International Politics, 2004, 41, (440–450) r 2004 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1384-5748/04 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/ip

The Future of Humanitarian Intervention? Shannon Peterson Department of Political Science, O725 Old Main Hill, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Armed Humanitarians: U.S. Interventions from Northern Iraq to Kosovo R.C. DiPrizio John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2002. 234 pp. $45.00 hardcover, $19.95 softcover Expanding Global Military Capacity for Humanitarian Intervention M.E. O’Hanlon Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2003. 125 pp. $ 46.95 hardcover, $18.95 softcover Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas J.L. Holzgrefe and R.O. Keohane (eds.) Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2003. 350 pp. $70.00 hardcover, $25.00 softcover

International Politics (2004) 41, 440–450. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800072

Introduction The debate over humanitarian intervention has yet to subside. After 9/11 and the ‘war against terrorism’, many in the academic and policy communities conjectured that such interventions and concerns would be overtaken by seemingly higher priority issues of great power national security. While the concern with terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) has given the debate a different tone, the recent war in Iraq illustrates that the line between military intervention and ‘armed humanitarian intervention’ is not altogether clear. The relevance of questioning, understanding and evaluating past, current and future acts of humanitarian intervention and, in particular, ‘armed humanitarian intervention’ appears increasingly pertinent. The three books under review all contribute important elements to the debate on humanitarian intervention. First, as illustrated by the title, the volume edited by J.L. Holzgrefe and Robert O. Keohane addresses key ethical, legal and political dilemmas surrounding issues of humanitarian intervention. The theoretical nature of this interdisciplinary group of essays is a nice counterbalance to the practical military considerations and policy implications

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of the second work, Expanding Global Military Capacity for Humanitarian Intervention, by Michael E. O’Hanlon. While O’Hanlon evaluates the need, requirements and current capabilities for creating a more effective international response to humanitarian crises, Robert C. DiPrizio takes a first stab at building a theory of intervention. In an evaluation of six major American humanitarian responses since the end of the Cold War, DiPrizio attempts to uncover the primary motives of US decision makers in undertaking or — in the case of Rwanda — not undertaking an armed humanitarian response to diverse internal state crises and conflicts. Together, the books reveal a common concern for improving interventions for humanitarian purposes, particularly armed interventions (involving the threat or the actual use of force), whether it be limiting or clarifying when such interventions are justified, enhancing the global military capacity to undertake such interventions, or shifting through the complex web of political motives in order to understand whether an intervention can or should be labeled as ‘humanitarian’ in the first place. All seem to agree on the possibility of and need for humanitarian interventions in the future. In addition, all directly or indirectly point to the importance of great powers, particularly the United States, in the evolution of the humanitarian global debate and dialogue. Together, the books reveal the relatively nascent theoretical state of scholarship in this field. While the authors might agree on a general need for continued humanitarian intervention, the consensus on when such intervention is justified, what the broader moral, legal and political implications of such interventions are, how the global community can overcome the military, political, and ethical obstacles to such interventions, and the definition of ‘humanitarian intervention’ itself remain less clear. While it is impossible to discuss all of the questions and issues that these three books raise, this review will address four basic questions on which they together or individually shed light: whether to intervene, when to intervene, how to intervene, and what motivates intervention.

Should Humanitarian Intervention Take Place? Defining Humanitarian Intervention Before addressing the issue of whether to intervene, it is necessary to define the concept of humanitarian intervention itself. While the authors appear concerned with humanitarian intervention in its most forceful or coercive form (i.e., ‘armed’ humanitarian intervention), there is no clear consensus on its definition. In the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume, Holzgrefe defines humanitarian intervention as ‘the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave International Politics 2004 41

