind of torture. 18 Judith Lichtenberg – Institute of Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Maryland, "Precedent and Example in the International Arena" What is most troubling about U.S. foreign policy today is the example that it holds up to the world and the precedent that it sets, conjoined with its disregard for the significance of both example and precedent. The United States legislates, dangerously, for the whole of humankind, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge that role—thereby escaping, as Jean-Paul Sartre says one cannot do, from its “complete and profound responsibility.” Of course, states and their governments are not in every way analogous to individual human beings. But in the most important respects, governments are agents whose actions and policies have just the kind of precedential and exemplary significance that individuals’ actions do—even more so, I shall argue, because of their inescapably public nature. Sartre’s claim that every agent legislates for all humanity derives from the “Categorical Imperative,” Immanuel Kant’s fundamental principle of morality. According to Kant, an agent ought to “act only according to that maxim by which. . .[one] can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”1 Kant captures something that goes deep in our thinking about the moral requirements of conduct, and the same or similar conceptions can be founded in a variety of other moral theories and systems. The intuitive idea is that in deciding how to act, an agent must consider whether he would be willing for everyone to act according to the same principle (Kant used the term “maxim”). At the very least, unless an agent is willing to accept the universal adoption of his principle of action, the action is impermissible.2 Universalizability should be understood in terms of consistency: What’s right for me is right for anyone similarly situated. Sartre makes the bolder point that whether we like it or not, whether we choose it or not, in acting we inevitably legislate for all of humanity.3 My action sets an example; what I do others will conclude that they may do too. Lying behind the universalizability requirement is a postulate of human equality. No person can claim a privilege to act 1 Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1959), p.421. 2 Kant intended the categorical imperative in a stronger sense. He believed that for some actions, “their maxim cannot even be thought as a universal law of nature without contradiction”; for others, although “this internal impossibility is not found. . .it is still impossible to will that their maxims should be raised to the universality of a law of nature” (Ibid., p.424). These are very strong claims, in keeping with Kant’s aim of establishing objective moral requirements. As many commentators have argued, it doubtful that they can be met. A weaker, more subjective interpretation that nevertheless has important implications for morality is the one given here, according to which agents must assess the legitimacy of their actions by their willingness to accept the universalized versions of the maxims that describe their reasons for acting. 3 The existentialists’ emphasis on the centrality of choice may seem to make this interpretation implausible. But that conclusion fails to appreciate existentialism’s central paradox that the only thing you can’t choose is not to choose; you have no choice but to choose. “Man makes himself. . .by the choice of his morality, and he cannot but choose a morality, such is the pressure of circumstances upon him” (“Existentialism Is a Humanism,” p. 306). 19 simply by virtue of who he or she is; no one can set himself or herself apart as a special case. If I am justified in acting in a certain way it’s because of features of my situation that, if possessed by others, would justify them in so acting as well. These “features of the situation”—the phrases “anyone in the same circumstances” and “anyone similarly situated” get at the same idea—are embodied in the principle or maxim implicit in one’s proposed course of action. Two questions immediately confront us. The first concerns the analogy between states and individuals. Is it plausible to think that nation-states, or their governments, are moral agents subject to the requirement of universalizability in the way we suppose individuals are? The second, assuming we can make the analogy between states and individuals, how do we identify the maxim or principle according to which a state acts? More specifically, what is the maxim or principle that correctly characterizes the pre-emptive military intervention characteristic of current U.S. foreign policy? What principle does the U.S. government invoke or imply in its wars against terrorism and against Iraq? Students of Kant know that identifying the relevant principle at work in an agent’s proposed course of action is rarely easy. Here are several possibilities, in increasing order of narrowness and specificity. Principle One: States may engage in wars of conquest. This principle would represent a giant step backward into barbarism and would violate the UN Charter. It would justify Hitler’s launching of World War II and Saddam Hussein’s annexation of Kuwait. Clearly this crude principle is not the one at work in U.S. foreign policy today. Principle Two: States may engage in preventive wars against those who might potentially attack them. This principle narrows the scope of the policy to preventive acts against potential enemies. But the problem with Principle Two is that it actually makes states into potential threats to each other by permitting preventive conquest of potential adversaries. Principle Two would lead to perpetual international conflict. Principle Three: States may engage in preventive wars against states possessing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This principle licenses pre-emptive attacks against the United States, the world’s largest holder of nuclear weapons and poison gas. Clearly it is not what the current Bush administration has in mind. Principle Four: States may engage in preventive wars against rogue states possessing weapons of mass destruction. The best definition of a rogue state is one that disregards principles of world order and international law and launches aggressive attacks against others, sometimes by covert means. The trouble with this definition is that once we show ourselves prepared to conquer nations we dislike, we become a rogue state with WMDs— hence a legitimate target of attack. That is absurd, of course. We know we are not a rogue state—and we know that Iraq was. But how do we argue the case to states suspicious of U.S. motives? Without some 20 neutral definition, “rogueness” is in the eye of the beholder. Who decides when another country’s “elected” leader is really a dictator and a rogue? Principle Five: Superpowers may engage in certain actions that other nations may not, such as deciding which foreign regimes are rogue states and removing them. The central question to this principle is whether the U.S. would be willing to accept Principle Five if it were not a superpower. Clearly it would find Principle Five no more acceptable than 190 other states do at this moment. Principle Six: The U.S. may engage in actions that other nations may not, such as deciding which foreign regimes are rogues and removing them. According to this “antiprinciple,” a double standard—one for the United States and one for the rest of the world—is the right standard, in keeping with “American exceptionalism. Throughout history, realists remind us, the world’s superpowers have invariably written their own rules; others go along because they have no choice. The U.S., according to this view, does not need a general principle. Principle Six is not a principle but rather a straightforward rejection of the Kantian and Sartrean standpoints from which we began. But that is not enough to condemn it. Could this way of reasoning, and acting, be justified? It depends at least in part on whether the Kantian and Sartrean standpoints apply to anything other than individuals. The question, then, is whether states can be moral agents subject to the demand that they conform their behavior to the requirement of universalizability. If not, the foregoing criticism of U.S. foreign policy is inappropriate and unjustified. Consider two general arguments against the view that states can be moral agents. The first might be called the anthropomorphism argument: To believe that states can be moral agents is to attribute human qualities to nonhuman things. To be morally responsible requires, at the very least, having a mind, and states do not have minds. This argument is flawed on several grounds. We often hold collective entities, such as corporations and agencies, responsible both morally and legally, although they too lack minds. The anthropomorphism argument, if taken seriously, would not permit us to hold any corporate entities responsible and would thus contradict important bodies of law and common practice. The anthropomorphism argument is closely related to, and may ultimately depend on, the claim of methodological individualism - only individuals exist and all talk of corporate or group entities must be ultimately reducible to the language of individual behavior. The more familiar argument for the belief that states (or governments or regimes) are not moral agents is realism, or Realpolitik. Realism says that morality is irrelevant to the conduct of states, and that moral criticism and evaluation are therefore also irrelevant. Implicit in the realist thesis is an assumption about the motives of state actors. The question of motive—in state action as well as in individual action—is a complex and difficult one. How can we know an agent’s actual motives? Under what circumstances is it reasonable to expect an agent (whether an individual or a state) to act against selfinterest? How do we factor into the moral equation the presence of multiple motives? 