Perspectives on Peace: An Examination of Post-Conflict Societies

Ok, i think i figured out this Blog thing.
Dan, you make a great argument for a revamp of our current notion of sovereignty and the need to make it easier for the international community to act.

I agree with you in principle, but not in practice. I believe that the UN system in its current set-up (i’m talking specifically about the UN security council and its veto system) is in such a position to make rapid action and effective measures against human rights violators near impossible.

To even get the UN to agree on such a set of conditions would be impossible.

I argue that the focus needs to be on other international institutions such as the EU, AU, NATO and other regional associations of states to act and enforce in their specific regions.

If we look at the case examples from the course we can see the same trend – Rwanda (no action from the UN), Uganda (no action from the UN), Yugoslavia (NATO action after failed UN attempts) Cambodia (no UN action, Vietnam actually ended the bloodshed of the Khmer Rouge) Sri Lanka (no action).

I believe that the role of the UN should not be the decider but more of a element of last resort, leaving regional organizations to attempt to pressure and if needs be, remove inhuman rulers.
This stems the neo-colonialist, major power domination of the UN and its security council.

Provide technological and monetary support to regional organizations to combat these regional issues to which they are much more heavily invested e.g. the AU and its emerging rapid deployment force.

The U.N. is too often seen as the only bastion for hope and change in the international system but it is too crowded with politics and great power interests – the shift needs to be towards regional action for greatest effect.

hopefully this made some sense, i felt as if i went on a little.

I think your thoughts on redefining the concept of state sovereignty warrants a mention of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (our leetle friend R2P).

Considering that a state is deemed failing or failed, let’s say it does not meet any of the criteria that you outlined, and let’s say that the checks and balances that you suggest clearly indicate that all other means of addressing the grave circumstances have been exhausted…does this warrant intervention of the international community for humanitarian reasons to “save” or “protect” the citizens of said states when their institutions are unwilling/unable to do so themselves? What if the states themselves, as we have seen in many cases, are the source of insecurity?

Anyways before I ramble on too long, I wanted to bring up that while normatively this might seem to me to be the answer to your question on state sovereignty. However, as people may or may not know the R2P doctrine that has once been lauded as a (Canadian born) huge progression in intl security discourse has now fallen to the wayside in the light of criticisms of it as a western/liberal excuse to intervene in the affairs of other countries for its own interests.

What do you think about this? What do you think about many states from developing nations who aren’t characterized as failing states who see this as a dangerous slippery slope kind of imposition on their state sovereignty?

This discourse makes me inclined to agree with James that maybe regional approaches are the way to go….

Thanks for your comments guys. Just to clarify, I suggested “international bodies such as the UN” ought to intervene when a state is not meeting basic expectations. My thinking here was that the UN was an appropriate international forum as it is one of the leading organizations in establishing broad consensus on norms in international relations, at the very least. I may have overlooked the UN’s shitty performance in most situations when they do more than talk about stuff, as James pointed out.

And thanks Julia, I was unfamiliar with the R2P principles, so it’s good to see that this debate IS actually taking place in the UN, albeit very slowly.

SO, for all the UN’s faults, why not finish a debate that has already been established there, by refining the components of R2P so that it is accepted and signed? To me, gaining widespread support at the UN for the norms under R2P is the first step to be taken.

However, maybe other int’l actors ought to actually have the mandate to intervene in the rogue state. But which multilateral organization(s) is/are best suited to actually enforcing the R2P (through diplomacy, sanctions and in extreme cases, military intervention)? I’m not sure…

The AU is a strong supporter of the R2P, which is interesting since they are opposed to the ICC. Maybe regional bodies such as the AU can authorize international action with early crisis warning system mechanisms. So regional organizations may be suited to recommend intervention, but I don’t think that the AU has sufficient resources to successfully intervene itself.

Thoughts???