The Will to Intervene (W2I) - Going Beyond Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

[Edward Campbell]

I’m starting a separate topic here, in our Canadian Politics area, because, while related to the Canadian Military and International Situation & World News areas, this is a Canadian political issue.

Concordia University’s Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies has just published a report by Sen. Roméo Dallaire. That report, which is worth a read, can be downloaded here or  (in either English or French) here.

The report, which has been embraced by inter alia Conservative Sen. Hugh Segal and Robert Fowler, was discussed on CBC radio’s The Current this morning – the discussion should be on their web site tomorrow. The aim of Dallaire and friends is to influence, indeed, shape Canadian policy – that’s a political, albeit not necessarily highly partisan act.

This brings up an opinion piece by Prof. Tom Flanagan which is reproduced here under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/intervening-abroad-do-we-have-the-means-to-match-our-will/article1296302/

Intervening abroad: Do we have the means
to match our will?
Before shipping out to protect distant interests, we should consider our limitations

Tom Flanagan

Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2009

Conservative thinkers generally base foreign policy on the concept of national interest. Seeing the world as full of danger and not under anyone's control, they argue that the responsibility of government is to protect the state's territorial integrity and other vital interests, such as freedom to trade and navigate the seas. They emphasize the importance of military strength, quoting the old Roman proverb Si vis pacem, para bellum – if you want peace, prepare for war.

After becoming prime minister in 2006, Stephen Harper announced that his Conservative government would adhere to the national interest in formulating Canada's foreign policy. He has largely been true to his word, rebuilding the Canadian Forces and staying close to our allies, especially the United States and other countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Now, however, comes an important attempt to expand the concept of national interest. The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies has released a report titled Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities. The experts involved in preparing this report have intimate knowledge of the subject. Senator Roméo Dallaire was commander of the United Nations force in Rwanda when the Hutu massacred the Tutsi in 1993. Bob Fowler, a distinguished Canadian civil servant and diplomat, recently emerged from a harrowing kidnapping ordeal in Niger.

These people deserve out attention when they talk about genocide. Although perhaps tilting more liberal than conservative in their outlook, they are not mushy-headed idealists obsessed with soft power. They know that in a brutal world, it is often necessary to use force. They want to marry the liberal notion of humanitarian intervention with the conservative conception of national interest.

Their point is that the national interest has to be more broadly understood in a world made smaller by revolutionary improvements in transportation and communication. The atrocious Taliban government in Afghanistan sheltered Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The failed state in Somalia has disrupted shipping near the Suez Canal, so vital to world commerce. Refugees from failed states flood into neighbouring countries, creating enormous humanitarian problems of famine and disease. Refugees also end up in the world's stable democracies, creating new voting blocs and pressure groups that inevitably involve Western governments in genocidal conflicts elsewhere.

Democracies such as Canada and the United States, therefore, have a tangible national interest in these distant events. Western powers should have acted decisively to stop the murder in Rwanda, as they ultimately did in Kosovo. They should also be trying to help the hopeless refugees of Darfur, the victims of anarchy in the Congo and those threatened with starvation and disease in Zimbabwe. Peaceful measures, such as publicity, condemnation and boycotts, should be tried first, but if all else fails, we must not shy from military intervention. This is the essence of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine adopted by the World Summit in 2005 and now espoused by the UN.

The report is persuasive, but does it take sufficient account of the limitations under which democracies use military force, except in situations of total war? The Roman Empire could invade a troublesome border district, create a desert and call it peace, but Western democracies feel obliged to bring democracy and the rule of law along with peace and order. Where the local political culture has no basis for such Western values, the occupation is likely to become indefinite in order to prevent violence from breaking out again. Winning the initial war is the easy part; creating the conditions for long-term peace is much harder, sometimes maybe impossible.

There's an obvious analogy with George W. Bush's doctrine of “regime change,” also based on a revised understanding of national interest – namely, that democratic governments are not safe except in a democratic world. Underlying the doctrine of regime change was the well-established fact that no two democracies have ever gone to war against each other. Ergo, in a democratic world, war would never break out. The reasoning seemed persuasive, but it neglected the limitations of Western power that have manifested themselves so visibly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our parliamentarians should study and debate this report thoroughly. No one wants to repeat the genocidal experiences of the previous century. Nonetheless, I fear that R2P is to the left what regime change was to the right: an appealing promise that goes beyond our power to fulfill.

Tom Flanagan is professor of political science at the University of Calgary and a former Conservative campaign manager.

