Just Policing and the Responsibility to Protect

Brian Steidle, a former United States Marine captain who served in Kosovo and who is now a human rights activist, journalist and photographer shares the following experience from when he served as a monitor for the African Union in the Darfur region of western Sudan: Ahmed and I headed toward a large nim tree on the outskirts of Wash al tool, where 250 homeless women and children had stopped earlier in the day to share in the small piece of shade. They had escaped the initial conflict in Alliet, a town of 15,000 we had just visited. The village was the most recent to fall prey to Government of Sudan troops in what was now described by Western diplomats – publicly, if belatedly – as genocide … The baby's breathing was labored, and she was wheezing noticeably. Upon closer inspection, I realized that this tiny human being had been shot in the back – the child had gaping entry and exit wounds that accentuated her struggle to breathe. Her guardian looked up at me with a blank gaze. “What's her name?” I stammered, my sense of disbelief audible in my tone. “Mihad Hamid”, she said after a quick translation of my question.1 1 Brian Steidle (and Gretchen Steidle Wallace), The Devil Came on Horseback: Bearing Witness to the Genocide in Darfur, PublicAffairs/Perseus Books Group, New York, 2007, p. xi. See also Alex de Waal (ed) War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, Global Equity Initiative/Harvard University, London and Cambridge, MA, 2007. … In Baraka, 10 villagers had been tortured and brutally murdered by the Janjaweed … Several bloody corpses filled a shallow grave. They were lined up in a row and covered with grass mats. Images from the Holocaust and Rwanda filled my mind. I looked closer. Every single man in this countless row of African civilians had had his eyes plucked out and his ears cut off.2 2 Brian Steidle, The Devil Came on Horseback, p. 88. During that six-month stint as one of three United States military observers assigned to Darfur, Steidle witnessed many horrific atrocities, which are documented in his book, The Devil Came on Horseback. The title refers to the Janjaweed, a faction accused of much of the genocide in Darfur. According to the United Nations, 200,000 people have been killed, 2.5 million have been driven from their homes to refugee camps, and 4 million have been directly affected by the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan and neighbouring Chad.3 3 http://www.un.org/depts/dpko/missions/unmis/background.html (Accessed 10.12.2010). In view of such crimes against humanity, a new international norm, “the responsibility to protect” (R2P), has emerged. The phrase first appeared in a 2001 report by that title4 4 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, “The Responsibility to Protect”, December 2001; available at http://www.iciss.ca/report2-en.asp (Accessed 10.12.2010). issued by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, an initiative of the Canadian government to reflect on how to move beyond the moral and jurisprudential obstacles surrounding what was referred to as “humanitarian intervention” during the 1990s in connection with “the kinds of catastrophic assaults on individuals and communities that the world has witnessed”5 5 World Council of Churches, “Vulnerable Populations at Risk: Statement on the Responsibility to Protect”, adopted by the Ninth Assembly, meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, 14–23 February 2006; available at http://www.oikoumene.org/gr/resources/documents/assembly/porto-alegre-2006/1-statements-documents-adopted/international-affairs/report-from-the-public-issues-committee/responsibility-to-protect.html (Accessed 10.12.2010). in countries such as Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo. The United Nations subsequently studied this proposal, and at the 2005 World Summit, member states endorsed R2P. A report in January 2009 from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on “Implementing the Responsibility to Protect” led to further debate, and a resolution by the General Assembly in July 2009 committed the body to more discussion of R2P.6 6 2005 World Summit Outcome Document, available at http://www.who.int/hiv/universalaccess2010/worldsummit.pdf (Accessed 10.12.2010); “Implementing the Responsibility to Protect”, available at http://globalr2p.org/pdf/SGR2PEng.pdf (Accessed 10.12.2010) A/RES/63/308 on “The Responsibility to Protect”, available at http://globalr2p.org/media/pdf/UNResolutionA63L.80Rev.1.pdf (Accessed 10.12.2010). For its part, the World Council of Churches (WCC), as a component of its Decade to Overcome Violence, has studied, debated and come to affirm R2P. The recommendations of a report from the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs under the title “The Responsibility to Protect: Ethical and Theological Reflections” were endorsed by the WCC central committee in 2003. This was followed by the adoption in February 2006 of the statement “Vulnerable Populations at Risk: Statement on the Responsibility to Protect”, during the WCC's ninth assembly at Porto Alegre, Brazil.7 7 Ninth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, “Vulnerable Populations at Risk: Statement on the Responsibility to Protect”, 14–23 February 2006, Porto Alegre, Brazil; available at