21 Yet, whatever their motives, the actions of states must be able to withstand moral scrutiny. Our interest is not in the moral virtue of states but in the legitimacy of their actions and policies. Even if states are moral agents that must justify their actions, it might be argued that states are not equal in the way that we suppose individual human beings are equal, and that this inequality allows or even requires different standards for different states. These different standards apply both to states as agents and to states that are acted upon. But this claim is at best unclear and at worst untrue. We know that human beings are not equal along any dimension that we can name: strength, beauty, intelligence, energy, happiness, sociability, or accomplishment. Nor are they “morally equal” in the most obvious meaning of that term: that is, equally inclined to morally acceptable motives or behavior. Equal consideration or equal concern and respect does not imply that all people should be treated the same, but rather that treating people differently requires providing relevant reasons. What makes a difference relevant? Why should I be permitted to do this and you not? Why should the U.S. be permitted to act in this way and other countries not? We may despair of finding objective criteria of relevance. But the requirement that one be willing for all to act on the principle underlying one’s own action is an excellent proxy. It requires only that one answer in good faith. As John Rawls explains, each “will be wary of proposing a principle which would give him a peculiar advantage, in his present circumstances. . .. Each person knows that he will be bound by it in future circumstances the peculiarities of which cannot be known, and which might well be such that the principle is then to his disadvantage.”4 States, governments, and the peoples whom they govern are unequal in a variety of respects, as are individuals. They differ in physical size, population, riches, power, culture, and technological advancement. Perhaps most important for our purposes is that some states are illegitimate, by virtue of the relationship that they have (or lack) to the people within their borders. Although a democratic form of government is not a necessary condition of legitimacy, some degree of popular support is.5 Illegitimate states lack the rights of political sovereignty and territorial integrity international law and custom normally accord states. Just as we may treat criminals, in light of their conduct, differently from other people, so we may treat illegitimate states differently from other states. Even though differences between individuals justify differences in their treatment, still there is a sense in which individuals possess some kind of inviolability that states do not. What Michael Walzer calls the “legalist paradigm,” according to which states possess rights to political sovereignty and territorial integrity, is on this critical view misguided and mistaken. The legalist paradigm is enshrined in Article 2 of the UN Charter, which 4 John Rawls, “Justice as Fairness,” Philosophical Review 67, no.2 (April 1958), pp. 164-194. 5 For a discussion of this view see Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 3d ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 61-62. 22 asserts the “sovereign equality” of member states and their right to territorial integrity and political independence. From the legalist paradigm it follows that states may do what they like within their own borders, or at the very least that outsiders have no right to intervene. But according to this critical view state sovereignty is, if not altogether an illusion, at least an exaggeration. If this is so then the notion of states as entities like individuals who are presumptively equal is also a mistake. How then can one make the analogy on which this argument rests? I agree with those who believe state sovereignty is overrated as a morally basic concept. 6 At best, state sovereignty is a useful proxy for the rights that a state (in effect, a government or regime) holds in virtue of its relationships with those within its borders— specifically, for the principle of nonintervention in that state’s internal affairs. The more positively a regime is related to its people, the more it makes sense to say that state is sovereign and possesses a right to non-intervention. A democratic state is more positively related to its people, we may suppose, than an undemocratic state. But the term “democratic” covers a multitude of possibilities that themselves vary in ways relevant to sovereignty. More fundamentally, the degree of a state’s sovereignty, and thus the extent to which the principle of non-intervention holds with respect to it, depends upon how much the regime reflects the ability of people within its borders to choose freely—or determine themselves—consistent with the rights of others. The highly public nature of international political and military action in contemporary times provides a powerful reason to proceed with the greatest of care—a reason over and above Kant’s purely moral one. Peoples and states around the world are suffused with the ideas of equality, self-determination, and national pride. To assert one’s own superiority and one’s rights to do what they may not is insulting and humiliating. Speaking purely in terms of consequences and not principles, it is hard to see how good can come of it. No one likes to be confronted with another’s flagrant assertion of superiority, even if the assertion is warranted. Countries are no different, and it has always seemed surprising when U.S. leaders such as President George W. Bush think nothing of announcing that the country is “the greatest nation on earth” within earshot of the rest of the world. At the very least, it is bound to create animosity. Similarly, when Washington’s official policy asserts that “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States,”7 it’s not hard to see why other nations might object. That no one should be our superior may be an acceptable aim; that no one is permitted to be our equal—as asserted in the September 2002 “National Security Strategy”—is another matter. 6 See David Luban, “Just War and Human Rights,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 9, no. 2 (Winter 1980), pp. 160-181; and Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination: Moral Foundations of International Law (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). 7 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss9.html. 23 “American exceptionalism,” an idea often credited to Alexis de Tocqueville, has been defined as the view that “the United States was created differently, developed differently, and thus has to be understood differently—essentially on its own terms and within its own context.”8 The concept has been employed mostly to explain why throughout its history the U.S. has not had a significant labor or socialist movement.9 Today, however, U.S. exceptionalism seems to describe not so much the explanatory framework appropriate to understanding the historical development of the United States, but the moral rights it has arrogated to itself. An argument for military action in places like Iraq that we have not considered invokes a principle of what some call “humanitarian intervention.” A rough approximation of such a principle might look something like Principle Seven: States may intervene militarily in the affairs of other states to prevent or end severe and widespread violations of human rights. We did not consider this principle earlier because it was not, according to credible accounts, the central reason for U.S. intervention in Iraq; rather it seemed to function as a by-product or perhaps a secondary reason. Up until the war began, the arguments made for intervention had to do primarily with U.S. national security and self-defense. More recently, however, the argument based on Iraqi liberation has assumed greater prominence as hard evidence for WMD and links to Al Qaeda has not materialized. Few would disagree that Saddam Hussein was a brutal and repressive tyrant responsible for gross violations of human rights. Two conclusions seem to follow: that the Iraqis would be well rid of Saddam Hussein and that he has no right to rule Iraq. Many liberals who favored military action in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, and Rwanda found themselves forced to refine their understanding of the principle of humanitarian intervention when it came to Iraq. If Saddam Hussein was so bad, why was war not justified to overthrow him? If liberal distrust of the Bush administration about Iraq was justified, what did that say about the legitimacy of the principle of humanitarian intervention? Was liberal hypocrisy at work in the decision about which oppressive states to fight? 8 Byron Shafer, ed., Is America Different? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. v. See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, volume II, (New York: Random House, Inc., 1970) pp. 36-7. “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. . . .Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people, and attempt to survey them at length with their own features.” I thank Laura Hussey for directing me to this passage and for help on this section. 9 See Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism A Double-Edged Sword (New York: Norton, 1997). 24 At least two factors underlay the widespread doubts about humanitarian intervention as a principle justifying war in Iraq. One had to do with motive, the other with the prospects of success. These doubts too are intertwined. To answer this difficult question it is helpful to examine the other source of doubt about the principle of humanitarian intervention, which concerns the prospects of success. Much has been written on this subject specifically about Iraq, and many people have argued that winning the war was the easiest part of the undertaking. Probably the two biggest problems cited are the inherent difficulty of imposing democracy, liberty, and respect for human rights from outside, and the negative effects of U.S. intervention on the beliefs and attitudes of people in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, and beyond. It is probably still too early to say whether or to what extent these fears will be borne out sufficiently to undermine any potential positive effects of intervention. Nonetheless, the agent must have weighed the risks and costs of intervening against the benefits and must have been warranted in concluding that the benefits outweighed the risks. That in turn requires a firm commitment on the part of the agent to ensure that the risks of failure do not come to pass. So, for example, if one’s aim were to bring democracy to a region where democracy has not existed, a long-term commitment to nation-building would seem to be required. Even if a state would be well rid of its leader and even if he has no right to rule (certainly true of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, respectively), it does not follow that all things considered it would be sensible to intervene militarily to bring about the dictator’s downfall and other desired outcomes. An enormously significant factor is the will of the people in whose country one is proposing to intervene. In the paradigm case of justified intervention, oppressed or persecuted people seek help from sympathetic outsiders to help determine their destiny. Of course, when people are sufficiently oppressed and persecuted, they will not necessarily be able to communicate their wishes freely, making it difficult to discern their will. But a central question must always be whether the people inside desire the involvement of outsiders. If they do not, the term “humanitarian intervention” will be highly suspect. These considerations help to bridge the gap between the two concerns raised by critics of such humanitarian intervention, motive and probability of success. We should not judge the legitimacy of a state’s action based on its motives, but its motives will inevitably figure indirectly into the principles that characterize its actions. In light of these remarks, a better principle than Principle Seven would be Principle Eight, which adds a crucial clause: States may intervene militarily in the affairs of other states to prevent or end severe and widespread violations of human rights, when they have very good reason to believe that the benefits of intervention will outweigh the costs. In addition, the agent must have good reason to believe the benefits will outweigh the costs—an objective condition that must be satisfied. 