International Perceptions of Human Rights

Public Integrity, Summer 2010, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 201–218. © 2010 ASPA. All rights reserved.

ISSN 1099-9922/2010 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/PIN1099-9922120301

Rethinking Nonintervention The Challenge of the UN Charter and Protecting the Dispossessed DAVE O. BENJAMIN

Abstract

Nonintervention remains axiomatic in affirming the sovereignty of the state and is underscored by Article 2(4)(7) of the UN Charter. Recent episodes of crimes against humanity and genocide have revealed the glaring inadequacy of nonintervention and the enormous challenge posed by the Charter. Furthermore, the seeming inability of the Security Council to act on manmade disasters historically has undermined the authority and ability of the UN to live up to the title of the Preamble to the Charter: “We the Peoples.” A more recent rethinking of the concept of sovereignty lays bare the inadequacies of Article 2(4)(7) as protector of the nation-state from interference and intervention. This paper addresses the question of nonintervention, contend- ing that there is scope for reinterpreting the Article and placing greater demands on the Security Council through nongovernmental organizations that increasingly represent the dispossessed.

More than a decade after the signing of the Rome Statute in July 1998, there seems to be even less political will to investigate allegations and evidence of crimes against humanity and prosecute those alleged to be responsible for such crimes. The ability of the international community to achieve enforcement of international humanitar- ian law has been hampered by a number of factors: the unwillingness of key states, especially the United States, China, and India, to ratify the Rome Statute; shifts in state policies and laws that have exacerbated violations of international human rights and humanitarian law; and a failure to impose sanctions on states that would pressure governments to hand over those accused of crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court for prosecution.

Human rights violations, especially against women and children, are more preva- lent. The United Nations Security Council, long bolstered by the Permanent Five (the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom, also known as the P-5) and the veto, has failed to act to prevent or stop genocide.

The international community is increasingly accepting the principle that the con-

Research Articles

202 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

ventional definition of sovereignty is flawed. The notion that sovereignty is inviolable is flawed. At one level of analysis, there is a reliance on a measure of neutrality in international law in setting out criteria for statehood that can be applied universally. At another level, there is an almost Machiavellian notion that the state does all it can to protect its people but has a duty to keep the nation together even if that means permitting acts of cruelty against the people by those who govern.

The dawn of the millennium saw the adoption of two landmark principles by the United Nations: first, that the state is not an abstraction that is entitled to protection in international law in all circumstances; second, that the most basic measure of the sovereignty of the people rests in the material well-being of the population. The outcome has been two constructs: human security, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The notion that state sovereignty, as defined in customary interna- tional law and the Montevideo Convention 1933, is a largely abstract set of principles that subsume the responsibility of those who hold power to the sovereign will of the people is supported by Kofi Annan’s (1999) “Two Concepts of Sovereignty.” Human security and the MDGs are a response to the failure of the concept of state sovereignty in customary international law and the Montevideo Convention.

This study contends that Article 2(4)(7) of the UN Charter is fundamentally flawed. It presumes a construct of the state and sovereignty that is outmoded and inapplicable to much of the postcolonial world. It is inconsistent with the long history of intervention by permanent members of the Security Council in the internal affairs of postcolonial states, and disregards humanitarian intervention by nongovernmental organizations. Finally, Article 2 precludes the imperative of intervention, especially humanitarian intervention, in an era of ethnic and resource conflict in which the victims are countless civilians who are murdered, raped, and maimed in pursuit of absolute political power and wealth. The following section examines evolving con- cepts of security and sovereignty, and introduces the “responsibility to protect.”

Background

This section addresses the background to the contemporary discourse about humani- tarian intervention in the context of a definition of sovereignty that goes beyond law, the complementary and contrasting roles played by the UN and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in protecting the vulnerable, and the historical failure of the UN Security Council to authorize humanitarian intervention, especially where genocide is either being planned or in progress.

Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan (1999) proposed two concepts of sover- eignty: one a theoretical, abstract Western concept that sees the state as a sovereign entity with institutions that attend to its longevity and political succession; the other a notion of the responsibility to the sovereign people of those who govern in the name of state and people to protect the people from the excesses of the state. The Machiavellian right of the state to act without restriction has thus been replaced by the responsibility of the state to its citizens.

The Annan thesis was been built upon by the reports of a succession of UN- sponsored international commissions and conferences. For example, a conference of NGOs hosted by the UN Department of Public Information in September 2003 devoted its proceedings and report to human security. The Commission on Human Security defines human security as “freedom from want and freedom from fear”

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 203

(2003, 10). To the secretary-general and his team, human security derived from the notion that political and economic rights are intertwined with meeting the basic needs of humans—food, clothing, shelter, water, employment, and, of course, protection from the state.

The Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change called attention to the immense challenge facing the international community:

Collective security institutions have proved particularly poor at meeting the challenge posed by large scale, gross human rights abuses and genocide. This is a normative challenge to the United Nations: the concept of State and international responsibility to protect civilians from the effects of war and human rights abuses has yet to truly overcome the tension between the competing claims of sovereign inviolability and the right to intervene. It is also an operational challenge: the challenge of stopping a Government from killing its own civilians requires considerable military deployment capacity. (Panyarachun et al. 2004, 18)

Beyond this, the report noted “growing” acceptance of the idea that “the issue is not the right to intervene” of any state, but the “responsibility to protect” of every state when it comes to people suffering from avoidable catastrophe—mass murder and rape, ethnic cleansing by forcible expulsion and terror, and deliberate starvation and exposure to disease” (Panyarachun et al. 2004, 65). Carsten Stahn (2007, 100) observes that the Security Council put meaning to this interpretation in Resolution 1674 (April 28, 2006), in which it endorsed the World Summit Outcome Document regarding “the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, eth- nic cleansing and crimes against humanity.” It is worth noting, however, that there has historically been a significant divide between the debates and resolutions of the General Assembly and of the Security Council, especially given the dynamics of power plays and the veto in the latter organ.

While the literature has focused on the material conditions that promote human security, another reality exists: that the conditions of so many civilians are affected by civil wars, including ethnic conflict and conflicts fueled by resources. Postconflict issues have centered on the plight of child soldiers, the effects of land mines on civil- ians, trafficking of women and children, and nation building after a catastrophic epi- sode. There has been a notable failure on the part of intergovernmental organizations to protect the dispossessed, especially during episodes of genocide, as occurred in Rwanda in 1994 and at present in Sudan. The task of protecting the innocent has been left, for the most part, to NGOs, from providing human and material resources for the care of displaced persons to representing the dead and living in judicial processes.

Nongovernmental organizations have been placed at the forefront in gathering and reporting evidence, especially statistical data, to the UN and the wider international community, offering recommendations based on the needs of civilians, and capacity building in civil society. The NGO community has amassed an impressive record of accomplishments (Allen and Styan 2000). Most notable, and probably most widely recognized, was the pivotal role played by NGOs in the negotiation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. On this occasion the NGO community, together with “like-minded” governments, impressed on the international community the imperative of accountability and enforcement of international law on individual political and military leaders for acts of commission and omission (Allen and Styan 2000; Forsythe 2006, 106; Wippman 2004).

204 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

Therefore, while humanitarian intervention has not really occurred as foreseen by the architects of the UN and the authors of the Charter, it is occurring through NGOs, with tacit acceptance by governments in industrial and developing countries and even the countries in which humanitarian crises are occurring.

A different school of thought contends that humanitarian intervention is open to political and partisan ideological abuse. Jack Donnelly notes that, while noble, “purely humanitarian intervention may threaten international order” by reintroducing “human rights violations and humanitarian crises as legitimate subjects of interna- tional conflict” (2002, 97). He argues a case against humanitarian intervention, even as an exception, observing quite accurately that, throughout the cold war, both the United States and the Soviet Union appealed to humanitarian intervention as jus- tification for their incursions into either proxy or belligerent states, such as Korea, Afghanistan, and Grenada. The thesis has merit. The declarations of humanitarian crises in Korea in 1950 and Congo in 1960 were clearly motivated by the cold war. The subsequent assassination of Lumumba by the Congolese army with the assistance of the CIA made a powerful statement about the political will of the United States to use humanitarian intervention to overthrow and execute a third world leader who was considered a threat to U.S. and European hegemony (De Witte 2001). Clearly, therefore, there is a history of Article 2(4)(7) being invoked in military expeditions that have less to do with humanitarian intervention and assistance than with super- power expansion. In contrast, there was an unwillingness to take action in instances of genocide and other crimes against humanity such as in Cambodia.

Thus, state sovereignty has been radically redefined in the last decade, from the unlimited power and authority of the state to a responsibility to protect its citizenry. Humanitarian intervention, although necessary, has been given conservative treat- ment by the UN. The main obstacle, as the Security Council has seen it, is Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter, which asserts state sovereignty. While the UN has resisted humanitarian intervention, NGOs have been active in both advocacy and operations, although their work does not substitute for the moral authority of the UN. The section below examines humanitarian intervention in international law and historical application. It challenges the notion that the United Nations has resorted to humanitarian intervention to promote international peace and security.

Humanitarian Intervention

There are a number of definitions of humanitarian intervention. Almost invariably, they revert to the debate about the sovereignty of the state, the inviolability of the territory of the state, and the right of self-determination (Held 2002). However, the accepted wisdom has long been that humanitarian intervention occurs when a government, holding the powers of the state and representing the sovereign people, fails to protect the people. Ellery Stowell defines humanitarian intervention as “the reliance upon force for the justifiable purpose of protecting the inhabitants of another state from treatment which is so arbitrary and persistently abusive as to exceed the limits of that authority within which the sovereign is presumed to act with reason and justice” (1921, 53).

This definition has two problems. First, it views humanitarian action as essen- tially a bilateral issue, which is not the norm in the contemporary dispensation. The other is that it necessitates the use of force. In the post–cold war era of multilateral

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 205

humanitarian intervention, a certain political will holds that intervention is almost of necessity avoidance of the use of force, peacemaking if possible, and the protection of civilians and peacekeepers.1

Another definition of humanitarian intervention is propounded by Fernando Tesón: “Proportionate trans-boundary help, including forcible help, provided by governments to individuals in another state who are being denied basic human rights and who themselves would be rationally willing to revolt against their oppressive government” (1988, 5).