For those who do not want to read the whole thing, here, taken from W2I’s Executive summary is a list of recommendations:

Enabling Leadership

W2I recommends that:

• The Prime Minister make preventing mass atrocities a national priority for Canada (p.18)
• The Prime Minister appoint an International Security Minister as a senior member of the Cabinet (p.20)
• The Government of Canada support and promote public discussion on Canada’s role in preventing mass atrocities (p.21)
• The Parliament of Canada convert the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity into a standing joint committee (p.22)
• Parliamentarians exercise individual initiative and use their existing powers and privileges to advocate the implementation of R2P as an international norm and a vital part of Canada’s foreign policy (p.24)


Enhancing Coordination

W2I recommends that:

• The Government of Canada create an interdepartmental Coordinating Office for the Prevention of Mass Atrocities (p.30)
• The Coordinating Office for the Prevention of Mass Atrocities create standard operating procedures for disseminating intelligence concerning the risks of mass atrocities throughout the whole of government (p.32)


Building Capacity

W2I recommends that:

• The Government of Canada establish a Canadian Prevention Corps (p.37)
• The Government of Canada increase its diplomatic and development presence in fragile countries (p.38)
• The Government of Canada continue enhancing the Canadian Forces’ capabilities by increasing its force strength and developing operational concepts, doctrine, force structure, and training to support civilian protection (p.41)


Enabling Leadership

W2I recommends that:

• The President of the United States issue an Executive Order establishing the prevention of mass atrocities as a policy priority (p.25)
• The United States Congress create a Caucus for the Prevention of Mass Atrocities (p.25)
• Members of the United States Congress take individual initiative and use their existing powers and privileges to advocate for the implementation of R2P (p.26)
• The United States Government foster public discussions on preventing mass atrocities (p.28)


Enhancing Coordination

W2I recommends that:

• The President create an Atrocities Prevention Committee to coordinate interagency policy on the prevention mass atrocities (p.33)
• The National Security Advisor create an Interagency Policy Committee on Preventing Mass Atrocities to coordinate policy across the executive branch and liaise with the Atrocities Prevention Committee (p.34)
• The National Security Advisor create standard operating procedures for disseminating intelligence on the risks of genocide and other mass atrocities (p.36)


Building Capacity

W2I recommends that:

• The United States Government allocate federal funding to institutionalize the prevention of mass atrocities within civilian agencies (p.43)
• The United States Government re-establish its soft power capacity by expanding its diplomatic and development corps, and enhancing the field training of USAID and State Department officials (p.44)
• The Department of Defense develop and incorporate doctrine and rules of engagement on preventing and responding to mass atrocities and train the military in civilian protection (p.45)


Ensuring Knowledge

W2I recommends that:

• Canadian and American civil society organizations develop permanent domestic constituencies by forming national coalitions for R2P in Canada and the U.S. (p.48)
• Canadian and American civil society organizations expand their advocacy by targeting local/municipal and state/provincial levels of government to support R2P (p.51)
• Canadian and American civil society groups develop strategic, outcome-based proposals geared towards key decision makers in the government (p.52)
• Canadian and American civil society groups leverage new information and communications technologies to educate the public and government (p.53)
• Canadian and American civil society groups initiate public discussions on the prevention of mass atrocities and related foreign policy issues (p.55)
• Individual journalists, media owners, and managers in Canada and the United States commit themselves to “the responsibility to report” (p.56)


Of course, I will have more to say on some of those issues later.  :

Much of the report is taken up with case studies from Rwanda and Kosovo and I hope Army.ca members will be able to critique that information.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, in two parts, from the MIGS web site, is a list of  members of “The Research Steering Committee of MIGS’ Will to Intervene Project:”

------------------
Maurice Baril served in the Canadian Forces for forty years. He joined as a reservist while studying at the University of Ottawa. During his military career, he held command and staff responsibilities across Canada, in Europe, the US, the Middle East and Africa. In the 1990s he was successively commander of the Army Combat Training Centre, military advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York for three years, Commander of the Army from 1995 to 1997, promoted to the rank of General in 1997 and appointed Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff until retirement in 2001. He is a graduate of Canadian Army Command and Staff College, US Army Special Forces School Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, and École Supérieure de Guerre in Paris. Since retirement, General (ret.) Baril has been special advisor to the Ambassador for Mine Action of the Department of Foreign Affairs Canada. In January 2003, he was appointed Inspector General in the Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO) at the United Nations Secretariat.

Ed Broadbent was leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada from 1975 to 1989 when he represented the riding of Oshawa. After retiring, he returned briefly to Parliament in 2004–2006, representing the riding of Ottawa Centre. From 1990 to 1996, Broadbent was the founding president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal. He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1982, an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1993 and a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2002. He is now a Fellow at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University.

Fred C. Fischer worked for the US government for thirty-eight years, during which time he directed some of the largest disaster relief operations ever mounted. These included earthquake recovery in Guatemala and Nicaragua; famine and refugee relief in Pakistan, Djibouti, Kenya, southern Sudan, Somalia, Malawi and Mozambique; covert cross-border humanitarian assistance from Pakistan into Afghanistan (during the Soviet invasion); and aid to the victims of apartheid in South Africa. His overseas assignments included First Secretary of the American Embassy in Bonn, Germany (1964–1968); US Coordinator for Emergency Relief in Ethiopia (during the great famine of 1984–1986); and Director of the USAID Regional Economic Development Services Office for East and Southern Africa (based in Nairobi, Kenya, 1990–1995).