25 This statement of the principle is attractive partly because it avoids the need to inquire directly into the motives of agents while building in the relevant questions in an appropriate way. If the U.S. had good reason to believe that the benefits of intervention outweighed its costs (and assuming we could reach agreement on the meaning and truth of this claim), it would have been justified in invading Iraq, whether or not humanitarian intervention was its motive. Principle Eight both Kant’s question, and Sartre’s: What if everybody did that? What if everybody saw you doing that? Discussion The discussion centered on the motivations of actors and the outcomes of their actions. Sincerely believing something doesn’t mean that it is a good reason to believe. In domestic law sincere belief is not the same as reasonable belief but success does serve to justify some beliefs. Kant believed that you had to be clear on the principle you were acting on: this can be applied to both the personal and national front. Distinguishing the justification of actions from the actions of the agent is an interesting question: you can be a good person and screw up all the time. But, it is a morass to distinguish. The concept of the ends justify the means is an oversimplification. First, it is very difficult to know what state’s motives are. Second, states act primarily in their own selfinterest. 26 SESSION 4: Ethical Dimensions in Intervention II Chair: Francine Fournier – ex-Under Secretary General of UNESCO Lead Questioner: Robert Fullinwinder – Institute of Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Maryland David Copp “Cultural Relativism and Post-intervention Decisions” This talk will focus on a pattern of reasoning that implies that it is amoral for a culture to impose its goals on a culture that may reject them. Differences of opinion seem to rest on cultural differences. However, there is no relatively neutral position in which to evaluate moral frameworks. So, must we tolerate all kinds of frameworks? Can we accept culturally sanctioned violence? In the post-intervention period, is it permissible for the intervening state to impose goals that are unpopular in the local population? We see this in Iraq, Japan and North America. The intervener may want to put a stop to cultural practices for various reasons—not necessarily moral or religious. But it is important not to exaggerate culture: culture is not monolithic or static, they change all the time. Many cultures don’t believe that women have the same rights as men. There are also differences in ways of life and expectations. The ethical ideas of the intervening power reflect the goals of power: so, why is the intervener’s culture more special? Intervening powers have had to deal with changing cultures throughout history. Bernard Williams discusses the anthropologist’s heresy: cultural relativism. He illustrates skepticism about moral belief. All cultures are equal, relatively speaking. Post-modernism tells us that there are multiple incompatible perspectives and the desire to create norms has devastating consequences because it creates suffering and leaves other opinions out. So, can we have objective truth in any reality? But there are patterns that can be found in every culture with regards to the taking of human life. I want to use anthropologic data to build a philosophical and then ethical framework. So, what counts as a culture? Most societies are pluralistic: these contain many groups, without restriction of size; they are a group of people who share a basic moral outlet. Set this aside. Culturally-based disagreement does not support cultural relativism. Ruth Benedict applies scientific method: assign no preference or priority to any culture. A stubborn relativist may embrace relativism about science, but this is a Trojan horse. But there is a 27 culturally based disagreement about relativism itself which supports cultural moral relativism about cultural moral relativism. Cultural moral relativism is true. Period. But, if there’s no relative truth, it has no application in ethics. Moral diversity does not imply relativism. Does toleration flow from cultural relativism? If our moral framework judges another moral framework to be evil, then it is true, relative to our culture. Therefore, it is not naturally peaceful. So, toleration is not promoted by relativism. Toleration, then, must be at odds with the cultural framework intended for reform. If we want to be tolerant, we have to cut off cultural relativism. Relativism doesn’t allow for intervention. If we say that a power should be tolerant, period, then we have to reject relativism. Ethical relativism is in conflict with the idea that all cultures should be tolerant of others. Is cultural/moral diversity a good reason to be tolerant? This brings in critical judgment: if someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t mean you have to reconsider your own view. When is a disagreement with others evidence that we are wrong. We are reasonable to accept a person’s judgment if it is reasonable to trust their judgment. Ethical matters are no different from moral matters. If someone expresses something to us that does not fit in with our beliefs, we may reject it with good reason. A pluralistic society has a number of different groups with different views. Cultural diversity does not mean that we have to doubt our judgments about situations we are familiar with. There isn’t a prohibition on judging a foreign culture—just against ignorant judgment, both morally and knowledgably. There are a few examples that prove my point. The first of these are the Allies after fall of Nazi Germany. The idea that imposing powers should not bring forward goals that would be rejected by local cultural is not warranted. For example, the outside powers imposed (or upheld) the belief that the Holocaust was wrong. Another example is female genital mutilation (FGM). The fact is that FGM is practiced in 28 African countries and other places with varying forms. It is viewed as morally acceptable in cultures where it’s practiced. Is it wrong to put a stop to it? Discussion The discussion centered on whether we should support interventions and reject moral relativism. There is no doubt that cultures change for moral reasons, yet if we reject moral relativism, what truths are we basing our decisions on? In effect, where do we obtain absolute truths? Absolute truths are general principles that we derive culturally from dialogue and discussion and that we generally hold to be true. It is generally believed in our society that people should be allowed to practice their own religion, and I believe that that’s a correct principle to go by. In view of certain religious views though, some engage in various practices that violate other rights that we believe (eg. torture). Then there is a conflict between two rights that we take very seriously. 28 Matters of expediency rather than cultural relativism produce hands-off views as it’s difficult to change cultural norms. Some oppose humanitarian intervention on the basis of cultural relativism. Judith Kumin – United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) “Refuge Repatriations: A View from UNHCR” The title of this conference segment is “Ethical Dimensions in Intervention”. One of these dimensions is certainly the extent to which intervention makes it possible for refugees to return home in a safe and dignified manner, and for independent agencies to be present to support and monitor this process. The international agency with primary responsibility for refugee repatriation is the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Along with other humanitarian organizations, the UNHCR faces considerable challenges – both practical and ethical -- in helping refugees to return home in the aftermath of conflict. At the outset let me say that of course neither refugee repatriation nor engagement in situations of armed conflict is new to the UN refugee agency. UNHCR doctrine has long identified repatriation as the most desirable solution to any refugee problem, even though it was not until the 1990s that the global political situation allowed for a real focus on repatriation. And throughout the agency’s history, it has been obliged to work to a greater or lesser degree either in or on the fringes of situations of armed conflict and political violence – North Africa in the late 1950s and early 1960s, South America in the 1960s, South East Asia in the 1970s and southern Africa in the 1980s, to give just a few examples. But the post Cold War shift away from exile, asylum and resettlement as the politically correct solutions to refugee problems, and the increased focus on refugee repatriation entailed a dramatic expansion in UNHCR’s activities in the countries of origin of refugees, rather than in neighboring countries of asylum. This shift is clearly evident in the agency’s expenditure. In 1975, UNHCR spent just 1% of its budget on repatriation. Last year the corresponding figure was over 33%. At the same time, the operational environment changed dramatically at the end of the Cold War. Forms of armed conflict and political violence have diversified, and outside intervention in one form or another has been a factor in a surprising number of countries where UNHCR is currently promoting, implementing or planning refugee repatriation, for instance in Afghanistan, Bosnia, East Timor, Eritrea, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia and last but not least the example that preoccupies all of us: Iraq. The involvement of powerful external military actors has raised to a new level the already tricky question of whether and how humanitarian agencies can retain their neutrality. And as attacks on aid personnel have become more frequent and more intense. The tragic bombing of the UN Headquarters in Baghdad on August 19th has pointedly and poignantly raised the stakes for UN and other aid agencies expected to operate in a highly 29 dangerous environment where humanitarian space is limited, where local public support is questionable, and where it is difficult or impossible to establish a dialogue with those armed elements who oppose the international community’s presence. I will come back to this theme. But let me first highlight the changing nature of UNHCR’s role in refugee repatriation operations. Before the end of the Cold War, UNHCR’s repatriation operations tended to follow a fairly standard paradigm: an independence struggle came to an end, a peace agreement was concluded, exiles were invited to come home and a formal amnesty was usually proclaimed to bolster the confidence of those going back. The post-independence return of refugees to Algeria, Zimbabwe and Namibia followed this model, for example. In such operations UNHCR’s role was rather limited: to verify that individuals were returning of their own free will and to provide transport and some basic assistance – an approach known within the organization as “a cooking pot and a handshake”. During the 1990s, however, a series of factors emerged which led the organization to abandon this narrow approach to repatriation, and to become much more engaged in the reintegration of those going back, as well as in the resolution of tensions between the returnees and those who had stayed behind. What was behind this expanded role? Although it is a well-established principle that refugee repatriation should take place on a voluntary basis and in safety and dignity, many – perhaps most -- repatriations over the past decade have taken place in less-thanideal circumstances, frequently involving some degree of duress. Sometimes return is indirectly induced by a deterioration of conditions in the country of asylum, sometimes it is more overtly compelled. But in most cases over the past 12 years, where refugees have returned en masse, it has been to unstable situations where they face insecurity on several levels: physical and material, clearly, but legal, social and psychological insecurity as well. In the context of today’s conflicts it has become obvious that the success or failure of the reintegration of former refugees can determine whether post-conflict stability is reinforced, or is undermined. One need only think of the bombing of houses of returnees in Bosnia and Herzegovina to discourage minority ethnic groups from coming back to their villages, for example. The linkage between the reintegration of former refugees and post-conflict stability led the UNHCR to focus not just on transport of returnees and basic relief assistance, but on how to balance pressures for speedy return against the likely sustainability of return, and to insist that donor governments fill the gap between humanitarian aid and development assistance. And because of the nature of the post Cold War conflicts, programs to support reconciliation between former enemies, often between those returning and those who stayed behind, also have become paramount. Finding ways to promote reconciliation, or at least peaceful coexistence, is difficult enough. External intervention, even if it is widely considered legitimate, adds another 30 dimension to the challenges faced by the humanitarian community. Let me outline just two issues in this context. First of all, external intervention inevitably poses the question of how to preserve humanitarian space in a highly politicized and militarized context? What relationship should humanitarian agencies – especially those of the UN system -- maintain with the different forms of international military forces now active in the same operational environments? Is there a middle ground between being co-opted and being rendered irrelevant? Some observers have noted that during the 1990s there was a growing convergence between humanitarian, political and military action. Is this trend desirable? Should it be reversed? Can aid agencies avoid being instrumentalized in this new environment? One observer has called this the “moment of truth” for the humanitarian enterprise. Whether and how the neutrality and independence of humanitarian action can be preserved is a subject which preoccupies the entire aid community today. Clearly, UN agencies will have a different approach to this question than nongovernmental agencies Since the early days of organized humanitarian action there has been tension between the stated objective of neutrality and the manipulation or politicization of humanitarianism. This tension is not new to the UNHCR, which after all was a child of the Cold War. But it has taken on a new dimension, especially as the security of humanitarian workers has increasingly been threatened. More and more frequently, humanitarian actors are asking themselves: Under what circumstances can (or should) we refuse to be present? The question of withdrawal is more difficult for UN agencies than for our non-governmental partners. For example, when Médecins sans Frontières pulled out of eastern Zaire in the mid 1990s, the then-UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said she could not do the same because she had a mandate from the international community. Staying or leaving becomes an impossible dilemma for UN agencies when the context is one of UN-mandated military action justified by humanitarian reasons. In such situations there is a risk of division between operational humanitarian organizations and human rights advocacy groups which may be exploited by states and other parties involved in the conflict. Ultimately, the answers lie not in more armored vehicles, barricades and armed guards, but in improving the overall political environment. The United Nations – and particularly operational agencies like UNHCR – cannot operate from a fortress. Our strength lies in our ability to communicate with the people who need us, to work through local authorities, and to build up local capacities.. Internal guidance issued in May within the UN said that a “clear distinction must be maintained at all times between the functions and roles of UN humanitarian personnel and those of the …. Occupying Power”. But the attack on the UN building in Baghdad in August makes it clear that the effort to maintain this distinction did not succeed. 31 On this point Larry Minear has written: “The Iraq crisis has thrown an overdue spotlight on the soft underbelly of the humanitarian enterprise. For NGOs, it is time to re-examine what it means to be genuinely nongovernmental. For the UN’s humanitarian apparatus, it is time to insulate life-saving and life-protecting operations from global political crosscurrents. Only then will the international humanitarian enterprise be able to perform effectively its altogether critical tasks.”10 To conclude: the return and reintegration of former refugees has for a long time been one of the most important items on the international humanitarian agenda. It has more recently appeared on the agenda of political and military decision-makers. With the rising frequency of intervention, the question of how repatriation contributes to the peacebuilding process in war-torn societies is now inextricably linked to how political, military and humanitarian actors work together. On this it seems to me that we are only at the beginning of our learning curve. Discussion One of the motivations behind UN policy is the basic human right of return. To what extent is this an aspiration, and to what extent is this a human right? In particular, the Israel/Palestine conflict involves the right of return and how does this reflect the UN’s mandate and belief in this right? UNHCR excludes Palestine because it is under another division of the UN. In other contexts, you can only really talk about exercising the basic right to return if there is a free choice. Internally Displaced Persons: they are on the rise and no organization is tasked to look after them. Since the cold war there has been a decline in the number of refugees and an increased number of IDPs. I think it’s because of the increased desire by the states to put up borders. State sovereignty is a large barrier to dealing with this issue. There have been attempts to create norms surrounding this issue, but it is still soft law. There was a campaign launched a number of years ago to create an agency for IDPs, but nothing has come to fruition. There is also the interesting question of when are people no longer considered IDPs. 10 Larry Minear, “A Moment of Truth for the Humanitarian Enterprise,” Foreign Policy in Focus, July 9, 2003. 32 PLENARY SESSION 2: From the Short Term to the Long Term Chair: Michael Koros – Canadian International Development Agency Lead Questioner: Mira Sucharov – Department of Political Science, Carleton University William J. Garvelink – US Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington, D.C. “Post Interventions: Relief and Development Obligations and Operational Realities” USAID has moved beyond humanitarian assistance since the cause of crises is largely a failure of governance. Therefore, this presentation will focus on interventions and humanitarian emergencies. Intervention is defined as: when a government (s) involve itself in the affairs of another state to solve a humanitarian crisis. It’s a process. The motivations for US interventions are largely to assist a population in need and to further US foreign policy objectives, part of which is helping people in need. There are four categories of interventions: Humanitarian intervention; Diplomatic intervention; Humanitarian intervention with military support; Military interventions with the aid of humanitarian assistance There are also four categories of obligations that must be carried out simultaneously when it comes to disaster relief: to provide the emergency humanitarian assistance that is required; to address the institutional failures of government; to disarm and re-integrate combatants (DDR); security. The use of each category will depend on the nature of the emergency. A limiting factor is the willingness of the government to cooperate. For example, in Zimbabwe the government is not interested in making any big changes, and few are forced upon it. Humanitarian assistance also needs to include human rights and the targeting of vulnerable groups. The role of the military in all of these elements is to provide security. 