This definition is more compelling because it does not regard the use of force as imperative. The use of force is conditional upon a necessity, where help otherwise is not possible. It also assumes that humanitarian intervention is undertaken on a multilateral basis to assist communi- ties that, if it were possible, would revolt against their governments. Third, the communities are unable to revolt precisely because of the oppression meted out by their governments.

Humanitarian intervention is therefore justified in a number of special circum- stances: (1) an inability or unwillingness on the part of the government to defend its people; (2) collusion between agents of the state and those responsible for crimes against the population; (3) violent oppressive action by nonstate actors, without puni- tive action taken by the state to repel such action; and (4) international knowledge of the oppressive action by the state, agents of the state, or nonstate actors with the collusion of the state.

The international community is therefore faced with a legal versus a moral chal- lenge in resorting to humanitarian intervention. The imperative of intervening to save lives is challenged by the principle of nonintervention enshrined in Article 2 of the Charter.

The Legal vs. Moral Challenge

The fundamental challenge remains the paradox of legal vs. moral responsibility to act. On the one hand, Article 2(4) and (7) of the Charter recognize state sovereignty as inviolable and assert nonintervention in the internal affairs of states. This implies prima facie that it is illegal for the UN to intervene “in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state,” even to protect the citizenry. Moreover, Article 2(7) asserts that the UN cannot “require the Members to submit such matters to settlement.” Of course, it is accepted that this principle was based on the notion that every state accepted its responsibility to protect its nationals. On the other hand, there is an accepted wisdom that the international community has a responsibility to act to protect the most vulnerable. Article 39 of the Charter gives the Security Council wide-sweeping authority “to determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and, of course, the right of bind- ing resolutions including agreeing to the use of force. Article 2(7) also contains a proviso that state sovereignty “shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII,” emphasizing that enforcement supersedes the right of protection from noninterference and nonintervention.

The challenge arises when the international community, recognizing an imminent humanitarian crisis, exercises the political will to intervene in the interests of the

T h e fu n d a m en t a l ch a l l en g e r em a i n s t h e p a r a d ox of l eg a l vs . m or a l r es p on s i b i l i t y t o a ct .

206 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

dispossessed—the vulnerable civilians who are the victims of the crisis. This politi- cal will has not been manifest on occasions when threats to international peace and security have involved threats to the vulnerable, including the 1935–36 bombing of Abyssinia by Italy, in the aftermath of which the League of Nations failed to take punitive action against the aggressor; the Holocaust, when it appeared that there were no enemies on the right, which included Nazi Germany (where the issue was German territorial conquest, not the Holocaust); the 1975–79 genocide in Cambodia, which was mired by the complexities of cold war geopolitics; the enormous crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s; and, of course, the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, during which the UN actually pulled out 75 percent of its peacekeeping mission. As the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty stated: “Rwanda in 1994 laid bare the full horror of inaction. The UN Secretariat and some permanent members of the Security Council knew that officials connected to the then government were planning genocide. . . . But the Security Council re- fused to take the necessary action. That was a failure of international will—of civic courage—at the highest level” (2001, 1).

Annan is more blunt. In referring to Rwanda, and to the Balkans immediately before that, he said, “The international community clearly had the capacity to prevent these events. But it lacked the will” (Annan 2004). Rwanda stands out because it occurred after the end of the cold war, with a unipolar international system, and yet there was considerable debate in the final analysis about the logistical cost to the five permanent members of the Security Council (Moose 2004). There was even a reluctance at the time to refer to the events in Rwanda as genocide—as George Moose (2004) put it, “one of the most shameful failures that certainly rises right to the top—the fact that it took us so long to come to what should have been a fairly obvious conclusion.”

The debate about morality and logistics aside, there is a real question about the legality of humanitarian intervention. Ahmad Ajaj contends that

reading the Charter with an eye on the matter of the legality of humanitarian interven- tion, one has to make a delicate choice: either people die because no-one has the right to intervene in a sovereign state; or an intervention ought to take place. The first suggestion is very hard to accept because it strips us of our humanity and degrades our civilization; the second one is entirely dependent on whether or not intervention is to be undertaken unilaterally or collectively under the auspices of the United Nations. (1993, 227)

The Security Council failed to take the initiative during the crisis in Korea in 1950, prompting the General Assembly to adopt the “Uniting for Peace” resolution (UN General Assembly 1950). Both the Security Council and the General Assembly failed to act during the crisis in Biafra in the 1960s, when the military in Nigeria laid siege and effectively starved the people of Biafra into submission. Rwanda was even more extreme. Yet the axiom that governed the notion of humanitarian intervention when the UN was being founded was “Never Again,” referring to the horror of the Holocaust.

Beyond the failure to act in humanitarian crises is the reality that so many coun- tries in the international system do not satisfy the basic criteria of sovereignty (Aust 2005, 16; Higgins 1994, 39). Defined territory and conceptual nationality are offset by the virtual nonexistence of any competent administration that enjoys a mandate and is capable of delivering basic services to the people. Rather, there is evidence of collapsed state institutions, warlordism, a gross failure on the part of those who

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 207

hold political and military power to deliver benefits to the people, and a manifest inability to protect the people, especially the most vulnerable, against aggression by agents of the state.