Fischer played a key role in the design of the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS), currently being used by USAID around the world; and developed a Conflict Prevention, Mitigation and Response (CPMR) system for countries that are prone to civil conflict and human-made disasters. He was named Federal Executive of the Year in 1986, for management of the emergency relief program in Ethiopia, the largest ever carried out by the US. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BA in Journalism and Political Science in 1956 and was a Sloan Fellow at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 1974–1975. Since retiring in 1995, he has carried out consulting assignments for USAID and the Inter-American Development Bank. He lives in Leesburg, Virginia, and is currently researching a book on the American Civil War.

Tom Flanagan is the award-winning author of Harper’s Team: Behind the Scenes in the Conservative Rise to Power (2007) and Waiting for the Wave: The Reform Party and Preston Manning (1995). In 2001–2002, Dr. Flanagan managed Stephen Harper’s campaigns for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance (2002) and of the Conservative Party of Canada (2004), as well as the Conservative Party’s national election campaign in 2004. He was the Senior Communications Adviser in the Conservative war room during the party’s successful 2005–2006 election campaign. Previously, from 1991 to 1993, Dr. Flanagan was an adviser to Preston Manning and the Reform Party.

Prior to his involvement in federal politics, Dr. Flanagan was best known for his scholarship on Louis Riel, the North-West Rebellion, and aboriginal land claims. His book First Nations? Second Thoughts (2000) received the Donner Prize and the Canadian Political Science Association’s Donald Smiley Prize for the best book on Canadian politics published in the year 2000. He has served as a consultant and expert witness for the Crown in aboriginal and treaty-rights cases such as Dumont, Blais, Benoit, Victor Buffalo, and Manitoba Metis Federation.

Dr, Flanagan studied political science at Notre Dame University, the Free University of West Berlin, and Duke University, where he received his PhD. He has taught political science at the University of Calgary since 1968. He was head of the political science department from 1982 to 1987, and was named University Professor in 2007. Dr. Flanagan was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1996.

Robert Fowler has had a distinguished career as a Canadian diplomat and public servant. He was the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative for Africa. He was a member of former Prime Minister Paul Martin’s special advisory team on Darfur. Fowler served as Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations (1995–2000) and Italy (2000–2006), and as foreign policy advisor to three Prime Ministers. He was also the Deputy Minister of National Defence (1989–1995).

Yoine Goldstein was appointed to the Senate in 2005. Prior to becoming a senator, he was a senior and managing partner of the Montreal law firm, Goldstein, Flanz & Fishman. He is currently with McMillan Binch Mendelsohn LLP in Montreal as Senior Counsel. In 2003 he served as Special Advisor to the Senate Standing Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce in connection with its report on amendments to Canadian bankruptcy and insolvency legislation, and in 2001 and 2002 as chair of the Federal Personal Insolvency Task Force. A graduate of McGill University's Law Faculty in 1958, he went on to complete his studies in France, where he obtained a Doctorat de l’université from the Université de Lyon in 1960. Senator Goldstein taught law at l’Université de Montréal from 1973 to 1997. In 1992 he received the Lord Reading Law Society Human Rights Award and the Lord Reading Law Society Service Award in 1998. He is a member of the Community Advisory Board of the Concordia University Chair of Canadian Jewish Studies. Senator Goldstein is the only Canadian lawyer to have been elected a Fellow of both the American College of Bankruptcy and the American College of Trial Lawyers. In 2007 he received the Quebec Bar’s honorary distinction of Avocat émérite.

Bill Graham is the former Liberal Party Leader, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of National Defence. Before entering the public service and serving as a Member of Parliament for over thirteen years, Graham taught in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto where he pioneered the international law program. He was a Member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade from 1994–2002 and Chairman from 1996–2002, and during 1998 led the drafting of the Standing Committee report on the Arctic: “Canada and the Circumpolar World: Meeting the Challenges of Cooperation into the Twenty-First Century.” Graham served as Leader of the Official Opposition until his retirement from Parliament in 2007.

David A. Hamburg, MD, is DeWitt Wallace Distinguished Scholar at Weill Cornell Medical College and chairs the United Nations Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention. He was President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1982 to 1997 and has been Professor at Stanford University and Harvard University, President of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Hamburg is the author of No More Killing Fields: Preventing Deadly Conflict (2002) and Learning to Live Together: Preventing Hatred and Violence in Child and Adolescent Development  (2004). He was a member of President Clinton’s Defense Policy Board and the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology and was the founder of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government. He is the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Ted Koppel is Discovery Channel’s managing editor. In this role, he anchors Koppel on Discovery, a series of long-form programming that examines major global topics and events for the largest cable network in the United States. He and his team of award-winning producers joined the network in January 2006. Koppel is also a senior news analyst for National Public Radio. Koppel came to Discovery Channel after forty-two years at ABC News. From 1980 until 2005, he was the anchor and managing editor of ABC News Nightline, one of the most honoured broadcasts in television history. As the nation’s longest running network daily news anchor, his interviews and reporting touched every major news story over a span of twenty-five years.

