(June 24, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) I was born about a decade after World War II ended and the United Nations was set up. By the time I started schooling, the world had seemingly forgotten both the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Charter of the United Nations had apparently suffered the same fate. The reason why I say this is that I do not recall ever being taught in school either in the elementary level or at high school level of the “scourge of war” against which the United Nations was established or of the Holocaust. I do not recall being introduced to the UN Charter and to its fundamental principle that the purpose of the United Nations, as given in the Preamble to the Charter, is to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”.
One of the reasons for the absence in the educational curriculum of that time of focus on the United Nations, and its intended role during its incipient stage might have been that, during the period of the Cold War, apart from just one instance where member States came together to resist aggression with help of the UN, the UN’s contribution to world peace during that period was by no means tangible. During this time, many third world countries were ravaged by conflict exacerbated by superpowers who were getting involved in crises caused by retreating colonialism. The UN could do little except mark its presence, waiting to come to assistance if needed.
I was very little when the communal riots erupted in Sri Lanka in the late 1950s. Terrified of the chaos around me, I came to the conclusion that I had been begotten to a world full of hatred and discord. I did not realise, nor did I know then, that despite a recent holocaust and the senseless killing of millions of people, and a much vaunted “United” nations system in place which was designed to eradicate hatred, people still hated each other profoundly and did not hesitate to terminate others’ lives for reasons of race. Perhaps we were impelled at that time by the notion that what happened internally was our business and the United Nations could only step in if one State declared war or committed aggression against another. We could hate each other for as long as and as much as we pleased. Of course now we know, after more than half a century, that inasmuch as there would be no peace if normalcy in daily human intercourse were not restored, it is incontrovertible that there will be no lasting peace if the attendant hatred that goes into a war is not totally eradicated.
The intrinsic value to a society and perhaps to the whole world, of eschewing racial and national hatred is portrayed in the aftermath of the Holocaust - the defining event of the last century. Human rights in our lifetime cannot be comprehended without touching our own conceptual proximity to this and other recent events which marred the dignity of human civilization. The result of the Holocaust was the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which has now stood its ground over the past 50 plus years. The Universal Declaration, which has flourished both internationally and nationally, has been supplemented by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted in 1966. Both the Universal Declaration and the International Covenant have committees established to oversee their implementation. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is composed of 30 articles which asserts a human being’s just rights to civilized and dignified living. However, these articles and rights resonate just two words “never again” in their message. Regrettably, these words and the message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not permeate the minds of the survivors of the War and much of the generation that followed.
Ironically, now the world seems very much back to basics with regard to the United Nations and its intended role of international peacemaking and peacekeeping. There have been many instances where UN help has been sought in the area of peacekeeping as well as other forms of intervention calculated to rectify serious breaches of peace that led to killings. The glaring example of Darfur was one of the most significant, where in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, a killing spree went on mainly between the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited from local Arab tribes, and the non-Arab peoples of the region. The United Nations estimated at that time that 180,000 had died within eighteen months of the conflict. More than 1.8 million people were displaced from their homes. Two hundred thousand fled to neighboring Chad. Although the leaders of African countries showed strong resistance to non-African forces intervening in the crisis in Darfur, a Globe Scan poll revealed that in eight African countries surveyed, a majority (7 countries) or a plurality (1 country) believed the UN should have the right to intervene to stop human rights abuses such as genocide, and that the UN is the most popular force to intervene in situations like Darfur.
The most recent of such instances relates to Libya, where UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized States in March 2011 to inter alia “…take all necessary measures…to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi…”
It is widely believed that there should be UN intervention only if there were grave human rights violations and that matters not concerned with human rights but are concerned with the internal politics of a nation, particularly involving its sovereignty, would be best left to the country concerned to address. Former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, addressing the United Nations correctly stated : " The human rights situation is dramatically so different where an intervention is required. But there are so many other problems which are of a political nature, which have no human rights dimensions at all or very minimal, where intervention by the UN will be catastrophic from many points of view. Because firstly, sovereignty is a precious entitlement to all countries big or small. And I do not see the sovereign state disappearing overnight. I do not see it disappearing in a century. It will need a totally new world order to visualise a state of affairs where there will be no sovereign states".