http://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/assembly/porto-alegre-2006/1-statements-documents-adopted/international-affairs/report-from-the-public-issues-committee/responsibility-to-protect.html (Accessed 10.12.2010). Most recently, in 2009, the WCC invoked R2P to spark international concern about Israel's actions in Gaza.8 8 http://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/executive-committee/bossey-february-2009/statement-on-the-gaza-war.html (Accessed 10.12.2010). The Roman Catholic Church also has begun to refer to R2P, with Pope Benedict XVI mentioning it in his address to the General Assembly of the UN on 18 April 2008 and, more recently, in his major social encyclical Caritas in Veritate, which was issued on 29 June 2009, calling for R2P's implementation.9 9 Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the United Nations, 18 April 2008, available at http://www.un.org/webcast/pdfs/Pope_speech.pdf (Accessed 10.12.2010); Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html (Accessed 10.12.2010). So far, little work has been done in Catholic circles on R2P, however. For a recent article that attempts to introduce Catholics to the topic, see David Hollenbach, “Humanitarian Intervention: Why, When and How”, Commonweal 137, no. 19 (November 5, 2010), 9–11. Although there certainly continues to be debate about the concept in the international public square as well as within the churches, R2P seems to be gaining purchase as we embark upon this second decade of the 21st century.10 10 For a helpful recent article on how R2P offers a normative vocabulary for motivating action and as a policy agenda still needing implementation, see Alex J. Bellamy, “The Responsibility to Protect – Five Years On”, Ethics and International Affairs 24, no. 2 (2010), 143–69. Gareth Evans, who conducted pioneering work on R2P, believes it provides a “new way of talking about the whole issue of humanitarian intervention”.11 11 Gareth Evans, “The Responsibility to Protect: Moving Towards a Shared Consensus” in Semegnish Asfaw, Guillermo Kerber and Peter Weiderud, The Responsibility to Protect: Ethical and Theological Reflections, World Council of Churches, Geneva, 2005, p. 5. R2P nuances and qualifies national sovereignty, which is no longer understood as an absolute right to non-interference. Instead, state sovereignty entails responsibilities on the part of a nation to its own citizens; however, if a state fails to fulfill its primary responsibility to protect its own citizens, this responsibility transfers to the international community. The focus, as former WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser puts it, is on “the human security of all people everywhere”, especially those most at risk.12 12 Konrad Raiser, “The Ethics of Protection”, in Semegnish Asfaw, Guillermo Kerber and Peter Weiderud (eds) The Responsibility to Protect, p. 11. R2P seeks to prevent and stop four crimes – genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing – and involves three primary obligations: the responsibility to prevent (addressing the root and direct causes of conflict putting populations at risk); the responsibility to react (responding to egregious threats to human security through appropriate measures, including coercive measures such as sanctions and, in extreme cases, forceful military intervention); and the responsibility to rebuild (assisting with recovery, reconstruction and reconciliation, as well as addressing the causes of the threat that the intervention averted or stopped). A 2001statement, “The Protection of Endangered Populations in Situations of Armed Violence: Toward an Ecumenical Ethical Approach”, presented to the WCC Central Committee, emphasized a Christian ethic of “just peacemaking” to prevent conflict, build peace, resolve and Central of the World Council of Churches, “The Protection of Endangered Populations in Situations of Armed Violence: Toward an Ecumenical Ethical available at especially at and (Accessed 10.12.2010). The Central and the to the for and – as appropriate – in their This was in recent by (ed) The New for the Ethics of and new The that have been as and for or within direct conflict and human just and the United Nations and international and and this new has in the now on one the of to or a it Peter Weiderud, in Semegnish Asfaw, Guillermo Kerber and Peter Weiderud (eds) The Responsibility to Protect, p. The 2001 statement from the WCC Central Committee, however, an debate that the member with to and Central of the World Council of Churches, “The Protection of Endangered Populations in Situations of Armed that “the of military action for or the most and one in the Gareth Evans, “The Responsibility to Protect”, p. 5. See also Guillermo “The Responsibility to Protect: Ethical and Theological in Semegnish Asfaw, Guillermo Kerber and Peter Weiderud (eds) The Responsibility to Protect, p. In who – especially those in the – to their for the of to protect the 18 and The in Semegnish Asfaw, Guillermo Kerber and Peter Weiderud (eds) The Responsibility to Protect, Guillermo “The Responsibility to Protect”, p. The for of and and of the of – for A to the WCC the Responsibility to Protect 2007, and See also “The Responsibility to A of R2P from the available at (Accessed 10.12.2010). 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