A member of the Broadcasting Hall of Fame, Koppel has won every major broadcasting award including forty-two Emmy Awards (one for lifetime achievement), eight George Foster Peabody Awards, ten duPont-Columbia Awards and two George Polk Awards. His ten Overseas Press Club Awards make him the most honoured journalist in the Club’s history. He has received more than twenty honorary degrees from universities in the United States. Before becoming Nightline anchor, Koppel worked as an anchor, foreign and domestic correspondent and bureau chief for ABC News. A native of Lancashire, England, Koppel moved to the United States with his parents when he was thirteen and became a US citizen in 1963. Koppel speaks fluent German, adequate French, and smatterings of a half dozen other languages. He holds a Bachelor of Science from Syracuse University and a Master of Arts in mass communications research and political science from Stanford University. He is married to the former Grace Anne Dorney of New York City. They reside in Maryland and have four children and five grandchildren.

Juan É. Méndez was the United Nations’ special advisor on the prevention of genocide from 2004 to 2007. He has taught at the University of Notre Dame, Georgetown University Law Center, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies, and in the Oxford Masters Program in International Human Rights Law. His work on behalf of political prisoners of Argentina’s military dictatorship in the 1970s led to his torture and administrative detention for over a year, during which time Amnesty International adopted him as a “Prisoner of Conscience.” Following his release, he moved to the United States and began work with Human Rights Watch. Méndez has received multiple awards for his work, including the University of Dayton’s inaugural Oscar A. Romero Award for Leadership in Service to Human Rights (2000) and the Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan Award of the Heartland Alliance (2003).

 

[Edward Campbell]

Part 2 of 2

Alex Neve is the Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada’s English-speaking branch. He has participated in Amnesty International missions to Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoïre, Guinea, Honduras, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Grassy Narrows, Ontario. He represented Amnesty International at the 2001 Summit of the Americas, the 2002 G8 Summit and the 2003 Asian Plurilateral Symposium on Human Rights in China. He has appeared before numerous Canadian parliamentary committees as well as various UN and Inter-American human rights bodies. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws from Dalhousie University, and a Masters Degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex. Neve is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Centre for International Justice, and a member of the Board of Directors of Partnership Africa Canada. He was named a Trudeau Foundation Mentor in late 2007 and is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

André Pratte is the editor-in-chief of the Montreal’s La Presse and the author of five books on journalism and politics, including Aux pays des merveilles: Essai sur les mythes politiques québécois  (2006), Le Temps des girouettes  (2003) and L'Énigme Charest  (1997), a biography of a Jean Charest. He was one of twelve prominent Quebecers, led by former Premier Lucien Bouchard, who signed the 2005 manifesto entitled “Pour un Québec lucide” (“For a Clear-Eyed Vision of Quebec”), which provoked a passionate debate about Quebec’s future. He also edited and contributed to Reconquerir le Canada: un nouveau projet pour la nation québécoise (Reconquering Canada: A New Project for the Quebec Nation), a collection of essays promote federalism in the province.

Kenneth Prewitt is the Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Previous positions include director of the United States Census Bureau (1998–2001), director of the National Opinion Research Center, president of the Social Science Research Council and senior vice-president of the Rockefeller Foundation. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Political and Social Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Russell-Sage Foundation, and member of other professional associations, including the Council on Foreign Relations. Among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, honorary degrees from Carnegie Mellon and Southern Methodist University, a Distinguished Service Award from the New School for Social Research, various awards associated with his directorship of the Census Bureau, and in 1990 he was awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany. Prewitt’s recent publications include Politics and Science in Census Taking (2003) and The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations  (2006). He has authored and coauthored a dozen books and more than 100 articles and book chapters. His current manuscript under preparation is Race Counting In America: Past, Present, Future.

David Scheffer is the Mayer Brown/Robert A. Helman Professor of Law and Director of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School of Law, where he teaches international criminal law and international human rights law. He is the former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues (1997–2001) and led the US delegation in the negotiations leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court. During the first term of the Clinton Administration, he was Senior Advisor and Counsel to the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Madeleine Albright, and served on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council.

Hugh D. Segal is a graduate of the University of Ottawa. Senator Segal spent several decades in the private and public sector before being appointed to the Senate in 2005 by Prime Minister Martin.  His public sector experience spans the Cabinet Office at Queens Park and the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa.  He is a former President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy and remains a Senior Fellow and teaches at Queen’s University.  In the private sector, he worked in the alcohol and food, marketing and advertising, and financial service sectors. He sits on various corporate and public boards, as well as serving on not-for-profit and charitable organizations.  Since being appointed to the Senate as a Conservative, he has sat on the Senate Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Agriculture and Forestry, Aboriginal Affairs committees and the Special Committee on Anti-Terrorism.  In 2003 he was named to the Order of Canada; in 2004 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Royal Military College and in 2005 was appointed an Honorary Captain of the Canadian Navy.  He has authored numerous books and articles on public policy, the Conservative party and was before the Senate appointment, a regular television commentator on the CTV, PBS and CBC networks. He makes his home in Kingston, is married to Donna Armstrong of Kingston and they have one daughter, Jacqueline.

