The world has watched in horror as Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qaddafi uses his military to attack protesters opposed to his rule, killing hundreds or possibly thousands of unarmed civilians. Many of his own men have refused to fire on their own people, instead defecting to the rebels or flying their planes to nearby Malta, so Qaddafi has called in mercenaries from neighboring countries who are more willing to obey his orders.
World leaders were quick to condemn Qaddafi’s actions. On Feb. 26, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose an arms embargo on Libya, urge member nations to freeze assets owned by Qaddafi and his family and refer the regime’s violence to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution of those responsible.
This is the first time that the Security Council has unanimously referred a situation involving human rights violations to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it is remarkable that countries that are not members of the Court — including the US, Russia and China — nevertheless supported the referral. The resolution can thus be seen as another incremental step toward the establishment of a global system of justice able to punish those who commit gross violations of human rights, regardless of their political or legal status in their own country.
Yet, in another way, the Security Council resolution was a disappointment. The situation in Libya became a test of how seriously the international community takes the idea of a responsibility to protect people from their rulers. The idea is an old one, but its modern form is rooted in the tragic failure to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. A subsequent UN inquiry concluded that as few as 2,500 properly trained military personnel could have prevented the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis.
Former US president Bill Clinton has said that the mistake he most regrets making during his presidency was his failure to push for intervention in Rwanda.
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, who was then UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, described the situation at the UN at the time as a “terrible and humiliating” paralysis.
When Annan became UN secretary-general, he urged the development of principles that would indicate when it is justifiable for the international community to intervene to prevent gross violations of human rights. In response, the Canadian -government established an International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which recommended that military intervention could be justified, as an extraordinary measure, where large-scale loss of life is occurring or imminent, owing to deliberate state action or the state’s refusal or failure to act.
These principles were endorsed by the UN General Assembly at its special World Summit in 2005 and discussed again in 2009, with an overwhelming majority of states supporting them.
The principle fits the situation in Libya today. Yet the Security Council resolution contains no mention of the possibility of military intervention — not even the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Qaddafi from using planes to attack protesters.
One body with a special concern to transform the idea of the responsibility to protect into a cause for action is the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, at the City University of New York. It has called on UN members to uphold their 2005 commitments and put the responsibility to protect into action in Libya. It urges consideration of a range of measures, several of which were covered by the Security Council resolution, but also including a no-fly zone.
In addition to arguing that the responsibility to protect can justify military intervention, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty recommended a set of precautionary principles. For example, military intervention should be a last resort and the consequences of action should not be likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.
Whether these precautionary principles are satisfied in Libya requires expert judgment of the specifics of the situation. No one wants another drawn-out war like those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, Libya is not Iraq or Afghanistan — its population is only about one-fifth of either country’s and there is a strong popular movement for a democratic form of government. Assuming that foreign military forces rapidly overwhelmed Qaddafi’s troops, they would soon be able to withdraw and leave the Libyan people to decide their own future.
At the time of writing, it is arguable that other sanctions or threats, short of military intervention, would be sufficient to deter more widespread bloodshed. Perhaps the rebels and the sanctions can overthrow Qaddafi unaided, without great loss of life. It is also unclear whether military intervention would cause more deaths than it prevented.
However, these are questions that the international community needs to ask and that the Security Council should have been discussing, so that the principle of the responsibility to protect — and its possible implications for military action — become part of our understanding of the requirements of international law and global ethics.
Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) led a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan in late February. During their various meetings with Taiwan’s leaders, this delegation never missed an opportunity to emphasize the strength of their cross-party consensus on issues relating to Taiwan and China. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Their instruction upon taking the reins of the committee was to preserve China issues as a last bastion of bipartisanship in an otherwise deeply divided Washington. They have largely upheld their pledge. But in doing so, they have performed the
It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambition is to rejuvenate the Chinese nation by unification of Taiwan, either peacefully or by force. The peaceful option has virtually gone out of the window with the last presidential elections in Taiwan. Taiwanese, especially the youth, are resolved not to be part of China. With time, this resolve has grown politically stronger. It leaves China with reunification by force as the default option. Everyone tells me how and when mighty China would invade and overpower tiny Taiwan. However, I have rarely been told that Taiwan could be defended to
It should have been Maestro’s night. It is hard to envision a film more Oscar-friendly than Bradley Cooper’s exploration of the life and loves of famed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. It was a prestige biopic, a longtime route to acting trophies and more (see Darkest Hour, Lincoln, and Milk). The film was a music biopic, a subgenre with an even richer history of award-winning films such as Ray, Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody. What is more, it was the passion project of cowriter, producer, director and actor Bradley Cooper. That is the kind of multitasking -for-his-art overachievement that Oscar
Chinese villages are being built in the disputed zone between Bhutan and China. Last month, Chinese settlers, holding photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), moved into their new homes on land that was not Xi’s to give. These residents are part of the Chinese government’s resettlement program, relocating Tibetan families into the territory China claims. China shares land borders with 15 countries and sea borders with eight, and is involved in many disputes. Land disputes include the ones with Bhutan (Doklam plateau), India (Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin) and Nepal (near Dolakha and Solukhumbu districts). Maritime disputes in the South China