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violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied’ (p. 18). One problem with the Holzgrefe definition — addressed by scholars such as John Holbrook (2002) — is the lack of specification regarding ‘widespread and grave violations of fundamental human rights’. What constitutes widespread and grave violations? And, more importantly, who is doing the defining? If the definition of such acts resides with the intervenor, the greater the potential for intervention abuse. Like the authors in the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume, DiPrizio — as his title indicates — is also concerned with coercive interventions involving the ‘threat or use of force’. However, noting the problematic nature of the term ‘humanitarian’, DiPrizio argues that the term ‘humanitarian intervention’ should be limited to coercive interventions either primarily motivated by humanitarian concerns or consciously designed to promote humanitarian outcomes (6). For DiPrizio, these humanitarian concerns and/or outcomes should include some if not all of the following goals: (1) stop the fighting; (2) stop the dying through the provision of emergency relief aid; (3) promote peace, justice, and human rights; (4) promote development and reconstruction (DiPrizio, p. 5). While the absence of state permission or consent is not a part of DiPrizio’s definition, his notion of humanitarian intervention appears more expansive, although he, too, fails to address the question of defining the problem. In contrast to Holzgrefe, DiPrizio includes post-intervention concerns of development and reconstruction. Both emphasize the intent of intervening actors. Meanwhile, in Expanding Global Military Capacity, O’Hanlon fails to define the term humanitarian intervention, or to distinguish between it and other forms of intervention, arguing that his interest lies in producing a global capacity to stop deadly conflict ‘through peacekeeping, peace enforcement, or forcible humanitarian intervention operations’ (p. 14). Consequently, his book fails to contribute to the dialogue of what humanitarian intervention does or does not entail. The lack of consensus over a definition of humanitarian intervention in these three works appears reflective of both the general scholarship in this area and some of the current policy debate regarding intervention in general. For instance, which is more important to the definition of humanitarian intervention: the intent of the intervening actor(s) or the outcome? Both the DiPrizio and Holzgrefe definitions could apply equally to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the 1999 NATO war against Kosovo, or the 1992 US-led UN coalition to Somalia. Does this lack of definitional clarity matter? Are there distinctions between these acts that are important to the humanitarian intervention concept? While many of the questions are raised to a certain extent in these three volumes, agreement as to their relative importance is absent. International Politics 2004 41

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Sovereignty vs Human Rights A common problem with humanitarian intervention identified in the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume is the tension between two international principles: state sovereignty vs protection of human rights. The dilemma facing individual states and the international community when considering humanitarian intervention is which of these two conflicting principles should prevail. As Fernando R. Teso´n argues (in Holzgrefe and Keohane), ‘either we intervene and put an end to massacres, in which case we apparently violate the general prohibition of war, or we abstain from intervening, in which case we tolerate the violation by other states of the general prohibition of gross human rights abuses’ (p. 110). Taking the position that human rights are indeed universal, Teso´n argues that the international community (in particular, the liberal international community) is obligated to uphold them, as human rights are intrinsic, while sovereignty is a concept merely instrumental to achieving other human values and objectives (p. 110). In Teso´n’s view, gross violations of human rights are then essentially violations of sovereignty. For authors such as Teso´n and Allen Buchanan (in Holzgrefe and Keohane), the current system is morally inadequate as it privileges the principle of sovereignty over and, in Teso´n’s view, separates it from human rights. According to the authors, this moral imbalance is upheld by the United Nations Charter. Although there is a disagreement between the authors in the volume on this point, the standard position is that in order to be deemed ‘legal’, armed humanitarian intervention requires United Nations Security Council authorization under Chapter VII of the UN charter (Buchanan, p. 165; Byers and Chesterman, p. 180, both in Holzgrefe and Keohane). For both Teso´n and Allen, this is a system deficiency that requires reform in order close what Buchanan and others address as the ‘unacceptable gap’ between what international law allows in terms of protecting human rights and what morality requires (Buchanan, p. 131; Teso´n, p. 93; Franck, p. 211; all in Holzgrefe and Keohane). Despite such claims, the authors acknowledge that rejecting sovereignty and the principle of nonintervention can lead to potential abuse (Buchanan, pp. 153, 166; Teso´n, p. 111; both in Holzgrefe and Keohane), although both seem to concur that inaction in the face of humanitarian crisis and violence is a more serious concern. Building on this last point and in contrast to the previous two authors, Michael Byers and Simon Chesterman (in Holzgrefe and Keohane) argue that relaxing the principle of nonintervention — or, more specifically, permitting authorized intervention — increases the international system’s instability and vulnerability to abuse by great powers (p. 197). In other words, the principle of sovereign equality should trump that of unauthorized humanitarian intervention. In their view, the only way to justify the 1999 NATO intervention in International Politics 2004 41