33 None of these other things can happen without security. The military should have a limited role in any humanitarian intervention which should be limited to security for a short time. It also should be confined to certain areas and to the demobilization process. Military is very good at a number of very specific things. You have to provide assistance according to internationally accepted standards. For example, no leaving the people worse off then when you started is key. Creation of an artificial humanitarian economy, therefore, becomes a problem—especially when you want to leave. Obligations and the operational realities of these obligations: Planners have objective ways to decide which emergencies they will respond to and where the funds will go. Then the government intervenes with directions making it very subjective. This can be a frustrating reality. A lot of institutions are out of sync and have different and competing goals and priorities. Political will just doesn’t exist. It is easy to commit, but staying power is very difficult. Often too, the US feels like they are left to do it on their own. Because of new terrorism legislation, countries sponsoring terrorists will be prohibited from getting development assistance from the US. There are a number of other laws making giving humanitarian assistance to these countries very difficult. Timing: development assistance takes a year to be approved—the World Bank is even slower—but responding to emergency assistance needs to be fast which makes it hard to plan for crises and emergencies. The US military: they don’t go on peacekeeping missions and have a different mindset about military operations. They also do not understand humanitarian aid agencies and NGOs. Early intervention: if you can intervene early, you are better off. Choose the conflicts you want to get involved in and get involved early. For all that, complex emergencies are not a new thing. Military, NGOs and government agencies are working together a lot better. It’s important to understand what you are doing when you intervene. Discussion A large part of the discussions centered on the role of civil society. Part of a long-term exit strategy has to do with creating civil societies. In terms of linking military with other kinds of aid work, this is a complex issue that has mixed results. With the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan, they represent a slippery slope down the path to the blurring of military operations and humanitarian assistance. Yet, they are not seen as an effective tool for carrying out either mandate. They cannot provide security and the reconstruction assistance that’s provided is limited. 34 SESSION 5: Third Parties and Intervention Chair: Colleen Duggan – International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Ontario Lead Questioner: David Long - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University Peter Stockdale – Conflict Prevention Working Group, Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC) "Clash of Cultures: Institutional Alienation after Intervention, or Discovering Strange Bedfellows when the Bed's Upturned" This paper is about how values and beliefs affect outcomes, rather than a consideration of what ethical action should be. Like many of you here, I was schooled in comparative and international politics. And whether the professor was left or right, the message was a Western materialist one which said, “interest inexorably drives politics”. I will not contend that interest has no effect on politics. But, I do think that values and beliefs matter and they cause political outcomes, even if traditionally you have rarely heard these words either uttered or muttered in classes of comparative and international politics. Take our policy regarding whether we were to join our historical American and British allies in the war in Iraq. Our values and beliefs ruled that outcome. Can anyone seriously argue that our present economic and political interests and trajectory drove us to join with the Russians, Chinese, Germans and French? In my opinion, values and beliefs have a powerful effect on political outcomes, in part because the perception of interest, especially common interest, is so powerfully affected by them. Let us take the case of post-intervention East Timor. Here the United Nations has been playing a key role in the post-conflict development of the country. We can be grateful that relative peace has been established. However, of course, that intervention is not value free. Its’ officials speak largely with the small Portuguese-speaking elite. There is little conversation with non-Portuguese-speaking “ordinary people.” This affects the kind of future that East Timor is creating. A recent Quaker analysis of the situation concluded that the dominance and patronage of the UN reinforces long-standing patterns, perhaps located in the Portuguese colonial period.11 Thus The values, beliefs and world-view of UN staff are having a profound effect. Since the Battle of Solferino in 1859, after which the Red Cross was created NonGovernmental Organizations have been playing a role in working with the military to limit the scale and nature of the catastrophe of conflict. This role has become evermore Committee for Conflict Transformation Support, CCTS Newsletter 13, “The interplay of domestic, regional and international forces in post-conflict peacebuilding, Report of a seminar held on 10th May at Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London N1 1RG,” http://www.c-r.org/ccts/ccts13/seminar.htm 11 35 evident and important. However, it is an uneasy alliance. Let us examine the present reasons for that unease. This unease is rooted in the differing beliefs and mandates of the military and NGOs. This causes both the military and NGOs viewing each other with suspicion – their belief systems are different. There is a related intercultural disconnect between governmental and military organizations, on the one hand, and their civil society counterparts, one the other, including international NGOs. It is also true of the civil society organizations in post intervention countries. Often, they are rooted in popular movements, many of whose organizational structures are incipient. We have seen this among the Shia in Iraq. Their organizational structures were explicitly torn apart by the Saddam regime. This is not unique to Iraq however. Post-intervention states are characterized by the presence of social and political movements, suddenly legitimated in the post-conflict society, with what appear to be curious structures and behaviours from the standpoint of traditional bureaucratic organisation. Consequently, while they may represent the best organizational structures in those countries, and in the case of Iraq founded on different roots than the Saddam government and therefore worth courting, they are fundamentally also a popular movement, and must follow their adherents’ beliefs. Therefore, in the case of Iraq, such a movement cannot respond simply to American military command; no decision is final in a social movement, even if Shia alienation with aspects of Western civilization and Iraqi nationalism didn’t make open co-operation either unpalatable or fatal. Clare Harkin at DfID wrote to his Australian colleague in October 2001 about militarycivilian tensions in the following way, “The humanitarian community is quite naturally sensitive to any perceived compromise to their principles and the pros and cons of using mil resources have to be weighed carefully. Although it is changing here, some in the military are still not aware of, or understand, those sensitivities and consequently view the NGO/UN world with a measure of disdain.”12 These kinds of patterns are reproduced in hosts of third parties across the world. Even within similar organizations based in the same country, created at the same time, with similar roots, alienation between organizational cultures can have serious outcomes. Getting relations right can not be left to chance in battlefields littered with bloody limbs and broken hearts. This requires focus, and there has not been enough. “What is to be done?” I shall be brief. Organisations intending to deploy abroad, and in particular their logistical components, need to understand and discuss the essential characteristics of the organisations and institutions they work with, certainly on key matters like ethical hot buttons, how decisions are made, and how they conceive their respective roles. Needless to say, the staff in those local organizations who have to deal with them, whether CSOs, administrators or military need to gain the same kind of understanding. Identifying, in the classic negotiation format, areas of common interest is a good starting point, but is not 12 Clare Harkin, DFID to S Darvil, AUSAID, Memo, EMA9800 334/000/001, 22 October 2001, 4. 36 enough. Otherwise, when parties react differently to the same change, misunderstandings about why one party acted in one way, and another party in another way will certainly result, leading to poor coordination in circumstances that can’t afford the luxury. And such understandings are particularly important to the denizens of middle-powers, who must know how operate effectively to have any impact at all, but it is also important for those Americans who must manage the imperium. Discussion The discussion focused on values in that values mean different things to different people on a wide range of issues. Mixing this broad spectrum together creates a complex problem. Coordinating between the civil and military is an important problem, but is integration always the answer? Perhaps we should think of it in term of division of labour instead. Isn’t it the moral obligation of elected government to act in the interest of its country? So is there a difference between morals and interest in this case because NGOs are not pure: they also have interests they are pursuing and are not working out of moral values alone. Yet it is important to understand NGOs as being less institutionalized and closer to belief. They have organizational interests, but because they are less institutionalized they act differently than formalized more bureaucratic structures. I would suggest that we have not gotten interests right regarding intervention. There are a number of interests, and we have to get these interests right. I think we can do this by working on the political economy of intervention. Christiane Berthiaume "Human Rights: Start With A Good Breakfast In The Morning" My talk is focused on hunger. As the African’s say, “a hungry man is an angry man.” It