When can the United Nations intervene?
Article 39 of the United Nations Charter provides that the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with articles 41 and 42 which respectively provide for non military and military intervention. Article 39 is intended to maintain and restore international peace and security. The operative word here is “international” which would seem to suggest that any intervention of the United Nations in a domestic crisis, with or without the use of armed forces, should be calculated to counter a threat to international peace and order. This would lead one to the conclusion that the Security Council would be reluctant to consider intervening in a purely domestic crisis which might not have international ramifications in terms of peace and order.
It is also noted that the Preamble to the Charter states inter alia , that, in order to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, the international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all the people would be deployed. Also, Article 1 of the Charter states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to maintain international peace, and to that effect take collective efforts for the prevention and removal of threats to peace.
One of the ways in which a domestic crisis could lead to a breach of international peace is when such a crisis would result in refugees fleeing borders, threatening the peace of neighbouring nations. Yet another would be if any of the parties involved in a domestic conflict were to spread its tentacles to other parts of the globe, thus threatening domestic or international peace in areas other than the one in which the crisis is taking place.
Article 41 of the UN Charter provides that the Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed forces are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruptions to economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations. Article 42 prescribes that, should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or would prove to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade and other operations by sea or land forces of members of the United Nations.
One interesting feature of these provisions is that nowhere is it stated that United Nations intervention would be directed only at a member State or group of States as aggressor. By this, Member States of the United Nations have given themselves, through the Security Council, wide powers to intervene in a domestic situation that might threaten or adversely affect international peace and security, irrespective of the parties involved. Article 40 of the Charter mentions that prior to measures of intervention, the United Nations Security Council may call upon the “parties concerned” to comply with any provisional measures that might have been adopted. These provisions do not affect the validity of Article 2.7 of the Charter which provides that nothing contained in the Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State or shall require members to submit such matters to settlement under the Charter. However, this rule is subject to enforcement measures which admit of self defence.
The abovementioned provisions in no way detract from the fundamental principle of self defence accorded to a member State by the Charter. Article 51 provides that nothing in the Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Again, the words international peace and security” prominently appear in the Charter.
The role of the United Nations became reckonable in the 1980s at the end of the Cold War giving the world hope that the Security Council and its five permanent members would be able to implement its mandate given to the United Nations in 1945. A seminal initiative was Resolution 598 of 20 July 1987 which was instrumental in ending the eight year Iran-Iraq war. This was followed by success in moving towards settlement of the already inflammatory conflicts in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, El Salvador, Eritrea, Namibia and Nicaragua.
The most significant instance of UN intervention of that time was concerning the 1990 invasion by Iraq of Kuwait, where the Security Council carried out enforcement action against aggression by one member State on another. Within what President Bush called “a new world order where the rule of law supplanted the law of the jungle”, the Security Council authorized sanctions and later approved military intervention to restore the sovereignty of Kuwait by what the Council called “all necessary means”. As in the Korean War of the 1950s, the Security Council order gave rise to action by an ad hoc coalition group led by the United States.
The aftermath of the restoration of sovereignty in Kuwait and the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait is of much interest to the subject of domestic crisis, as there were certain backlashes within Iraq where there were enormous uprisings against former President Saddam Hussein, which were reported to have been quelled with extreme brutality. This gave rise to the fleeing by hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees over the border to Iran and Turkey. The profound realization, that most atrocities occur during confrontations within countries and not between them, has now been entrenched in the social mindset of the world. The Security Council, in adopting Resolution 688 of 5 April 1991, and declaring that the Iraqi Kurd issue and the oppression of the Kurds by the Iraqi Government was a threat to international peace and security, gave justification to the recognition that a refugee issue resulting from an internal crisis could well ignite an international crisis threatening peace and security. The Resolution also gave three members of the Security Council – United States, Britain and France - the impetus to send troops to Iraq to stabilize the interests of the Kurdish population.