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Kosovo, which was not authorized by the UN Security Council, would be to view it as a case of ‘exceptional illegality’. This interpretation, according to the authors, would be consistent with the historical norm of nonintervention and the desire by most states to avoid changing ‘the rules about the rules’. By shifting the burden on intervening states to clarify the mitigating circumstances of acts of intervention, the international community (i.e., the UN Security Council) can thus determine the validity of state claims and decide on appropriate reparations. For the authors, the view of the entire society of states, not just the major powers, is crucial to the development and change of international law (p. 196). If this idea is relaxed, the supposedly universal concept of ‘human rights’ and ‘humanitarian’ intervention would be susceptible to varied, narrow and particularistic interests of great powers (p. 191). As stated by the authors, ‘the greatest threat to an international rule of law lies not in an occasional breach of the law y, but in attempts to mould that law to accommodate the shifting practices of the powerful’ (p. 203). Meanwhile, Thomas M. Franck (in Holzgrefe and Keohane), takes a more pragmatic approach to the problem. Franck rejects a strict ‘classicist’ (see Farar, p. 61, for discussion of classicist interpretations, in Holzgrefe and Keohane) or legal positivist (Holzgrefe, pp. 35–36) interpretation of the law in favor of a more evolutionary and contextual approach that advocates the importance of ‘necessity’ and ‘mitigation’ in evaluating an interventionist act’s justifiability (pp. 212–214). According to Franck, an analysis of past interventions (e.g., 1971 Indian invasion of Pakistan, 1978 Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, 1978 Tanzanian invasion of Uganda, 1979 French participation in the overthrow of Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Empire, 1991 US/French/British intervention in Northern Iraq, 1999 NATO invasion of Kosovo) reveals that the international system pragmatically, and in a case-by-case manner assesses the evidence, facts and process in its determination between legitimate and illegitimate acts of intervention. Where some acts receive universal or near universal condemnation, others appear to be tolerated as evidenced by the noted lack of public denouncements. Some may in fact receive ‘retroactive validation’ through subsequent Security Council actions (e.g., authorization of a UN presence to cooperate with the intervening force) (pp. 216–226). In an essentially constructivist approach to the problem, Franck argues that this ‘jurying function’ of the international system places a premium on context and shared perceptions. Key in the determination of an act’s legitimacy is the commonly perceived: (1) credibility of the evidence, (2) ‘cleanliness’ of intervening state motives, (3) immediacy and gravity of the challenge to world peace and common humanitarian values, and (4) the appropriateness and proportionality of the use of force (p. 227). In his appeal to ‘commonly’ held values and perceptions (whether they pertain to morality or law), Franck does International Politics 2004 41

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not appear far removed from Byers and Chesterman. However, unlike Byers and Chesterman, for Franck the real danger to international law and system stability is strict adherence to legal principles that violate current commonly held moral beliefs. In other words, if it is not flexible, the international legal system itself will wither due to perceived lack of legitimacy.