kills many people every day as well as the creativity and productivity of people. The lack of economic productivity and development is a root cause of crisis. Eight hundred million people go to bed hungry every night. We produce enough food to feed everyone. People are hungry because they are poor and they are poor because they are hungry. Therefore, there is a dual mandate: help hungry people in emergency situations and also those involved in development programs. Before we can go into a famine area, we have to analyze the situation. For example, North Korea asked for help and would not let our group in to help administer; they simply wanted us to give them food. In 2002, the budget of the WFP was 1.8 billion dollars. We fed people in 82 LIFD (low income food deficit countries). Sixty percent of the budget comes from the US followed by the EU; Canada is fifth. The money is 37 largely earmarked to certain countries as some people have no other means to survive but our food. Some crises are over-funded, while others are under-funded. We receive donations in actual food but also in cash and we deliver many of the basics that are rich in vitamins. The WFP has 9,000 staff, with over 1,000 international. We also work quite closely with NGOs. Clearly, one of the most important factors is the logistical plans of actually delivering the food. Food is brought in by whatever means possible. Moreover, because many of our recipient countries are in conflict, WFP personnel are often a target in foreign countries. One of our strongest policies is that we give no food if we have no access. We feed a large number of people in North Korea. They often employ a number of schemes to make sure the food is well distributed. In Zimbabwe, they were told to stop delivering foods if you see any irregularity. It is also important to target women. Refugees move in groups and communities. Women are often not involved in trade or politics, and because of this inequality, they can help make sure that food gets to the people that need it. It also starts many children off with a large handicap. Women work very hard but get served last. Commitment to women is very important and very serious and thus, is one of the WFP’s key priorities. WFP is involved in emergencies and development. In Iraq, they are feeding the entire population—the first time they have ever done this. There used to be the oil for food program; the money from the oil was used to buy food and bring it into Iraq for distribution. This stopped when the war began, but now they want to restart the program. They hope this is only a temporary measure. Emergencies are also a major concern of the WFP. There are more weather emergencies than man-made ones: Hurricanes, droughts and floods. Many countries are not faced to deal with these catastrophes. The development aspect of the program is in decline; we have gone from 75% of our budget going toward development in the 1960s to 13% this year. Donors have been asked to respond to more emergencies than before. We had all the money we asked for in two weeks, but now it is much more difficult to get money for Afghanistan. We also have a food for work program: paying people with food for work (e.g. building trees or building roads for food). There are also donor countries who ask a lot of questions about development. The more I work in countries, the more I think we need to educate people. Millions of children do not go to school or when they do go to school, it is on an empty stomach. Feeding kids at school does work; it gets kids to school and also pushes back the age of marriage and lessens the number of kids they have. In Pakistan, they begin to give rewards to children for coming to school that support their parents and families. 38 Food feeds the body and the mind. AIDS is also very dangerous. It attacks active people. How will students learn if teachers are dying? South Africa is losing two generations because kids have to go home to take care of their siblings because their parents are sick or dying. What is the link between food and AIDS? The first medicine is food. It will not solve the problem, but it will help by keeping people alive and giving them strength. It is a bleak picture, but there is hope. We have earlier warning systems, and there has been no mass starvation since 1994. We have had a number of significant achievements, but they are not enough. 39 SESSION 6: The Economics of Intervention: Theory and Evidence Chair: John M. Curtis – DFAIT Lead Questioner: Maureen Molot – NPSIA, Carleton University Jay Drydyk – Depart of Philosophy, Carleton University "Ethical Norms for Reconstruction" The central question of this presentation is: “Of the ethical norms that have emerged in the last 50 years of peace-time development, which if any apply to the sort of postconflict reconstruction that has become so prevalent in the past ten years?” It is ironic that what has now become the central development institution—the World Bank—began as a facility for post-conflict reconstruction. After a decade, it turned its attention from Europe to the third world and its emphasis shifted from research to development and endured forty years of ethical scrutiny. The irony is that, now that many of these norms have been adopted as development bank policy norms for peacetime development, we are once again thrown back to dealing with post-conflict reconstruction. The question is: should the policy norms that emerged from the debates over peacetime development apply as well to postwar reconstruction? One is a norm of equity or justice, and the other is a norm of democratic freedom. They are not entirely uncontroversial, but they enjoy considerable support. They arise from experience of two ways in which development, and development projects, have at times been ethically problematic. Specifically, there have been two broad ethical concerns: projects meant to alleviate the poverty of some caused the impoverishment of others; and development that is too often done to people, rather than by them, for themselves. From this, two principles will be explored: Principle One: Development ought not to impoverish people. This notes the beginning of the recognition that “development” and “growth” are not synonymous. The need for Principle One also arose from resistance to the social impacts of development projects. After years of debate and struggle, development banks have responded with attempts at self-regulation – recognizing that this general principle needs to be followed. Principle Two: Development ought to be carried out by means of people’s active, free and meaningful participation in it, to the greatest extent feasible, consistent with equity. The point here is that development should not be conceived as something that is done to people. Rather it ought to be a process in which people actively participate. Further, the point about equity says it is not permissible to use mechanisms of participation to hijack a development process in order to seize or preserve privilege or advantage. This 40 purposefully vague principle had already been given formal recognition in a number of ways. In the past 20 years it was carried into the policy books of development banks, including the World Bank, and a much stronger version of the principle has been articulated by the World Commission on Dams. Two different standards will be used to express the same principle. First, there is the Gold Standard which is defined as: Demonstrable public acceptance of all key decisions achieved through agreements negotiated in an open and transparent process conducted in good faith and with the informed participation of all stakeholders. Second is the Base Metal Standard: A development project that puts stakeholders at great risk of impoverishment ought to consult with those stakeholders in planning and carrying out means of mitigation. The main question, then, is whether these two principles are binding on us in cases of post-war reconstruction, as well as peace-time development. Applied to reconstruction, Principle One could be restated as Principle 1R: Reconstruction projects ought to be designed so as not to cause further impoverishment. Therefore, if potential impoverishment can be foreseen, mitigation measures should be planned. One objection to applying this principle in post-war reconstruction is that in a post-war setting you simply cannot delay in getting the infrastructure working again. Waiting for mitigation plans will be inequitable because it can keep many more people in a state of impoverishment resulting from the conflict. The second principle is more controversial and can be restated as Principle 2R: Reconstruction ought to be carried out by means of people’s active, free and meaningful participation in it, to the greatest extent feasible, consistent with equity. Are there reasons why the principle of participation should not apply to post-conflict reconstruction? The ethical concern here is that protracted negotiations can delay effective restoration of essential services. One counter-argument is that democratic and individual human rights values can be seen as barriers to mobilizing the whole society for development. However, Amartya Sen notes that democratic practices provide protection against maldevelopment nightmares by bringing development needs and misdeeds to light more quickly Ultimately, the end to be served by participation schemes is that more people achieve more control over more aspects of their lives that matter most, especially, in the context of reducing post-war impoverishment risks. A few qualifications for the Gold Standard are as follows: (a) Restoration of essential services and infrastructure needs to proceed no matter how much or little participation is achievable in the local social and political circumstances;(b) Achieving participation is a “duty of virtue”, which means (i) doing nothing to achieve participation is wrong, and (ii) 41 to achieve less good participation is ethically inferior to achieving more and better participation; (c) Participation is better, in the reconstruction context, insofar as it give more people more control over reducing post-war impoverishment risks. This raises a further question: What sort of organization is best suited to managing reconstruction in ways that meet these norms? These are matters in which you have much greater experience and expertise than I, so I leave this for you, and look forward to your comments. A.R.M. Ritter – Department of Economics, Carleton University "US Intervention in Latin America: The Cuban and Chilean Cases ReConsidered" Although there have been a number of US interventions in Latin America, this presentation will explore a two of them: Cuba and Chile. Cuban