Over the past fifteen years West Africa has been replete with examples of failed states, warlordism, and crimes committed by agents of the state against civilian populations. Far from the UN acting in defense of “We the Peoples,” as Annan put it (Jentleson 2007, 19), private military contractors have been hired to install or depose governments, placing civilians at the center of conflicts that are resource driven, and warlords have killed, maimed, and tortured the innocent in search of resources needed to finance their wars. In many cases, the regimes that were the cause of humanitarian crises were proxies to superpowers that sought spheres of influence, mineral resources, and votes in the United Nations during the cold war. In other cases, agents of change were as violent in seeking and defending their objec- tives as those they sought to depose. Decades of civil war, corruption and violent rule, warlordism, and ethnic conflict have resulted in generations lost to poverty, resource and territorial conflict, power struggles, and genocide.

The challenges faced by the international community are complicated by the new emphasis on terrorism. In the process, critical issues such as wars for access to fossil fuel and other mineral resources, humanitarian crises as in Sudan, the impact of the floods across sub-Saharan Africa, trafficking in women and children, global poverty, the increasing use of mercenaries by superpowers, and extraordinary rendition and the use of secret prisons receive minimal debate and less coverage. One is left to contemplate the degree of effectiveness with which the five permanent members of the Security Council are likely to impose their will on the military junta in Burma/ Myanmar to transition to democracy and end the gross violation of human rights, or to compel the government of Sudan to halt its collaboration with the Janjaweed in the destruction of Darfurians.

There is a real question to be asked: Given the limitations of the legal authority granted by Article 2 (4)(7) and Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and the moral impera- tive that the vulnerable be protected by the international community, is there a case for arguing that the international community does have an obligation to intervene to protect the vulnerable and dispossessed? If it does, who sets out the mandate and on what terms? Are representatives of the dispossessed and the state in which intervention is to occur to be consulted? How and by whom?

While Article 2 limits intervention by the UN, intrastate conflict claims civilian victims who have no means of self-defense. The issue is neither interstate conflict nor noninterference but how the individual and the community can be protected against the government, paramilitaries, and even mercenaries who act with impunity. This calls for a paradigm shift in understanding the nature of conflict.

A Paradigm Shift

In many respects, a paradigm shift has occurred. While realists may contend that the international system is based on states competing for power in a hierarchy, and

D eca d es of ci vi l w a r s , cor r u p t i on a n d vi ol en t r u l e, w a r l or d i s m , a n d et h n i c con i ct h a ve r es u l t ed i n g en er a t i on s l os t t o p over t y, r es ou r ce a n d t er r i t or i a l con i ct , p ow er s t r u g g l es , a n d g en oci d e.

208 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

the terms determining the place of a state in that hierarchy are based on war, the harsh reality is that the Eurocentric concept of nation-statehood is largely irrelevant to the existence of much of the population of the world. The increasing alienation between state and individual and between state and community is indicative of the reality that the abstract state has been replaced by a self-appointed government that abuses its people in order for the members of the government to acquire wealth and absolute power. Alliances between these quasi-states (Jackson 1990) and the superpowers that are the five permanent members of the Security Council increasingly alienate the sovereign people and, more especially, the most vulnerable in society.

Modern conflict is often not between and among states. Rather it falls into one or another of four main categories:

• con icts between states and “shadowy networks of individuals” (White House 2002) who are involved with broader nonstate groups

• con icts between the government and the citizenry, not necessarily civil war • con icts between nonstate actors and civilians where transnational corporations seek collusion of mercenaries, governments, or nonstate actors to further their economic ambitions (e.g., Zaire in the later days of Mobutu, or the adventures of the private military company Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone in the early 1990s, or, for that matter, the events that led up the execution of leaders of the Ogoni people in Nigeria in 1993)

• con icts between or among warlords in which civilians are the direct targets (e.g., Liberia and Somalia)

There is need for a new paradigm shift, a recognition that the inability of the government—the state in the Eurocentric construct—to legitimately protect all its citizens represents a fundamental loss of sovereignty that leads ultimately to chaos and anarchy or, worse, the use of the resources of the state against the vulnerable in society. It is therefore imperative that the international com- munity act, not in defense of the government—the quasi-state—but in defense of the vulnerable who become the targets of the military and police apparatus of the government. An inability to protect the vulnerable represents not even a gross violation, but a clear dereliction of duty. If the apparatus of the govern- ment is not willing or able to protect the innocent, the international community needs to do so—at the level of self-interest if nothing else, just so the industrial countries do not have to accept hordes of people seeking refugee status. The international community cannot afford to be blind as it was in the 1960s during the Biafra crisis (when ignorance of the event could have been presented as a defense), or worse, as it was during the Rwanda genocide (known worldwide), or Sudan today.

International law has progressed significantly since the end of World War II. Myriad conventions and treaties intended to protect civilians during peace and conflict have been ratified, but they have proved largely ineffectual.

Public International Law

The universal application of public international law has evolved since 1945 through a number of treaties and conventions, including the UN Charter 1945, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, the Geneva Conventions 1949, the Genocide

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 209

Convention 1949, the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, and the Rome Statute. Arguably, these conventions aimed at setting down universal standards and codes of conduct for states and individuals in peace and wartime. They are also intended to hold all governments, political leaders, and military commanders and officers responsible for their actions in relation to civilians and combatants alike. The Helsinki Final Act 1975 “was a complex compromise between the Soviet desire for recognition of its hegemony in Eastern Europe and Western desire for an international codification of human rights among other things” (“A Caviar Ending” 1977).