When Should Humanitarian Intervention Take Place? Likelihood of Success As illustrated in the above discussion, closely related to and in fact intermingled with the question of whether humanitarian intervention should happen is that of when it should happen. Assuming that humanitarian intervention is at least in some circumstances justified, one is faced with determining the necessary conditions for such acts. For O’Hanlon and the authors in the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume, conflicts characterized by genocide, mass casualties and/or gross violations of human rights appear to warrant outside intervention (O’Hanlon, p. 23; Teso´n, p. 94; Buchanan, p. 131). However, for both O’Hanlon and several authors in the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume, the likelihood of success should be an important determining factor when decision makers are faced with the political decision of when to intervene. For O’Hanlon, success involves a calculation of the relative risks, humanitarian stakes and possible future benefits of any intervention (pp. 12– 20; 30–31), although the author is not entirely clear as to whether such calculations involve the intervenor(s), target or both. For several authors in the Holzrefe and Keohane volume, success or the potential effectiveness of intervention is a key factor that is often overlooked in many of the normative humanitarian debates. As Holzgrefe notes, much of the debate over the justice of humanitarian intervention fails to adequately consider the direct and immediate consequences of such actions, let alone the peripheral and remote ones (p. 50). Likewise, as Jane Stromseth notes in Chapter seven (in Holzgrefe and Keohane), ‘the normative debate over the circumstances warranting humanitarian intervention would be incomplete unless the question of effectiveness of using military force for humanitarian purposes is fully addressed. For an intervention to be legitimate it should, at the very least, do more good than harm’ (pp. 267–268). As Stromseth argues, if the intervenors do not have the means, capacity or political will to sufficiently respond to conflicts or crises, or to ensure that the underlying roots of instability and conflict are adequately addressed, then the legitimacy of future interventions is questioned. Robert Keohane and Michael Ignatieff both address the issue of effectiveness and post-intervention consequences in the final two chapters of International Politics 2004 41

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the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume. According to Keohane, ‘evaluations of legitimacy, or prudence, of humanitarian intervention should be conditional on estimates of eventual political success’ (p. 276). For both authors, the effectiveness of intervention is to some extent determined by the ‘neighborhood’ of the conflict. While the ‘neighborhood’ concept has a definite geographical component, Keohane (p. 293) emphasizes that it is, to some degree, also a social construction susceptible to redefinition. A ‘good’ as opposed to ‘bad’ neighborhood is one built on common interests and values, where there exists, in Robert Putnam’s (2000) terms a relatively high degree of social capital and trust as well as a willingness to surrender degrees of sovereignty (Keohane, pp. 292–295; Ignatieff, pp. 311–314). In contrast, ‘bad’ neighborhoods are essentially characterized by weak and failed states, human rights abuses and resource-fueled ‘war economies’ (Ignatieff, p. 303). According to Keohane, post-intervention nation-building (or in his terms ‘institution building’) — a critical component of long-term political success of humanitarian intervention — is more effective in good neighborhoods as opposed to bad, given that ‘institutions ‘‘piggyback’’ on existing strong institutions, on the basis of both organizational support and of the interests that have been created by the earlier institutions’ (Keohane, p. 291). According to this logic, it would seem to follow that if long-term success is a critical determining factor, intervention decisions should be limited to good as opposed to bad neighborhoods (i.e. choose intervention in Europe as opposed to Africa). While this might hold in theory, Keohane and Ignatieff note the changing perceptions of the dangers associated with failed and weak states since 9/11 means that states may feel increasingly compelled to intervene in ‘bad neighborhoods’, despite the associated post-intervention difficulties. In these cases, outside intervenors may have to gradually cede sovereignty to the targeted population as the institution-building process develops rather than to immediately extend to weak and instable states ‘Westphalian’ notions of sovereignty that can lead to a recurrence of conflict and the abuse of minority groups (Keohane, pp. 296–297).

How Should Humanitarian Intervention Take Place? Unilateral vs Collective Intervention The question of collective vs unilateral humanitarian intervention is another point of interest in the Holzgrefe and Keohane, and O’Hanlon books. For O’Hanlon, unilateral humanitarian intervention is less of concern. According to the author, if their strategic interests are at stake, great powers are likely to have the means and political will to take unilateral military action to deal with conflicts and crises (p. 20). His concern therefore lies in those humanitarian International Politics 2004 41