case: The US was the occupying power of Cuba from its beginnings. Castro coming to power was originally supported by the US, but was quickly broken with the radicalization of the Castro regime. This was followed by direct action in the form of the Bay of Pigs invasion which was unsupported and had little success. There were also various assassination attempts on Castro. The embargo on Cuba continues as the current official stance of the US is to harden its policy against Cuba. There have been mixtures of hard and soft policy towards used towards Cuba with mixed effects. Consequences of US policy toward Cuba: the policy has strengthened Castro, allowing him to portray himself as a picture of Cuban nationalism; it has allowed Castro to silence political opposition; it has intensified the radicalization of the regime; and the embargo has hurt the Cuban economy in various ways, but it also pushed Cuba towards the Soviets. Chilean case: The US promoted a coup in the early 1970s. Its policy was to apply economic pressure on Chile. The US also supported extremist parties, funded strikes, and blocked funds going to Chile. They wanted to prevent the emergence of another Cuba as well as to protect their commercial interests in the region. Was the coup caused by US intervention? Some say yes, others no. Personally, I think it is very likely that coup would have occurred in any case. What would have happened if a coup hadn’t taken place? It’s hard to say, but a number of outcomes are possible, although, it should be said Chile has been regarded as a good performer in South America since approximately 1990. Although, a number of interventions like Chile and Grenada have turned out well, they did not turn out so well for a number of other Latin American countries. Columbia, for example, is in the midst of a 30 year civil war. But it should be kept in mind that the US is the only state acting to ensure that terrorist groups in Columbia do not come to power. 42 Although I condemn US intervention, there have been a number of situations where it did not turn out so poorly for the countries in which they intervened. Discussion In Latin America there has been a lot of pressure to liberalize economies to produce some of the stability that was lacking in the hemisphere for a very long time. It would be good to see some discussion about liberalization and the extent to which it has increased both impoverishment and equity. Transition economies often have governments moving away from high control by governments to more liberalized economies. But, how do you promote change when people don’t trust their neighbors? How do you get people to participate? Should trust have to come first? Should change come from whom? Who should take the lead in making these changes? Right now international institutions are taking the lead and we do not see big changes in developing countries. 43 SESSION 7: Lessons of Intervention Chair: B. Herbert-Copley – IDRC Lead Questioner: Jean Daudelin – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs Stephen Stedman – Centre for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University "Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements" Why do some peace agreements succeed and others fail? To explore this, I will discuss a larger study exploring a sample of sixteen conflicts and their interventions. I have chosen pretty liberal definitions of success, partial success and failure, and have rated conflicts in a number of different ways. It is hard to establish best practices. The definition of success becomes very ambitious when there is no state. Inequity of troops in conflict: As can be seen in a comparison of Kosovo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), resources matter. Kosovo receives much more support in terms of overall funding and personnel support, even though its population and land mass is much smaller than that of the DRC. Clearly, where the conflict takes place will have an effect on the amount of effort invested in the conflict. What priorities would you want, considering limited resources and attention? I would recommend demobilization and local capacity building. There are a number of overall trends that can be indicative of the kinds of intervention that takes place. For example, the worst region for response time of the UN is Asia. African wars have to go on longer than European wars, which get attention very quickly. But if you are going to do intervene, it is important to do it right. This requires the right amount of commitment and resources. Dane Rowlands – NPSIA "Does Official Development Finance Promote peace?" I want to try and draw together some of the big strands of thought that I think underlies the topic of this conference, as these parallel the evolution of my own research interests. The three big strands deal with development, conflict, and intervention. In doing so I will 44 be making some rather broad generalizations, and I do so deliberately in the hope of provoking some debate. It seems fitting to end a conference of this sort by offering a larger menu of debatable items from which you will hopefully find something to provoke your own interventions. I want to start by making an observation about how thinking about development has evolved and showing how these also apply to conflict and intervention. The first point is that development is a process, not an event. This might seem obvious to us today, but if you think back thirty or forty years, I’m not sure it would not have been more typical to think of development as an event. Even if you think of explicitly dynamic accounts of development, such as Rostow’s five stages of growth, there seems to be an implicit idea that at some point a society passes into the fifth stage of self-sustaining growth, when they become a fully “developed” entity. This notion lives on to an extent in certain institutional divisions: which countries are eligible for loans from the concessional IDA pool at the World Bank, or a PRGF from the IMF, which are not. In effect we still seem to be struggling with our apparent need to categorize social, economic and political conditions and to treat individual cases in their compartments, rather than seeing them as part of a continuum. a similar sort of transformation has occurred in how we look at conflict. Conflicts are not isolated events, they are not ends in and of themselves, and they range along a spectrum that might include riots at one extreme and nuclear destruction at the other. While I think we are all comfortable thinking about conflict in this more flexible manner, I still detect some inability to fully incorporate these more continuous features of conflict into our models and analyses. Here I rely on Keen’s discussion of the political economy of war, which he contrasts to the “bureaucratic” and the “irrational” models of conflict and war. The same observation probably also applies to intervention. It, too, is a process, a means, and has a variety of manifestations that are arrayed along a spectrum from apathetic aloofness, through a variety of political and economic sanctions, to Chapter 7 or unilateral military interventions. Again, we are probably all comfortable with the fuzziness of the concepts and activities that characterize intervention. But I sense again that the broader research community and public are unaware, or at least uninterested, in the nuances of intervention. This long overdue marriage clearly has a lot of prejudices to overcome. Conflict really is still generally thought of by mainstream development economists as an outlier. How many of us, myself included, routinely throw out observations of developing countries involved in civil war when we do our studies? Sure, it might be because there is no data of interest: how many countries engaged in civil war faithfully and punctually deliver the requisite statistics to the World Bank or the United Nations? But I think there are even deeper reasons why countries in conflict tend to be discounted in many studies. Surely war or extreme instances of conflict are aberrations along the 45 path of development, despite the statistical evidence that clearly shows that in some regions of the world conflict is the norm, not the exception? Nor is the removal of war torn countries from a study hard to justify intellectually. After all, does it make sense to try and calculate the returns to investment in education when the students have all been press-ganged into a militia, and schools have become makeshift morgues? But conflict and development are closely intertwined processes, and we cannot think of conflict as an interruption along a trajectory of development, like some semi-colon in the run-on sentence of a nations history. Rather the two are jointly influenced, I won’t say co-determined, by the social, political and economic conditions that circumscribe the actions of individuals and groups. Indeed conflict is inherent and present in all societies, and it is the level of development that largely determines its capacity to intermediate conflict without resorting to violence. But the interactions are complex. Given a set of initial conditions within a country there are a multiplicity of paths by which a society might evolve, each involving different rates of economic development and different levels of conflict. Intervention, then, might be seen as the instrument by which outsiders attempt to influence which path a country will evolve along. I want to remind you of the obvious, which is that post-conflict activity is only part of the spectrum of interventions, processes, that include pre-conflict, intra-conflict, and what we might call extra-conflict acts by third parties. With the term “extra-conflict” I am trying to come up with a way of distinguishing interventions that are not taking place within an atmosphere of imminent conflict, but rather would include things such as “normal” foreign aid. Again, though, we should be careful to think that there is such a thing as “extra-conflict”, since in one sense conflict is always present, and violence is perhaps always a possibility, if a more remote one in some happy cases. So what principles might we wish to apply to the intervention that occurs after a military intervention? I want to suggest that these principles should be the same as any other intervention. Post-military intervention assistance, or post-war assistance, should have as its primary target and its primary constraint the presence of lingering or latent violence. But this evaluation should also apply to pre-conflict and extra-conflict intervention. First, all assistance should be conditioned on a conflict-risk assessment that involves both conflict fore-casting and early