Jennifer Allen Simons is President of The Simons Foundation, Visiting Fellow at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University and Adjunct Professor with SFU’s School for International Studies. She is a former Director and Adjunct Professor of the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Research at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia (UBC), which she established jointly with UBC. Simons was a member of the Canadian government delegation to the UN 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the 2002 Non-Proliferation Treaty Conference and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs/Non-Governmental Organizations Consultations on Nuclear Issues. SFU honoured Simons with the Jennifer Allen Simons Chair in Liberal Studies and the 1996 Chancellor’s Distinguished Service Award; she is the recipient of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee Commemorative Medal for her service in support of the global effort to eradicate landmines and the 2006 Vancouver Citizens’ Peace Award.

Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the co-author, with Eugene Lang, of The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar  (2007), recipient of the Shaughnessy Cohen prize for political writing. Among her other books are Networks of Knowledge: Innovation in International Learning  (2000); The Cult of Efficiency  (2001); and Street Protests and Fantasy Parks  (2001). In 2006, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Alberta and the University of Cape Breton. She was the Massey Lecturer in 2001 and a Trudeau Fellow. Gross Stein is the recipient of the Molson Prize by the Canada Council for an outstanding contribution by a social scientist to public debate and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.

Allan Thompson is an Assistant Professor at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication. He joined the faculty at Carleton in 2003 after spending seventeen years as a reporter with the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation daily newspaper. Allan worked for ten years as a correspondent for The Star on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, reporting on foreign affairs, defence and immigration issues. He first reported from Rwanda for The Star in 1996 during the mass exodus of Rwandan refugees from eastern Zaire. He visited Rwanda again in 1998 to prepare a series of feature articles. Over the years he has also chronicled Roméo Dallaire’s career in a series of reports for The Star. In January 2004, Allan travelled to Arusha, Tanzania, to report on Dallaire’s testimony before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, where he is co-director of the United Nations Intellectual History Project. Weiss is the interim executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. He was awarded the Grand Prix Humanitaire de France 2006 and is chair of the Academic Council on the UN System. He was a co-editor of Global Governance, Research Director of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Research Professor at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, Executive Director of the Academic Council on the UN System and of the International Peace Academy, a member of the UN secretariat, and a consultant to several public and private agencies. He has written or edited some thirty-five books and numerous scholarly articles about multilateral approaches to international peace and security, humanitarian action and sustainable development.

Harvey Yarosky has practised law in Montréal since 1962 and has been a member and chairman of various committees of the Bar of Montréal, the Bar of Québec and the Canadian Bar association relating to the administration of justice. He taught criminal law at McGill University, where he was adjunct professor of criminal law, as well as at the University of Ottawa and Université de Montréal. Yarosky is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and has acted as Independent Counsel to the Canadian Judicial Council. He appeared before many federal and provincial commissions of inquiry including, most recently, the “Gomery Inquiry”. He also conducted inquest, as “special coroner” into the shooting death of Marcellus François by the Montreal Urban Community police force.
Yarosky was executive assistant to the federal Department of Justice Committee on Hate Propaganda (the “Cohen Committee”), the report of which formed the basis of the provisions in the Canadian Criminal Code on the advocacy and promotion of genocide and on hate propaganda. He has also been counsel to Senator and LGen (ret) Roméo Dallaire in relation to a number of international investigations, inquiries and proceedings regarding the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
--------------------


This is not a bunch of loony-left wing kooks. It is, as Prof. Flanagan noted, more Liberal than Conservative, in Canadian political terms, but it is, broadly, multi-partisan – enough to merit our consideration, anyway.

 

[Edward Campbell]

One factor, not to be ignored, IF one wants the UN to be the agency that will authorize interventions, of whatever sort, then one cannot ignore the fact that China, broadly and generally, opposes interventions in the affairs of sovereign states – especially, of course, it opposes any sort of intervention in the affairs of China. But, despite occasional forays into e.g. Vietnam and Burma, China has adhered pretty faithfully to this principle (non-intervention) for 60 years.

China is a UN Security Council permanent member so it has a veto on almost anything the UN proposes.

 

[GAP]

On first blush, I keep getting the feeling this is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking.

(I am simplifying here) They want a separate entity focusing on mass atrocities, yet there are few conflicts that do not have that potential, and even less lead up time.

Rawanda is a good example. There was lots of rhetoric prior to, but little actual evidence it would be as massive as it was. The personnel were already there who could have mitigated the atrocities, but there was no will by the UN to give them permission to interfer.

Why do they think having a focused group will allow them to head off another one? There is no standing force suggested, so it sounds like they will just throw "whatever" at the issue, with no definition of "whatever" is.

As you said...this is politics, and empty politics at that. I don't see much, except noise to change much.

 

[a_majoor]

W2I seems to suffer from some of the same problems of R2P. It dramatically blurs the boundaries of the State and formalizes interference, interventions and invasions as a matter of policy for events which, while serious, are not existential threats to other States.

This is a very Westphalian veiw of the world that I am adhering to, but they want us to spend blood and treasure when it is very clear that a large percentage of our population in Canada and the West in general has no stomach for such interventions (see former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Mymar [Burma], etc.)

It seems pretty clear to my military mind that this also would require massive increases in our armed forces to carry out sucessful interventions should the concept of R2P or W2I be adopted, once again something our electorate seems pretty uninterested in.