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conflicts and crises that lay beyond great power strategic interests. Utilizing a persuasive array of global military statistics that focus on combat troops, strategic lift, and logistic capability, O’Hanlon demonstrates that the international community, excluding the United States which will likely be preoccupied with its own external commitments, is ill-prepared to deal with deadly future global conflicts of the scope and type that have erupted over the last decade. For O’Hanlon, the question then is how can the international community improve its collective capacity to handle future humanitarian crises? Utilizing the US military model and past conflicts as a basis for analysis (p. 85), O’Hanlon argues that the international community needs to double its current capacity from the approximate 100,000 troops that it currently sustains to a force of around 200,000. Taking into consideration troop rotation and relief, he argues that the actual number of deployable troops needed is closer to 500– 600,000. Given these figures, O’Hanlon proceeds to assess the regional and country requirements for military spending and reform necessary to meet this goal. While he does not argue for major changes in the United States’ military role towards armed humanitarian interventions, he does imply that an increase in the international community’s capacity for humanitarian action will be unlikely without US political and economic assistance and willingness to cede some political control over such operations (p. 15–16). In terms of the ethical/normative dilemma, the consensus in the Holgrefe and Keohane volume appears to be that collective interventions are superior to unilateral ones. Farar argues that collective interventions appear privileged because in the jury of public opinion, process matters. While Farar addresses the relative legitimacy of collective interventions, he fails to distinguish between different types of collectivities. Buchanan and Teso´n, however, take up this point in their chapters. For both authors, the type of intervening state matters: liberal democratic alliances are inherently more legitimate than nonliberal democratic alliances (Teso´n, p. 94; Buchanan, p. 176). However, like Farar, Teso´n and Buchanan seem to imply that the legitimacy of such actions is based on process. As Buchanan notes with regards to the NATO intervention in Kosovo: ‘How the action is characterized by a majority of states will make a difference as to what is serves as a precedent for. There is all the difference in the world between regarding y intervention by a military alliance and as an intervention by a military alliance of liberal–democratic states, with the accountability that this implies’ (p. 167). However, unlike Teso´n, who viewed the NATO intervention as justified, Buchanan implies that the intervention was not justified. Buchanan argues that the Kosovo intervention should not be seen as signaling a new norm of unauthorized intervention because after the intervention, the NATO actors themselves did not actively work to encourage international normative deliberation in that direction (pp. 168–170). International Politics 2004 41

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What Motivates Intervention? The post-cold war asymmetry in the military capacity for undertaking global interventions, as illustrated in the O’Hanlon book, and the emphasis that all of the authors place on state intent makes understanding US motivations for intervention even more pertinent. The DiPrizio piece thus provides a nice counter to the other two works. Utilizing a combination of primary and secondary sources, DiPrizio in Armed Humanitarians analyzes decision making in six post-Cold War cases of what are generally recognized as humanitarian interventions (Northern Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo) and one case of nonintervention (Rwanda) in and effort to uncover the primary factors that motivated the US responses to the crises. DiPrizio concludes that ‘soft security’ concerns (e.g., allied relations, regional stability, refugees) were the primary motivating factors in the six cases, followed by domestic political concerns (e.g., electoral politics, public opinion, presidential impeachment). The factors carrying the least explanatory weight were, according to the author, humanitarian (p. 153). DiPrizio concludes that in each case multiple motivations factored into US decision making. DiPrizio concludes that the greatest influence on US responses to humanitarian crises is the presidency itself. According to DiPrizio, since few humanitarian crises threaten vital national security interests, the lack of a consensus on an appropriate policy gives the president wide discretion in deciding the American response (p. 164). A major problem with DiPrizio’s findings is his method of classification. Lacking a systematic method of data analysis, DiPrizio’s classification of motives as ‘primary’, ‘secondary’, or ‘negligible’ strikes the reader as somewhat subjective and arbitrary, which leads to the questioning of the validity of his conclusions.

