International Intervention to Protect is the Same As Stopping the Bully

When I think of the responsibility to protect others, I think of the bully in the playground. We teach children that they must intervene or at the very least call someone who can intervene when bullying is occuring. It is the sign of a civilised society. To cheer at the sidelines is incredibly insensitive and a sign of the drama of violence in the playground. I see the international situation as the same, if we want to create a civilised peaceful international community, we have to develop ethical guidelines backed up by law to enforce participation to stop violence on all levels.

I recall at a Conference on Bullying a film played in front of me that showed a person being knocked over by a car and the passersby doing nothing. Another incident was acting out a child being abducted and really making it clear she is being abducted, people ignored it. Two guys (who looked like thugs) turned out to be the ones who took responsibility and stopped the guy dragging the girl. Other footage was shown to make the point that others on witnessing violence or problems, do nothing. Makes you think of the idea evil flourishes when good people do nothing. I think it is a central issue and possibly reflecting a disempowered and disengaged society and indeed, world community. I speak of world community rather than international, as it feels as if I am moving from politics/economics to humanity. The world community is the forum to take responsibility I feel.

In my previous blogs I find myself musing about the middle east. It seems to me to be the most visible of conflicts and the one that they don’t appear to be able to resolve internally or internationally. It is prime example (visibly) of a good reason why intervention is a step towards peace. You hear of people feuding for years, they do require third parties to break deadlocks. I am not thinking of third parties as non binding parties, but binding parties, they have the power to enforce a decision.

I had a journey through the Geneva conventions in my previous blog and how clearly what is going on in the middle east is contravening a raft of international laws and protocols. So I wonder what is preventing action from happening? Isn’t 60 years long enough to be deadlocked or indeed for some, dead who could have been living today. If it was happening to decision makers, I am sure action would be imminent. There is a lack of real empathy for our fellow humanbeings and a seeming paralysis.

Here are some thoughts to contribute to possibilies. I recall interviewing on radio many years ago a Quaker David Hartsough who started a Nonviolent Peaceforce. Their objective is to create safe spaces for civilians. It is important to empower civilians at the grassroots level. They see and hear what is going on. If they are empowered they can work as a civil society group and initiate nonviolent and effective action to expand and strengthen peace. Peace is a universal value which enables people to think through options without hate and to inspire positive solutions. If the people do not cooperate with violence, then militaries or militia’s have less grounds for killing. If people attack back then killing is justified, so nonviolence is very important.

I like the idea of a peaceforce in civilian hands rather than Governments with military personnel. The civilians must be considered ethical and respected citizens, you don’t want corrupt members. It is good if they know each other. You can find out more information at http://www.nonviolentpeaceforce.org/

Ultimately the civilians are the real power and they have to find this power to start to stand up against injustice whether it is their own government or another. They can do it nonviolently and use social media to generate support. We are in a world where help is not far away, people just need to know who needs it, is it genuine and you will find civilians across the world are generous.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/58437/gareth-evans-and-mohamed-sahnoun/the-responsibility-to-protect

REVISITING HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

The international community in the last decade repeatedly made a mess of handling the many demands that were made for “humanitarian intervention”: coercive action against a state to protect people within its borders from suffering grave harm. There were no agreed rules for handling cases such as Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo at the start of the 1990s, and there remain none today. Disagreement continues about whether there is a right of intervention, how and when it should be exercised, and under whose authority.

Since September 11, 2001, policy attention has been captured by a different set of problems: the response to global terrorism and the case for “hot preemption” against countries believed to be irresponsibly acquiring weapons of mass destruction. These issues, however, are conceptually and practically distinct. There are indeed common questions, especially concerning the precautionary principles that should apply to any military action anywhere. But what is involved in the debates about intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere is the scope and limits of countries’ rights to act in self-defense — not their right, or obligation, to intervene elsewhere to protect peoples other than their own.

Meanwhile, the debate about intervention for human protection purposes has not gone away. And it will not go away so long as human nature remains as fallible as it is and internal conflict and state failures stay as prevalent as they are. The debate was certainly a lively one throughout the 1990s. Controversy may have been muted in the case of the interventions, by varying casts of actors, in Liberia in 1990, northern Iraq in 1991, Haiti in 1994, Sierra Leone in 1997, and (not strictly coercively) East Timor in 1999. But in Somalia in 1993, Rwanda in 1994, and Bosnia in 1995, the UN action taken (if taken at all) was widely perceived as too little too late, misconceived, poorly resourced, poorly executed, or all of the above. During NATO’s 1999 intervention in Kosovo, Security Council members were sharply divided; the legal justification for action without UN authority was asserted but largely unargued; and great misgivings surrounded the means by which the allies waged the war.