 

[Edward Campbell]

In fairness, on pages 41, 42 and beyond, Dallaire et al say:

The shift towards low-technology, high-casualty, intrastate conflict necessitates a reorientation of the Canadian Forces’ approach to peace operations. During operations, the Canadian Forces have been repeatedly exposed to, and required to operate within, an environment that has been termed the “three block war” ... Canada has reduced its military capabilities over the past few decades. The government’s decision to cut the military’s budget in the early 1990s was tied to the belief that the end of the Cold War and a sustained period of international peace would yield a significant “peace dividend.” These savings reduced the federal deficit, but the cuts adversely affected military capability. During this time the Canadian Forces were reduced from 85,000 to approximately 55,000 personnel—a cull which, despite years of budgetary surplus, is only now being remedied ... At present, the Canadian military is overstretched ... Overall, the higher-than-expected attrition of mid-career personnel, who possess valuable expertise and experience, has prevented the Canadian Forces from expanding. The forces are treading water ... The Canadian Forces must be better prepared to confront the new security challenges of the 21st century. W2I recommends that the Canadian Forces be allocated sufficient resources to recruit and retain more soldiers to strengthen the military overall—and the land forces in particular.

However, beyond “welcoming” the Canada First Defence Strategy and the promised 2.7 percent annual increase in spending, the W2I folks stay away from any useful comments on the defence budget (like, say, asking for 2%+ of GDP) or force structure (like, say, demanding 75,000 “full time” CF members and n thousand “part time” reserve members).

 

[Old Sweat]

It remains to be seen whether this report is more than a two day wonder, based on the unique ability of the news cycle to jump on the crisis of the minute. Maybe it will be blessed with luck and we will be free of deceased celebrities for the next little while. Having said that, in order for this to develop legs one or both of the two major political parties must be willing to embrace it, without disguising it as peacekeeping. It would also be useful if the other party did not dump on the embracer for emulating the Bush/Cheney agenda.

Despite the high power, bipartisan credentials of the panel, I wonder if their influence is sufficient to keep this ball in play.

 

[Edward Campbell]

The W2I report says, in its Preface:

“The W2I report uses the term “humanitarian intervention” in its widest sense to include the broad spectrum of tools that our governments can employ to prevent mass atrocities. These include “soft” and “hard” power tools, non-military and military actions. In the preventive phase of a humanitarian intervention, the governments of Canada and the U.S. can offer development assistance and financial aid, technical support, training, debt reduction, and mediation. When consensual preventive measures fail and more robust action is required, they can introduce the withdrawal of visas and scholarships for children from the recalcitrant political elite, economic sanctions, arms embargoes, the enforcement of no fly zones, and the use of military force. W2I strongly supports the view that credible military force must be visible in the wings to potentiate non-military preventive action. Consensual soft-power methods can succeed, but peace spoilers only cooperate with them when they know their forces can be neutralized.”
My emphasis added.


That’s a realistic approach, wholly consistent with Joseph Nye’s definition of “soft power.” It’s an encouraging start point.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
The report, which has been embraced by inter alia Conservative Sen. Hugh Segal and Robert Fowler, was discussed on CBC radio’s The Current this morning ...
...

The CBC’s The Current’s programme is now online:

"Will to Intervene" – Panel

We started this segment with a clip of General Romeo Dallaire speaking on As It Happens on April 7th, 1994. No one knew it then, but he was describing the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide ... a hundred days of bloody massacres that would leave 800,000 people dead. It's been fifteen years since those events and more than 60 years since the United Nations General Assembly first condemned genocide as a crime punishable under international law.

The world is still struggling with how to stop mass atrocities. And according to Romeo Dallaire, we are still failing. Romeo Dallaire is now a Liberal Senator. He's also part of a project called Will To Intervene. Yesterday, the group released a report that it hopes will help stop mass atrocities ... a report that has the backing of several prominent Canadians, including Conservative Senator Hugh Segal and former Federal NDP Leader Ed Broadbent who was also the President of the International Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Development at the time of the Rwandan genocide. Romeo Dallaire, Hugh Segal and Ed Broadbent joined us from Ottawa this morning.

Click on “Listen to Part Three:” at the bottom of the page.

 

[dapaterson]

I believe the CF have never not suffered from an exodus of skilled "mid-career" personnel - there's a tendency to forget that the miltiary retirement schemes are designed to promtoe turn-over and new blood.  The concept that everyone should be a 20 year veteran is absurd and counter-productive; indeed, we likely need a more vigorous pruning, by widening the pool at the bottom and narrowing the pool at the top (a small group of those servign beyond 25 years for the long-term memory of the institution, and a variety of schemes to offer training, experience then reintegration to society writ large.  Interesting work was done around the time of unification, which then was corrupted beyond all recognition).

While the authors will no doubt pat themselves on the back, they ignore the realpolitik that ERC so plainly lays out: As long as nations in the security council oppose, nothing can be done through the UN.  Couple with that internal obstacles between DFAIT, DND/CF and CIDA (just to start) and this remains a dream.  Creating new bureaucratic strucutres in Canada will not break down those barriers; however, I'm not certain of what approach will meet that goal.

