The Turbulent 1990s

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas G. Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
Current Reality

The responsibility to protect is central to the current policy debate on humanitarian intervention in war zones, and so it is instructive to explore its immediate post-Cold War origins in the decade preceding the December 2001 release of the report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. The history of the turbulent decade of the 1990s is essential to understanding the normative and policy problems that the Commission was trying to resolve as well as the remaining contestation that surrounds coming to the rescue of civilians caught in the throes of war. This chapter provides a sense of the practical and political problems that animated the development of R2P along with the distance yet to be covered to make mass atrocities an unpleasant memory instead of an ugly and continuing current reality.

Peacekeeping and the Responsibility to Protect

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 134-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Hassler
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
International Community ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Legal Basis ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Primary Responsibility ◽  
Peacekeeping Forces

This article examines the debate surrounding the responsibility to protect [R2P] with particular reference to the use of peacekeeping forces in that regard. Post-Cold War, human protection had expanded into a matter of international concern. Yet, where formerly humanitarian intervention was the mot du jour, a change in conceptual vocabulary led to the introduction of R2P and to a redefinition of sovereignty. Accordingly, the primary responsibility to protect its citizens rests with the sovereign state but, owing to international solidarity, the residual responsibility rests with the international community. Contextually, R2P is embedded in a continuum of responsibilities: prevent, react and rebuild. Proponents of the concept already see a norm in development. Still, divisions and confusion remain concerning the concept’s legal basis, its scope and its parameters. This is particularly relevant in view of peacekeeping forces, which have been increasingly deployed for humanitarian purposes. Because of ill-defined mandates and an overextension of resources, however, traditional peacekeeping is no longer suitable, lacking the resources, the personnel and the necessary expertise. To be able to fulfil the goals of R2P, peacekeeping will have to be redefined and the forces equipped with more robust mandates or fail.

22. Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
pp. 334-349
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy ◽  
Stephen McLoughlin
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Society ◽  
International Security ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Post Cold War

This chapter examines the implications of humanitarian intervention for international security. It considers the debate between those who argue that the protection of civilians from genocide and mass atrocities is far more important than the principle of non-intervention in certain circumstances and those who oppose this proposition. This has become a particular problem in the post-Cold War world where the commission of atrocities in places like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur prompted calls for international society to step in to protect the victims with military force if necessary. Humanitarian intervention causes problems for international security by potentially weakening the rules governing the use of force in world politics. The chapter first considers the case against humanitarian intervention before discussing the principle known as ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P).

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and Responses from Southeast Asia

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-42
Author(s):  
See Seng Tan
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
International Security ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
The State ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
International Commission ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
A Charge

This chapter examines extant understandings of sovereignty as responsibility, beginning with the idea of sovereign responsibility as conceptualised by Francis Deng and his collaborators, who contend that sovereignty can no longer be seen as a protection against interference, but as a charge of responsibility where the state is accountable to both domestic and external constituencies. The understanding is foundational to the thinking behind the 2001 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report, which introduced the responsibility to protect (R2P) with the aim to popularise the concept of humanitarian intervention and democracy-restoring intervention. Since its endorsement by the United Nations, the R2P has evolved through efforts by the UN and others to enhance, operationalise as well as to implement it in actual crisis situations – with varying degrees of success and in some instances not without controversy. The chapter discusses the relevance of the sovereignty as responsibility idea to Southeast Asia. It also examines the existing academic and policy debate over the R2P and its relevance to international security and sovereign responsibility, as well as its ambivalent reception in Southeast Asia.

The Genocide Convention and Cold War Humanitarian Intervention

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Dunne ◽  
Eglantine Staunton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Genocide Convention ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Host State ◽  
State Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Consent ◽  
The Cold War

It is conventional in IR literature to observe a sharp break between the Cold War and post-Cold War phases in the evolution of human protection norms. The chapter revisits these arguments in conjunction with the cases of India in Pakistan, Vietnam in Cambodia, and Tanzania in Uganda, where unilateral interventions had humanitarian effects but neither humanitarian justifications nor external legitimation. The predominant view regarding these cases is correct; namely, no evidence can be found for the emergence of a norm of legitimate intervention for protection reasons (in the absence of host state consent). However, this perspective underestimates the extent to which there was a consolidation of norms regarding state responsibilities and how these influenced state practice during the post-1945 period. The end of the Cold War should be seen as less of a stark turning point in the history of responsible sovereignty than has previously been believed.

