HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN DARFUR

6 HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN DARFUR

7 The issue of humanitarian intervention is usually discussed in terms

of the grounds on which the sovereignty of a nation-state can be

166 F ROM STABILITY TO JUSTICE ? breached in order to protect the lives and uphold the human rights

of people residing within that state. In this sense, the issue of humanitarian intervention concerns two conflicting sets of norms that are enshrined in international law. First, we can point to norms relating to state sovereignty and that sovereign states should not be subject to outside interference in their internal affairs (ideas that are upheld in article 2 of the United Nations charter). However, the attachment in international law and international relations more generally to the concept of sovereignty clearly conflicts with another group of norms relating to universalized notions of human rights – in particular the human rights set out in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). While the UDHR in certain respects upholds the principle of sovereignty (because it is individual states that are entrusted with the enforcement of these human rights standards) there are, obviously, problems when states turn against their own people and commit acts of gross human rights violation such as mass rape, torture, and even genocide.

The Darfur region, located in the west of the African state of Sudan, is one such area of the world in which numerous calls for humanitarian intervention have been made. The current humani- tarian crisis in Sudan is largely driven by government aerial bombardment backed by an Arab militia, the Janjaweed, recruited locally and armed by the government. The situation in Darfur has been described as ‘a massive humanitarian crisis’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’. The Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed have been responsible for gross violations of human rights against the black African population of the region.

Since early 2003, the world has watched with both shock and apathy as Sudan’s Arab-dominated government ethnically cleanses its vast western region of Darfur by arming, encouraging, and even giving air support to mostly Arab militia who kill, maim, rape, and rob black Africans. The Darfur crisis combines the worst of everything: armed conflict, extreme violence, sexual assault, great tides of desperate refugees.

(Udombana 2005: 1149–1150) As the author of the above quotation correctly points out, the crisis

in Darfur has not led to a coordinated international response.

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1 Diplomatic pressure has been placed on the Government of Sudan

2 – for example, the Security Council has passed resolutions that

3 have condemned the actions of the Sudanese government in the

4 region. However, such resolutions have not been backed with

5 commitments to take action against the Sudanese government if it

6 continues to be involved in the atrocities. From a realist perspective,

the inaction of the international community is easily explained –

8 states will not intervene in a state unless it affects their national

9 interest. For example, the USA’s reluctance to intervene in Rwanda

10 in the mid 1990s has been explained by pointing to the failure of the

1 USA’s attempt to intervene in the humanitarian crisis in Somalia

2 in the early 1990s – in many respects these concerns still shade US

3 military policy towards Africa. However, supporters of humanitarian

4 intervention in Sudan appeal to internationally held norms relating

5 to human rights in arguing that ‘Darfur might be a complex crisis

6 politically, but it is morally and legally simple’ (Udombana 2005:

7 1190). Humanitarian intervention is not only viewed as a moral

imperative, it is also seen as the only way to solve the current crisis

9 – ending the killings, sending a clear message to the Government

20 of Sudan and providing security to humanitarian assistance workers 1222 involved in essential relief work in the region; it would also enable

2 the prosecution of those individuals who have been identified as war

3 criminals.

4 As the above comments concerning Darfur indicate, the issue of

5 humanitarian intervention is a highly contested issue. As we have

6 seen, there is a hard-line realist position that argues that these ‘moral

7 issues’ have no place in the harsh reality of international politics –

8 intervention in the sovereign affairs of another state should only

9 ever be justified on the grounds of national interest. Within the

30 English school of international relations the issue of humanitarian

1 intervention has generated considerable debate. As we saw in

2 Chapter 4 the English school has two wings. On the one hand, a

3 pluralist position has put forward the view that humanitarian

4 intervention violates the norms of state sovereignty that are crucial

5 to maintaining order within an international society of states.

6 Essentially, pluralists argue that the key normative basis of

7 international order (i.e. stability) is a shared commitment among

states to norms of non-intervention in the sovereign affairs of other

168 F ROM STABILITY TO JUSTICE ? states. On the other hand, a solidarist perspective has put forward

a defence of humanitarian intervention. The solidarist position is an interesting one, because it rests upon an understanding that norms change over time. Hence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was generally the case that a commitment by other states to upholding and respecting norms of non-intervention and sovereignty was viewed as a crucial element of maintaining order in international politics (the line taken by the pluralists). However, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, states have come to place much greater emphasis on the norms surrounding human rights and justice. Wheeler (2000) thus introduces the idea of the ‘supreme humanitarian emergency’ – the circumstances under which states will abandon norms of non-intervention in favour of

a concern with the human rights of the individual citizens of that country. Clearly the current situation in Darfur would fit within Wheeler’s definition of a supreme humanitarian emergency.

Supreme humanitarian emergencies are extraordinary situations where civilians in another state are in imminent danger of losing their life or facing appalling hardship, and where indigenous forces cannot be relied on to end these violations of human rights.

(Wheeler, 2000: 50) For authors such as Alex Bellamy (2003), however, the issue of

humanitarian intervention is far more complex than debates over the grounds whereby a violation of state sovereignty is justified. The implication of arguments such as Wheeler’s is that the international community has a responsibility to protect citizens in a particular state only in the very worst and most extreme cases. This position is somewhat problematic because it obscures the extent to which the great majority of suffering in the world today is not due so much to the actions of a few violent and repressive regimes – but is more likely to be the result of extreme poverty. Bellamy (2003) argues that more focus needs to be placed on the role of Western nations in supporting a global economic system that significantly disadvan- tages the poor. Poverty and inequality are often major contributing factors in conflict-ridden societies, and thus the argument is made for a wider focus on the idea of ‘human security’ – an approach to

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1 security that incorporates a concern with economic and social justice

2 in ensuring the personal security of individuals.