The culmination of these legal instruments is found in the Rome Statute, which came into effect in 2002. It created the International Criminal Court, which tries individual political leaders and public officials, military commanders, and rank- and-file military personnel for acts of commission and omission (ICC 1998). As Brownlie observes, there are four categories of binding multilateral conventions protecting human rights:

• the two “comprehensive” International Covenants on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and on Civil and Political Rights, adopted in 1966

• the comprehensive regional conventions: the European Convention on Human Rights 1950, the American Convention on Human Rights 1969, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 1981

• the conventions prohibiting speci c wrongs: genocide, torture, and racial discrimination

• conventions protecting the rights of speci c categories of people: women, children, refugees, and migrant workers (Brownlie 2003, 536; Gurowitz 2004)

Although signatories are obligated to abide by the principles outlined in these conventions and treaties, there are caveats about the functioning of all of them. First, public knowledge of the commission of crimes: Only when there is public knowl- edge, and the pressure of public activism, is prosecution likely to occur. Moreover, knowledge is often not sufficient, as in the case of an unnamed U.S. Marine Corps corporal who was not court-martialed for executing an unarmed Iraqi at a mosque in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004 (Chadwick 2005). On another occasion, a group of marines was charged with the murder of twenty-four Iraqis in 2005, chiefly because of re- porting of the incident by the media (Whitaker 2007). The other caveat involves the use of private military contractors, or mercenaries, in combat operations. According to Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions:

A mercenary is any person who: (a) is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict; (b) does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities; (c) is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and func- tions in the armed forces of that Party; (d) is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict; (e) is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and (f) has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces. (ICRC 1977)

A mercenary is therefore an unlawful combatant and does not enjoy the protec- tions granted to lawful combatants. A mercenary does not fulfill the basic criteria for identification as a lawful combatant:

210 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

• being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates • having a xed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance • carrying arms openly • conducting operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war. (Roberts and Guelff 2000, 202)

Mercenaries are not agents of either the state or any resistance to conflict in in- ternational law and are therefore not entitled to the protections afforded the state military apparatus or volunteer corps that are banded together in defense of the state or nation.

Yet mercenaries are granted license to act without restraint because they will not be held responsible under any national or international code of conduct or op- erations. Antonio Cassese summarizes the debate about the status of mercenaries using the 1970s, when “the number of mercenaries became conspicuously large in Africa, where they were used both by the ruling elites (for internal security, intel- ligence, the training of special commandos, etc.) and by foreign powers as tools for organizing or strengthening movements to destabilize African regimes” (Cassese 2001, 333). The African states regarded them as unlawful combatants, while the West regarded them as lawful combatants entitled to the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The Protocol represented a compromise with significant concessions on the part of the West. Today the involvement of mercenaries in conflict and the implications for protection of civilians is manifest in Iraq where the United States has contracted a number of companies to supplement and replace the U.S. military in operations (Singer 2003).

To date, public international law has not caught up with the transition from the old style of mercenary activity to the use of military contractors by states to represent either public or private interests in conflict. Mercenaries, like paramilitaries led by warlords, target civilians without fear of prosecution under international humanitar- ian law. This is especially the case where ethnic conflict prevails.

The Reality of Ethnic Conflict

Ethnic, including religious, conflict is nothing new. It is, however, having a dra- matic impact today. This may be because of the communications revolution that has brought conflict to the home of the civilian in real time, thanks to satellites and on-site reporters. There is also greater public outrage both at ethnic conflict and at the seeming failure of the international community to respond in defense of the vulnerable. Social activism has cut across ethnic, religious, and even class lines to demand an end to conflicts, episodes of genocide, and crimes against humanity, irrespective of the culprits and collaborators.

Ethnic conflict is exacerbated by economic issues: resource endowment, resource depletion, failure of economic programs, the manifest absence of economic pro- grams altogether. It is also a catalyst for corruption and malfeasance, authoritarian rule, and absolute dictatorship. The language of genocide is often heard—referring to subject peoples in dehumanizing terms—to justify their extermination and to whip up support among the majority population. Ethnic conflict is indicative not necessarily of secession, but of a major cleavage in society that has the potential to fracture the geography of the state.

The international community faces an imperative, therefore. When the state is

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 211

unable or unwilling to protect civilian populations, the UN is expected to intervene. This, after all, is part of the mission of the organization in two respects: “We the Peoples” and “Never Again.”

The Responsibility to Protect

The international community has a duty to protect the vulnerable. According to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, the “responsibility to protect” clause implies that “The principle of non-intervention in internal affairs cannot be used to protect genocidal acts or other atrocities,” because there is a “col- lective international responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity” (Jentleson 2007, 20).

The notion that Article 2(4) and (7) of the UN Charter offer protection to the state such that the government can act with impunity against its people, especially when the state does not exist as a collective of political, economic, and legislative institutions capable of guaranteeing protections to the people against abuse of the instruments of coercion of the state represents at best a misconstruction of the intent of those sections of the charter. At worst, it is a recipe for collaboration between the international community, which swore “never again,” and those who hold office and are directing the resources and apparatus of the government against the sovereign people. Beyond this, it is clear that there is an implied loss of sovereignty when the state is unable to guarantee protection of its population.