Conclusion As a collection, these three books provide an interesting snapshot of the debate on humanitarian intervention prior to the recent US-led war with Iraq. Although primarily aimed at debating, understanding, and coping with humanitarian intervention in failed states, one is struck by how easily the arguments and points of each work transcend current debates and dilemmas. At the heart of each piece lies the age-old dilemma surrounding the use force: when is it justified? How should it be used? What motivates its use? The emphasis on the ‘humanitarian’ nature of intervention, however, does point to a normative evolution in the thinking about the use of force and the nature of sovereignty — an idea that each of the books to one extent or another supports. However, the exact nature of that normative evolution, the degree to which it has been globally disseminated (as all of the authors in this collection International Politics 2004 41

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are essentially from Western industrialized democracies), and its implications for actor behavior in the international system are still not clear. Overall, each work brings important insight to the debate on (humanitarian) intervention. The essays in the Holzgrefe and Keohane volume address critical — and often conflicting — ethical, legal and political considerations that are crucial to the dialogue on humanitarian intervention, a dialogue that is necessary if a consensus on the justifiability of humanitarian intervention and military intervention in general is to be achieved. However, such a discussion is of limited value if it is divorced from the political and practical dilemmas and contexts in which intervention decisions are based. The DiPrizio and the O’Hanlon volumes help address some of those political and practical issues. If there is a normative evolution surrounding the legitimacy of force for serving humanitarian ends, as both the O’Hanlon and the Holzgrefe and Keohane works assume, then more attention needs to be devoted to understanding the international community’s capacity to cope with humanitarian crises and conflicts. As the responses to the varied humanitarian crises in the 1990s revealed, real problems and obstacles to effective international humanitarian intervention exist. One major problem is the international community’s dependence on the military leadership of the United States, a fact that is illustrated by the statistics in the O’Hanlon volume. However, as many of the other authors in three works imply, military capacity is insufficient without political will. O’Hanlon assumes that if the international community’s military capacity is increased, its willingness to undertake humanitarian interventions — particularly in areas of the world where great power strategic interests are lacking — will also. But does such an assumption necessarily follow? Is there enough global political will to build such a force, let alone agree to use it? Although his motive classification is somewhat suspect, if DiPrizio is correct, then humanitarian concerns were of relatively minor significance to US post-Cold War decisions of intervention. This raises some interesting questions for the debate over the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention and the utility of a global humanitarian force. If one — if not the — major state champion of human rights over the last 30–50 years regards humanitarian imperatives as secondary to domestic political and security concerns, will others in the international community be willing to raise their priority? Will states, in particular institutionalized democracies, be willing to risk the lives of their own military forces in order to protect and save the lives of others, particularly in the absence of vital national interests? The 1993 and 1994 US and international responses to Somalia and Rwanda shed doubt on such a proposition. As for other related questions, which matters more: the actual motives for humanitarian intervention or the common perception of those motives? The immediate consequences of interventions or their long-term prospects? Is it the global discourse or actual state behavior (and, in particular, International Politics 2004 41

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great power behavior) that determines the global evolution of norms? Is there such a thing as ‘humanitarian’ intervention? While some of these issues were indirectly raised by the several authors in the Holzgrefe and Keohane book, these are important questions in need of further development. Finally, as many of the authors stress the importance of shared perceptions and normative understandings, it seems clear that additional research in the constructivist and decision-making traditions may help to provide valuable insight into many of these matters. Meanwhile, more systematic empirical research needs to be done on understanding the humanitarian, political, and security consequences of intervention. Moreover, if a consensus is to develop on what is or should constitute ‘humanitarian’ intervention, then the parameters of that concept need to be further refined. In short, these three works suggest that the scope of legitimacy regarding intervention and the use of force has expanded to include humanitarian concerns, particularly since the end of the Cold War. What impact this has for the future course of world politics remains to be both debated and seen. References Holbrook, J. (2002) ‘Humanitarian Intervention and the Recasting of International Law’, in D. Chandler (ed.) Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to International Politics, New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Putnam, R.D. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, New York: Simon & Schuster.

About the Author Shannon Peterson (Ph.D., Ohio State University) is a lecturer of political science at Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA. Her current research interests are in foreign policy decision making, with an emphasis on humanitarian intervention.

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