 

[Roy Harding]

The link for "The Current", which ERC references:

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200909/20090922.html

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
While the authors will no doubt pat themselves on the back, they ignore the realpolitik that ERC so plainly lays out: As long as nations in the security council oppose, nothing can be done through the UN.  Couple with that internal obstacles between DFAIT, DND/CF and CIDA (just to start) and this remains a dream.  Creating new bureaucratic strucutres in Canada will not break down those barriers; however, I'm not certain of what approach will meet that goal.

Ah, yes: the goal.

The very first sentence of the report, proper, in Part One: Introduction, 1.1 A Call for Leadership and Action, says "Generating the international political will necessary to prevent mass atrocities remains one of the central challenges of the 21st century."

So I take it that "generating political will" is the goal.

To follow up on Old Sweat's comments, it's not clear that they can (or even should be able to) generate any national political will here in Canada or the USA. It will require a tremendous communications effort - especially in the USA where the competition for political attention is much more intense.

Now there are some expert communicators in that group, including e.g. Ted Koppel. Roméo Dallaire, himself, is an expert and enthusiastic communicator and an even more expert media manipulator - and I mean that as a compliment. He wasn't always so media savvy but after Rwanda and especially after he "crashed and burned" he learned fast and he made some real "friends" in the media: people who trust him to provide a "good" story with "good" 10 second sound bites, etc. He makes good use of them.

 

[Infanteer]

At first I thought W2I was the next generation Nintendo Wii....

Interesting report and good topic.  I cherry-picked my way through, perusing the most interesting parts and my thoughts are:

1.  I liked the discussion on "National Interest", if anything because it highlights what an elusive concept National Interest can be.  Thomas Barnett goes into this in "Pentagon's New Map".  Politicians can trot out national interest to back policies, but I bet you if you asked one what our national interests were, they'd be hard pressed to give a decent answer.  What is the national interest?  Territorial integrity is obvious, but it's kind of the throwaway, because you can't really formulate foreign policy on "preserving Canada's territorial integrity" (or, at least the last century or so would seem to indicate).  So, is it ensuring the average Canadian can have their Timmy's, gas up there SUV and head to work?

Are the lives of other citizens in the world a national interest?  How so?  Where does conscience and interest collide?  I think Section 1.4 gives a respectable response and is probably the best part of the report.

2.  There seems to be some tricky "ethical calculus" at work.  What constitutes an atrocity?  How many deaths count?  If I, as a petty dictator, keep my body count down below 10,000 people, do I get to keep my national sovereignty?  What about wanton destruction and repression (ie. Taliban), or am I shit out of luck if my shitty government isn't putting people in big ditches (yet)?

3.  How about a "statue of limitations" on atrocities?  The very last appendix, at 1 page, is probably the most important part of the whole document and yet it is shelved at the back - perhaps because the authors didn't want to wrestle with one of two real issues of the whole concept of W2I - Intervention.  It seems to try to distance itself from Operation Iraqi Freedom, when Iraq probably was a good example of why we need W2I.  "But Saddam wasn't mass killing civilians anymore!" is a kind of weak response.

4.  Canada doesn't need a "Prevention Corps" - we already have one; the CF.  The PRT represents that fusion of government officials capable of operating in austere environments (or "JIMP capable forces operating in a WoG approach" for the buzzword groupies).  I haven't been part of a PRT, but I have worked at arms length with one, and they seem to be on the right road to getting the OGAs involved.

5.  Flannagan's article is spot on, and its opening byline sums it up best.  "Before shipping out to protect distant interests, we should consider our limitations".  This is the other part of W2I that the report has trouble wrestling with - Will.  We can barely keep the public on board for Afghanistan.  The "Cry Darfur" crowd, which seems to be a part of this panel, doesn't seem to really want to broadcast (consider?) the fact that toppling another Islamic government will invite every loonie in Cairo to hop on a bus to blow up an Infidel.  Intervening means we have to have the will to invade countries, fight bad guys, bring about civilian casualties due to our intervention and fighting, be allied with the US as they are the biggest fish in the sea when it comes to Force Projection, and to stay for the long-haul after we've broken the china.  It means broken bodies, airstrikes, and Canadians coming home in flag-draped coffins.  The cover of this report should have the following three pictures to sum up its recommendations.  They represent the true cost of having the W2I....

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail web site, is a report on the unveiling of W2I, with special emphasis on Bob Fowler’s involvement:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-handed-genocide-intervention-plan/article1297118/

Ottawa handed genocide-intervention plan
Report lays out steps government - and media - should take to prevent mass atrocities from occurring abroad

Bill Curry

Ottawa
Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2009

Just six months after his release as an Al-Qaeda prisoner in the Sahara desert, Robert Fowler was back in Ottawa Tuesday to discuss a trip he took to Rwanda in 1994 as Canada's deputy minister of national defence.

Mr. Fowler penned a graphic report in June of that year, which warned the highest levels of government about the extent of genocide ongoing in Rwanda.