The challenge of Article 2(4) and (7) has deeper implications. Thomas Fues (2005) condenses the “deficits in legitimacy”—the undercutting of the moral authority of the UN—as follows:

• dictatorships and unlawful regimes enjoy the same rights as democracies (e.g., Zimbabwe and Sudan)

• the UN is an organization not of abstract states but of real governments, even those that show little regard for principles such as accountability and transparency

• the UN is a collective of member states whose governments pursue their national interests in and through the organization

• the Security Council has supranational powers that members of the UN willingly agreed to on acceeding to membership

The UN, therefore, has to be more resolute in making a distinction between states that live up to the responsibility to protect their populations and those that do not but expect that the UN will not interfere in their internal affairs.

Former secretary-general Annan has observed that the UN Charter is an agreement among governments on behalf of the peoples of the world; hence the declaration “We the Peoples” (Annan 1999). Beyond this, the responsibility of the UN to preserve international peace and security has to be interpreted broadly. If there is a natural disaster in a member state and its government is incapable of meeting the needs of the people, the government asks the UN for humanitarian assistance. If the govern- ment of a member state fails to observe some standard accepted by the international community as a norm (by virtue of the many conventions asserting the rights of civilians, children, women, ethnic and religious groups, and any other groupings that may be targeted), there is going to be a “knock-on” effect on bordering states.

212 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

Displaced persons will seek the protection of neighboring states, imposing spatial and resource pressures on that state. There is, therefore, an impact on international peace and security. The UN is thereby required to act in defense of those who are targeted by their government or groups supported by the government. Ellery Stowell, writing on the eve of the Holocaust, asserted: “When . . . the conduct of a state, not excused by some untoward event like revolution or civil war, constitutes, on the part of the responsible government a deliberate violation of that minimum of security and justice to which every individual in a civilized community is entitled, it becomes the right and the duty of other states to intervene in so far as it is practicable to prevent or lessen such severities” (1939, 734). Annan has been equally direct: “The sover-

eignty of states must no longer be used as a shield for gross violations of human rights” (Evans 2004).

Negotiating with an oppressive regime for access to target populations defeats the very ethos of the United Nations with regard to humanitarian intervention. Target popula- tions are dehumanized and isolated, and the signal sent to the international community is that the problem is being dealt with. Target populations are referred to as blight on the landscape that will be remedied by further

isolation, dislocation, or death. This makes the notion of negotiating access coun- terproductive. As Bronwyn Leebaw puts it, “The idea of negotiating with leaders for access to civilian populations makes little sense when the primary goal of those leaders is to murder civilians” (2007, 227).

There is no compulsion on the part of the international community to recognize a government that does not hold a mandate accepted by the United Nations. Although the Khmer Rouge held political power in Cambodia during the 1970s, the UN rec- ognized Prince Sihanouk as the legitimate ruler and, thereby, granted him the seat at the United Nations. The UN also suspended South Africa during apartheid. At one level this could be construed as intervention in the internal affairs of a member state and, therefore, a violation of Article 2(4) and (7). At another level, the international community deemed apartheid sufficiently objectionable that it resolved to suspend South Africa from membership.

The responsibility to protect is based on a notion that member states, having voluntarily agreed to the rights and obligations of membership in the UN, commit themselves to living up to the duties of members. Included is the duty to protect the citizens of states on a collective and mutual basis. States and governments are recognized as custodians of the peoples of the world. Inasmuch as the UN has responsibility for protection and preservation of international peace and security— generally regarded as conflicts between and among states—it has a responsibility to protect the peoples of states from acts by the state and agents thereof that are injurious to communities. To that extent, Article 39 of the Charter clearly extends to the Security Council the authority to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, [and to] make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore interna- tional peace and security.” The obvious harm done to civilians, including death and

E t h n i c con i ct i s ex a cer b a t ed b y econ om i c i s s u es : r es ou r ce en d ow m en t , r es ou r ce d ep l et i on , fa i l u r e of econ om i c p r og r a m s , or a m a n i fes t a b s en ce of econ om i c p r og r a m s a l t og et h er. I t i s a l s o a ca t a l ys t for cor r u p t i on a n d m a l fea s a n ce, a u t h or i t a r i a n r u l e a n d a b s ol u t e d i ct a t or s h i p .

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 213

dislocation, combined with the movement of civilians across borders, constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The arming of governments and extremist organizations—as the French armed the Hutu in Rwanda in 1994—constitutes an even greater threat to international peace and security (McNulty 2000).

Moreover, much has been said and written about punishment for crimes against humanity including genocide. The UN Genocide Convention 1948 sought to address prevention, but did not lay out a platform for either prevention or punishment. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court lays out a set of procedures for investigation, prosecution, and punishment of those responsible for crimes against humanity. However, the central issue remains that tens of thousands or millions of innocent people have to die in order for investigations and prosecutions to occur. Neither the Genocide Convention nor the Rome Statute 2002 makes provision for the prevention of crimes against humanity including genocide (Fowler 2003). This leaves a central conclusion: that whereas punishment—including investigation and prosecution—is essentially a legal action, prevention is based on a moral impera- tive. This leads to the conclusion that there is no requirement that states pursue humanitarian intervention as a legal action beyond the provisions of the UN Charter. Moreover, if, as in the Clinton administration, there is no political will to use the term “genocide,” states can absolve themselves of responsibility to act and consequent responsibility for failure to act.