India on Humanitarian Intervention and Responsibility to Protect: Shifting Nuances

2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-453 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yeshi Choedon
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Internal Conflicts ◽  
Colonial Experience ◽  
Peace Enforcement ◽  
Sceptical View ◽  
Power Configuration

India’s opposition to humanitarian intervention has been influenced by its colonial experience and its predisposition towards the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention. However, India did not adopt a strident opposition in the post-Cold War due to the changed power configuration. The article discusses how India adopted a cautious approach and yet used every opportunity to remind the international community the baleful effect of intervention in the internal affairs. After securing concession to a considerable extent on the ambitious Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and when most of the countries showed an inclination to accept humanitarian intervention in the form of ‘R2P’ at the UN summit in 2005, India grudgingly went along accepting it. India participated in the deliberation on the implementation of R2P and took its stand on various crises in which R2P was evoked. The experience of NATO’s Libya operation under R2P was regarded as substantiation of India’s apprehension of the misuse of the concept, and India reverted its position to the sceptical view of humanitarian intervention/R2P. By mere complaining about the mixing of peace enforcement with peacekeeping, when the United Nations deployed ‘intervention brigade’ for the protection of civilians, India lost the opportunity to take the initiative to propose a new mechanism to deal with the humanitarian crisis in atrocious internal conflicts.

22. Humanitarian Intervention

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Society ◽  
International Security ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Post Cold War

This chapter examines the implications of humanitarian intervention for international security. It considers the debate between those who argue that the protection of civilians from genocide and mass atrocities is far more important than the principle of non-intervention in certain circumstances and those who oppose this proposition. This has become a particular problem in the post-Cold War world where the commission of atrocities in places like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur prompted calls for international society to step in to protect the victims with military force if necessary. Humanitarian intervention causes problems for international security by potentially weakening the rules governing the use of force in world politics. The chapter first considers the case against humanitarian intervention before discussing the principle known as ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P).

Truth to Power

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
International Terrorism ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Intelligence Support ◽  
The Cold War

This first-ever history of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) is told through the reflections of its eight chairs in the period from the end of the Cold War until 2017. Coeditors Robert Hutchings and Gregory Treverton add a substantial introduction placing the NIC in its historical context going all the way back to the Board of National Estimates in the 1940s, as well as a concluding chapter that highlights key themes and judgments. The historic mission of this remarkable but little-understood organization is strategic intelligence assessment in service of senior American foreign policymakers. It has been at the center of every critical foreign policy issue during the period covered by this volume: helping shape America’s post–Cold War strategies, confronting sectarian conflicts around the world, meeting the new challenge of international terrorism, and now assessing the radical restructuring of the global order. Each chapter places its particular period of the NIC’s history in context (the global situation, the administration, the intelligence community) and assesses the most important issues with which the NIC grappled during the period, acknowledging failures as well as claiming successes. With the creation of the director of national intelligence in 2005, the NIC’s mission mushroomed to include direct intelligence support to the main policymaking committees in the government. The mission shift took the NIC directly into the thick of the action but may have come at the expense of weakening its historic role of providing over-the horizon strategic analysis.

Continuity and Change in British Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Croft
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Constant Argument

For almost fifty years there has been constant argument between those who have supported the development and possession of nuclear weapons by Britain and those opposed to those policies. This article argues that there has been a continuity in the arguments made by policy-makers and their critics, both operating within an unchanging series of linked assumptions forming a paradigm or mind-set. This article sets out the character of the assumptions of the orthodox and alternative thinkers, as they are termed in the article, examining their coherence and differences, particularly during the cold war. It concludes by attempting to draw out some implications for the British security policy debate in the post-cold war period.

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