warning. In some cases it might be easy, but in others it will be more difficult. I am reluctant to burden assistance programs with yet one more assessment to carry out, one more delay in disbursement, to join the list of environmental, gender, and other assessments required before a project can take place. But I can only think of how many millions, or billions, of dollars of assistance have been wasted by the destruction of war. What remains of the development assistance poured into Sierra Leone prior to its civil war? Second, all assistance needs to be far more selective. almost all major donors (bilateral and multilateral) spread their assistance dollars around like some optimistic Johnny 46 Appleseed, hoping that a few plants take root (hopefully before the auditor general starts looking too carefully into expenses). This will be hard, as assistance agencies have proven understandably reluctant to abandon anyone. But I am not saying abandon some countries. The attempt to condition development finance on governance reform, for example, though not very successful to date, shows promise. Governance is, of course, a critical element in the mediation of conflict. Governments that have poor governance structures are also unlikely to have good prospects for avoiding violence why spend money on infrastructure in a country that might very well fall into war later on? With aid dollars being scarce, surely they can be better spent. Instead countries with poor governance and a reluctance to reform might be limited to immediate humanitarian assistance, or for projects that have proven durable in the face of war, if any such thing exists. Here I want to point out a downside to such a principle. Development and conflict are linked in a complex system. Who is to say that a bit of infrastructure, some technical assistance, or some other project or program might not tip the balance sufficiently to allow a weak system to cope with conflict violence successfully? A third principle might be a sort of development finance Hippocratic oath of “do no harm”. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence with varying degrees of persuasiveness that suggests that some aid programs contribute to the emergence of violence. The contribution might be through policy conditionality that does not adequately account for social tensions in a country, or through the provision of resources to fight over. Greater political economy analysis to identify the winners and losers of different assistance programs is surely a pre-requisite for assuring more efficiency. A fourth principle might be to identify more clearly the rationale or moral that drive our desire to intervene, as these will undoubtedly affect our activity. There is a great danger, that some intervention policies are time-inconsistent. That is to say they come in two parts that ex ante are jointly desirable, but for which the incentives to carry out both parts change as the first part is executed. Intervention based on self interest may suffer from this most clearly. Intervention that is motivated by an affective reaction to others might be safer. Let me finally suggest that the just as our understanding of development and conflict have become more sophisticated and connected, we might also profit from thinking about intervention and post-intervention activity in a wider context. When we attempt to influence a conflict, we are by definition affecting the process of development, and vice versa. An awareness of both in concert will be useful. Discussion Have we yet learned the lessons of post-war reconstruction as I am not sure if there is such a link between resources and success but rather what kind of intervention is taking place. 47 Should we not focus on controlling external factors rather than internal ones? How do we know that the outcome is a product of the intervention or not? Thus, in terms of resources, we need to look not just at the resources per se, but also their relation to coercive strategy. Rwanda is the greatest tragedy of all the cases that have been explored as it would have been very cheap to prevent. The reality may be that resources may be finite, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have sustainable peace building intervention. 48 “Intervention: Then What?” October 3 - 5 102 Azrieli Thetre Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario Conference to be held in 102 Azrieli Theatre, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario Map: http://www.carleton.ca/cu/campus/ Friday, October 3, 2003 Registration 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm 7:00 pm - 7:15 pm Welcoming Remarks Mike W. Smith, Dean, the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, Carleton University PLENARY SESSION 1: 7:15 pm – 9:45 pm – The Future of Intervention Chair and Lead Questioner: Don Hubert – Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), Ottawa, Canada 7:00 pm - 7:45 pm plenary Speaker: Simon Chesterman – International Peace Academy, New York, New York Topic: "You, the People: Iraq and the Future of State-Building". 7:45 pm - 8:30 pm plenary Speaker: Fen Hampson – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University Topic: "Forgotten Conflicts and Intervention Choices" Discussion 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm Saturday, October 4, 2003 Registration 8:00 am - 9:00 am Coffee and Muffins 8:30 am – 9:00 am SESSION 1: 9:00 am - 10:30 am - Preventing Conflicts Chair: Erin O’Gorman – Department of National Defence (DND), Ottawa, Canada Lead Questioner: John Cockell – Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada 9:00 am - 9:30 am paper Speaker: Robert Rotberg – Program on Intrastate Conflict, Harvard University Topic: “Intervention and Peacebuilding as Prevention: Lessons from Africa and the Developing World.” 9:30 am - 10:00 am paper Speaker: John Norris – International Crisis Group, Washington, D.C. Topic: “Elements of a Successful Post-Conflict Intervention” Discussion 10:00 am - 10:30 am 49 Break 10:30 am - 10:45 am SESSION 2: 10:45 am - 12:15 pm - Defining Success Chair: James W. Dean – Economics Department, Simon Fraser University Lead Questioner – Peggy Mason – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University 10:45 am - 11:15 am paper Speaker: M. Ishaq Nadiri – Economics Department, New York University Topic: "Afghanistan: A Case for Assessing International Intervention & Co-operation". 11:15 am - 11:45 am paper Speaker: Joseph Siegle – Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C. Topic: "Changing the Definition of Success in Military Interventions" Discussion 11:45 pm - 12:15 pm Lunch Bakers Grill 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm SESSION 3: 1:15 pm - 3:15 pm – Ethical Dimensions in Intervention I Chair: Peter Stockdale – Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC), Conflict Prevention Working Group, Ottawa, Canada Lead Questioner: Rosemary Nagy - Law Department, Carleton University 1:15 pm – 1:55 pm paper Speaker: Jacqueline Bhabha – University Committee on Human Rights, Harvard University Topic: "War's Aftermath:Human Rights Obligations Beyond Borders" 1:55 pm – 2:35 pm paper Speaker: Judith Lichtenberg – Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Maryland Topic: "Precedent and Example in the International Arena." Discussion 2:25 pm 3:05 pm Coffee Break 3:05 pm - 3:45 pm SESSION 4: 3:45 pm - 5:45 pm – Ethical Dimensions in Intervention II Chair: Francine Fournier ex-Under Secretary General of UNESCO in charge of the Social Sciences and Humanities section, ex-President, Human Rights Commission of Quebec Lead Questioner: Robert Fullinwider – Institute for Philosophy and Public Affairs, University of Maryland 3:45 pm - 4:25 pm paper Speaker: David Copp – Philosophy Department, University of Florida Topic: “Cultural Relativism and Post-intervention Decisions" 4:25 pm - 5:05 pm paper Speaker: Judith Kumin – UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Geneva, Switzerland Topic: “Refuge Repatriations: A View from UNHCR” Discussion 5:05 pm - 5:45 pm PLENARY SESSION 2: 5:45 pm - 7:15 pm - From the Short Term to the Long Term Chair: Michael Koros – Canadian International Development Agency, Ottawa, Canada Lead Questioner: Mira Sucharov – Department of Political Science, Carleton University 50 5:45 pm - 6:45 pm plenary Speaker: William J. Garvelink – United States Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C. Topic: “Post Interventions: Relief and Development Obligations and Operational Realities” Discussion 6:45 pm - 7:15 pm 7:45 pm Banquet Palais Imperial 311-313 Dalhousie St., Ottawa, Ontario 51 Sunday, October 5, 2003 Coffee and Muffins 8:30 am – 9:00 am SESSION 5: 9:00 am - 10:30 am - Third Parties and Intervention Chair: Colleen Duggan – International Development Research Center, Ottawa, Ontario Lead Questioner: David Long - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University 9:00 am - 9:30 am paper Speaker: Peter Stockdale - Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee (CPCC), Conflict Prevention Working Group Topic: "Clash of Cultures: Institutional Alienation after Intervention, or Discovering Strange Bedfellows when the Bed's Upturned" 9:30 am - 10:00 am paper Speaker: Christiane Berthiaume – World Food Program, Geneva, Switzerland Topic: "Human Rights: Start With A Good Breakfast In The Morning" Discussion 10:00 am - 10:30 am Break 10:30 am - 10:45 am SESSION 6: 10:45 am - 12:15 pm – The Economics of Intervention: Theory and Evidence Chair: John M. Curtis – Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa, Canada Lead Questioner: Maureen Molot – Norman Paterson School International Affairs, Carleton University 10:45 am - 11:15 am paper Speaker: Jay Drydyk – Philosophy Department, Carleton University Topic: "Ethical Norms for Reconstruction" 11:15 am - 11:45 am paper Speaker: A.R.M. Ritter – Economics Department, Carleton University Topic: "US Intervention in Latin America: The Cuban and Chilean Cases Re-Considered." Discussion 11:45 pm - 12:15 pm Lunch Baker’s Grille 12:15 pm - 1:30 pm SESSION 7: 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm – Lessons of Intervention Chair: B. Herbert-Copley – International Development Research Centre, Ottawa Canada Lead Questioner: Jean Daudelin – Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University 1:30 pm - 2:00 pm paper Speaker: Stephen Stedman - Center for International Security & Cooperation, Stanford University Topic: "Ending Civil Wars: The Implementation of Peace Agreements." 2:00 pm - 2:30 pm paper Speaker: Dane Rowlands - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University Topic: "Does Official Development Finance Promote peace?". Discussion 2:30 pm - 3:00 pm