Furthermore, crimes against humanity are often associated with state collapse, whether current or impending, actual or potential. The Charter places no legal obligation on the community of states to keep collapsing or collapsed states to- gether. Recognition of Kosovo by the United States and some European powers, contrasted by the refusal of Russia to do likewise, makes the point that there is no binding obligation on UN member states, and certainly not on the P-5, to recog- nize new states. By the same token, there is no obligation to intervene to prevent humanitarian crises, including crimes against humanity (Held 2002). That is one of the reasons for the continued stalemate in Sudan, the involvement of the African Union notwithstanding.

The burning question, then, as Gareth Evans has put it, is: “Is there” a “respon- sibility to protect?” (Evans and Sahnoun 2002). The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty proposed such a responsibility on the basis that “millions of human beings remain at the mercy of civil wars, insurgencies, state repression and state collapse” (ICISS 2001, 11). The commission further expressed its belief that “the responsibility to protect implies an accompanying responsibil- ity to prevent” (ibid., 19). The commission based its view on the implications of localized conflict for international peace and security, a responsibility on the part of the UN to act based on numerous General Assembly and Security Council reso- lutions, and the report of the UN secretary-general, Prevention of Armed Conflict (UN General Assembly 2001). At the very outset the report of the secretary-general noted that “Conflict prevention is one of the primary obligations of Member States set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, and United Nations efforts in conflict prevention must be in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter. Conflict prevention is also an activity best undertaken under Chapter VI of the Charter” (ibid., 2).

However, the report qualified responsibility for prevention with national gov- ernments primarily, and declared that the main role of the UN and the interna-

214 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

tional community is “to support national efforts for conflict prevention and assist in building national capacity in this field” (UN General Assembly 2001, 2). To Secretary-General Annan, “the Charter provides the United Nations with a strong mandate for preventing armed conflict” on two bases: Conflict prevention is more cost-effective than post-conflict reconstruction; and peaceful prevention of conflict preserves international peace and security, and is consistent with Article 2(3) of the Charter (ibid., 9).

In 2003, the General Assembly essentially skirted the necessity of intervention to prevent armed conflict and crimes against humanity by reaffirming support for the Millennium Development Goals, the commitment of 0.7 percent of GNP in for- eign assistance by developed countries, and the implementation of the Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. While reaffirming support for the Millennium Development Goals has a certain appeal in principle, it is not a substitute for intervention to prevent human catastrophe. The UN effort in Rwanda in 1994 failed not because of economic and social conditions, but because the United Nations Observer Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) was understaffed and ill-equipped. The memorandum from General Dallaire to General Baril was ignored by the UN Secretariat and the Security Coun- cil, and, rather than increasing the contingent, the Security Council drastically and regrettably cut the peacekeeping force.

The responsibility to protect rests on three basic tenets: that there is a legal obligation to act where a humanitarian crisis is in evidence; that there is a moral responsibility to act, especially in the light of the post-Holocaust axiom “Never Again”; and that failure to exercise the political will needed to save the lives of the vulnerable and dispossessed might be regarded as a crime against humanity in time to come.

First, Article 2 (7) of the Charter is unambiguous; while the state enjoys the right of nonintervention, “this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.” Article 39 is equally unambiguous in the authority it gives to the Security Council to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.” The Council therefore enjoys a legal right and responsibility to employ measures appropriate and necessary for the mainte- nance or restoration of international peace and security. If the Council is satisfied that peaceful means, including sanctions, are not successful, then it reserves the right to “take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.” It clearly enjoys an unchallenged right of the use of force to prevent an international catastrophe given the emphasis placed on conflict prevention. Article 50 extends to the Council a right of preventive measures, clearly requiring that peacekeepers be subscribed by member states.

Moreover, the Charter offers the perfect operational mechanism in resorting to regional arrangements (Chapter VIII). Article 53 authorizes the Security Council, “where appropriate, [to] utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforce- ment action under its authority.” Regional organizations can be involved in dispute settlement with the authority of the Council. While this may have been a concession

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 215

to the Organization of American States when the Charter was being negotiated, it has real application today when Africa is seeking to resolve its internal ethnic and political issues.

Finally, the Charter authorizes the secretary-general to take the initiative in informing the Security Council of threats to the international peace and security (Article 99). Although the secretary-general was envisioned as a chief executive of the UN, there is a history of holders of the office initiating programs and approaches to issues that have been revolutionary in their time. Dag Hammarskjöld took the UN into the development era chiefly because he was persuaded that development and underdevelopment were the major issues of the day, not the cold war. Kofi Annan, in his second term in office, sought to initiate a debate about human security that yielded results in the Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals. Conversely, the failure of the UN to act during the Rwanda genocide was as much a blot on the copybook of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (and the assistant secretary-general responsible for peacekeeping, Kofi Annan) as it was a lack of political will on the part of the self-appointed P-5.