The Iraqi internal crisis, which prompted United Nations intervention, encouraged non government organizations and other interested parties to assume that the United Nations role in peacekeeping could extend to domestic crises. This was articulated best by President Francois Mitterrand when he said that the UN action in Iraq was encouraging since the UN had transcended the boundary of non interference and entered the realm of assisting people in need. It must be noted, however, that the success story of Security Council action in Iraq would not always remain an ideal. In similar manner, the Security Council adopted Resolution 794 of 3 December 1992 on Somalia which prompted the United States to send its troops. Instead of helping with restoring peace in the country, the United States found itself at battle with the Somali warlord General Farah Aidid. The US armed forces suffered humiliating losses which were difficult to justify to the people of the United States, prompting President Clinton to announce the withdrawal of US troops with effect from 31 March 1994. The UN forces in Somalia followed suit within the year, leaving behind a country worse off than it was before UN intervention.
Since there are success stories and failures in the UN docket on the issue of non intervention, the question is whether Article 2.7 of the UN Charter which does not allow the UN to intervene in the domestic affairs of States is absolute. John Stuart Mill, whose theories of non intervention were legend in 1859, approximately a century before the United Nations was established, came up with the interesting theory which might still be applicable and relevant. Mill was of the view that to go to war on an idea, particularly if the war was aggressive and not defensive, is as criminal as to go to war to plunder. Mill was vehement that one cannot force one’s ideas and views on other peoples. At the same time Mill hastened to add that a civilized nation should not be expected to tolerate or live next to a barbarian nation.
The UNs role in peacekeeping is not its only function in the realm of intervention. The Security Council can approve military intervention in various forms. For instance the Council can order that aggression be stopped or reversed, as happened in 1950 in Korea and 1991 in Kuwait. It can also restore a legitimate government that has been deposed, as happened in Haiti where the United States was authorized in 1994 to re install the deposed government. The Security Council can also impose a settlement on conflicting parties which happened in Lebanon with Syria. In addition, the Security Council has been instrumental in protecting imperilled populations such as those in India and East Pakistan before and after Bangladesh was born in 1971 and Vietnam and Cambodia in 1978. The crisis settlement in Tanzania and Uganda in 1979 and US intervention in Grenada in 1983 are also good examples, not to mention the US role in Northern Iraq in 1991. The United Nations has also enforced “no fly” zones to maintain peace ( United States and the United Kingdom in Northern Iraq in 1991 and Southern Iraq in 1992) prevent weapons from reaching the hands of the aggressor ( NATO and Western Europe in the Former Yugoslavia in 1991-1995 and enforce economic sanctions as happened when the United Kingdom enforced sanctions on behalf of the UN in Rhodesia ( now Zimbabwe).
As to the question whether a legitimate government can seek UN intervention in a domestic crisis has not been clearly answered. The operative consideration would be that such a request would go to the root of preserving State sovereignty which is endangered by the actions of a domestic aggressor. In such a case, intervention could be enforced by a State or group of States under authority or order of the Security Council. There has also been an instance of a UN peacekeeping forced being converted by decision of the Security Council into an intervention force with success as occurred in the Congo in 1960. However, such a transition would not be without stress to the civilians involved.
Irrespective of what the community of nations could do to settle a domestic dispute in a State, there is one thing that the State concerned could do as a long term measure and that is to educate generations of its citizens on the ideals of the United Nations and the need to eschew all forms of hatred. The educational curricula in the school system should pay particular attention to the scourge of war referred to in the UN Charter and educate the youth of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is real, in depth education and sensitizing that is needed and not just lip service to a passing concept.
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