He estimated that between 400,000 and one million people had been killed and that Canada's reasons for inaction would be “irrelevant to the historians who chronicle the near-elimination of a tribe while the white world's accountants count and the foreign policy specialists machinate.”

That report was ultimately ignored. Today, Mr. Fowler joined other Canadian foreign-policy experts in warning that Ottawa still does not have the policies in place to prevent genocide in the future.

“What we are talking about here is the moral imperative of engaging when truly appalling, unspeakable and unacceptable things are occurring,” he said.

Mr. Fowler, a career diplomat who was working as a United Nations special envoy when he was captured last December in Niger, appeared alongside Senator Romeo Dallaire, former NDP leader Ed Broadbent and Conservative Senator Hugh Segal to release a 139-page report advising the Canadian government on how to prevent future genocide, ideally without military intervention.

The report, titled Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities, was prepared by the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies. The institute's director, Frank Chalk, also spoke at the press conference.

Its recommendations include calling on the Prime Minister to make preventing mass atrocities a national priority and to appoint an international security minister. The report says Parliament should create a joint House of Commons-Senate committee on preventing genocide, calls on the government to increase its diplomatic presence in fragile countries and urges the creation of a Canadian Prevention Corps. On the military side, it recommends that Ottawa continue to enhance the capabilities of the Canadian Forces.

The report also highlights the important role of the media in mobilizing the public will domestically for governments to act abroad in preventing genocide.

One recommendation calls on individual journalists, media owners and mangers in Canada and the United States to commit themselves to “the responsibility to report.”

Mr. Broadbent, who had also visited Rwanda at the time as an independent observer and issued unheeded warnings, said there were many things Canada could have done to prevent the genocide. For instance, Canada could have cut off aid, funded a rival radio network to counter the pro-genocidal propaganda or denied student visas to children of pro-genocidal Rwandans studying in Canada.

“We were in a position to take so-called soft power that would have made a real difference,” Mr. Broadbent said. “But we did nothing.”

 

[a_majoor]

I'm a bit leery about another aspect of W2I (and similar issues revolve around R2P as well), which is the rather elastic definitions of what constitutes a crisis requiring our intervention (which Infanteer has pointed out), and also the rather flexible interpretation of "International Law".

If groups like the ICC can claim the authority to prosecute Israeli soldiers for war crimes while ignoring atrocities comitted by HAMAS, or the Spanish can issue a warrent for Augusto Pinochet the same week Fidel Castro was in Madrid for a State dinner, then who is to say W2I won't be manipulated into another weapon to attack Western democratic nations?

It isn't a big stretch of the imagination to see climate change alarmists requesting intervention against Canada on the grounds that carbon emissions from the oil sands constitutes a grave threat to the people of Canada and the world, and the GoC is doing nothing to reduce or eliminate it. This is already being done through agressive propaganda by climate change alarmists, now imagine they can call on some real State power to back them.

 

[Old Sweat]

It seems W2I has underwhelmed much of the media, who may have missed its import and implications. Senator Dallaire was interviewed for only a few minutes in the third quarter of "Question Period" yesterday. The Ottawa Citizen and the National Post had the story buried towards the rear of their first sections this morning, and I have not seen it discussed on the tube today. Having noted that, it could perhaps gain some momentum behind the scenes, especially if it was seen as having some political advantage. Maybe it is nothing more than an attempt to revive soft power, but it does provide an opporunity for internationalist busybodies to kick start their agenda.

Having said all that, the world doesn't need a published doctrine for the true believers to push their agenda. We probably stand a good chance of being pilloried in the media and perhaps taken to court over the oil sands, let along the seal hunt or the plight of the aboriginals.

 

[Journeyman]

One of the problems with debating here is that many of us are political realists, by virtue of having served in the real world at our government's behest. We clearly need more grad-student Marxists in here, who, while never having seen a callous or blister in their life, know that all workers are oppressed.

OK, having said that, I was taken by Fowler's particularly disingenuous comment:

Today, Mr. Fowler joined other Canadian foreign-policy experts in warning that Ottawa still does not have the policies in place to prevent genocide in the future.

Now, my very limited exposure to Mr Fowler has convinced me that he's a very bright politician; he knows that it takes more than "policies" to prevent genocide. But merely crafting policies can't take much effort or national treasure, can it?

As mentioned, the CF is already a standing "Prevention Corps." So what's lacking, and what he's clearly smart enough, along with his W2I cohorts not to bring up, is the price-tag associated with the actual implementation of their pie-in-the-sky recommendations.

And that, my good idealists, is disingenuous

 

[observor 69]

One of the problems with debating here is that many of us are political realists, by virtue of having served in the real world at our government's behest. We clearly need more grad-student Marxists in here, who, while never having seen a callous or blister in their life, know that all workers are oppressed.

Upon reading your comments to my better half, a non-artsy grad student, I have been instructed to pass on the word that she is prepared to show you her "calluses and blisters" at a time and place of your choosing.  ;D

 

[Journeyman]

...she is prepared to show you her "calluses and blisters" at a time and place of your choosing.  ;D

"Dear Penthouse, I never believed your letters until..... "  >