It is ironic that, while there has been a failure of political will on the part of gov- ernments and of the UN as an institution, NGOs have succeeded in mobilizing the vital human, technical, material, and financial resources in industrial and nonindus- trial countries needed for humanitarian efforts in conflict zones, especially in cases of conflict within states. The appointment of Bernard Kouchner, a co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), as foreign minister of France in 2007, it can be argued, is more than tacit acceptance of both the work and the political will of NGOs, especially those involved in treating and assisting civilian victims of manmade disasters.

Conclusions

Nonintervention remains a contentious principle of public international law because it continues to offer protection to regimes that do not protect their peoples. The challenge posed by Article 2(4)(7) of the UN Charter is less real than theoretical, because internal conflict that threatens the lives and safety of civilians, displacing them in some way, is indicative of the collapse of the state in the first place. Fur- thermore, a state that is unable to guarantee security of individual and community is a failed or collapsed state, devoid of institutions of government and governance that protect subject peoples from victimization and crimes against humanity. In such circumstances, invocation of Article 2(4)(7) strains credulity.

Rather, the invocation of 2(4)(7) is indicative of the failure of political will, both in the Security Council as an institution and among the nations of the P-5, which have veto power. Despite precedent in “Uniting for Peace 1950,” the General Assembly has also manifested a failure of political will in not calling on the Security Council to authorize humanitarian intervention in internal civil conflict, especially crimes against humanity and genocide. While political will was not absent in the Korea and Congo incidents—largely an ideological matter—it was glaringly absent during the Rwanda tragedy in 1994. The failure to act in Rwanda and now Sudan suggests that the obstacle to effective action is not the legal instrument but the political will of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Finally, the notion of nonintervention in the internal affairs of the state is flawed

216 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

at its root. It presupposes the existence of a nation-state bound by ideals and loy- alties that transcend ethnicity, language, and the common history of the colonial experience. Fractured states, devoid of institutions of government and governance, with no binding agents, with genocidal regimes in power, are quasi-states that are simply incapable of guaranteeing the physical security and safety of minority and subject peoples. Such states cannot be held to the same standard as those with institutions of government and governance, some measure of accountability and transparency, and a concept of the responsibility to the sovereign people of those who control the institutions of state and government. In such circumstances, Article 2(4)(7) becomes a legal instrument that protects genocidal regimes against their own subject peoples.

NOTE 1. There is recognition of fundamental flaws in the mandate that the Security Coun-

cil gave to UN peacekeepers in the Balkans in the early 1990s allowing Blue Berets to defend themselves but not civilians through the use of force—this led to the debacle of Srebrenica as a case in point.

REFERENCES Ajaj, Ahmad M. 1993. “Humanitarian Intervention: Second Reading of the Charter of

the United Nations.” Arab Law Quarterly 7, no. 4:215–236. Allen, Tim, and David Styan. 2000. “A Right to Interfere? Bernard Kouchner and the

New Humanitarianism.” Journal of International Development 12, no. 6 (August): 825–842.

Annan, Kofi. 1999, September 18. “Two Concepts of Sovereignty.” Economist, avail- able at www.un.org/News/ossg/sg/stories/kaecon.html.

———. 2004, January 26. “Genocide Is a Threat to Peace, Requiring Strong, United Action.” Address delivered to the Stockholm International Forum in Sweden, avail- able at www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2004/issue1/0104p4.asp.

Armstrong, David, Theo Farrell, and Hélène Lambert. 2007. International Law and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Aust, Anthony. 2005. Handbook of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer- sity Press.

Bohman, James. 2007. Democracy Across Borders: From Démos to Démoi. Cam- bridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Brownlie, Ian. 2003. Principles of Public International Law, 6th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cassese, Antonio. 2001. International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press. “A Caviar Ending.” 1977, August 15. Time (in partnership with CNN). Available at

www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915253,00.html. Chadwick, Alex. 2005, May 10. “No Court Martial for Marine Taped Killing Un-

armed Iraqi.” Day to Day (NPR), available at www.npr.org/templates/story/story. php?storyId=4646406/.

Commission on Human Security. 2003. Human Security Now. New York: United Na- tions, available at www.humansecurity-chs.org/finalreport/English/FinalReport.pdf.

De Witte, Ludo. 2001. The Assassination of Lumumba, translated by Ann Wright and Renée Fenby. London: Verso.

Donnelly, Jack. 2002. “Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention.” Journal of Human Rights 1, no. 1 (March):93–109.

Evans, Gareth. 2004, April 1. “The Responsibility to Protect: Rethinking Humanitarian

Rethinking Nonintervention

P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010 217

Intervention.” Paper presented at the American Society of International Law, 98th Annual Meeting, Panel on “Rethinking Collective Action,” Washington, D.C., avail- able at www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2561&l=1/.

Evans, Gareth, and Mohamed Sahnoun. 2002. “The Responsibility to Protect.” Foreign Affairs 81, no. 6 (November/December):99–110.

Forsythe, David P. 2006. Human Rights in International Relations, 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fowler, Jerry. 2003. “Diplomacy and ‘The G-Word.’ ” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 35, no. 2 (spring):213–218.

Fues, Thomas. 2005. “Strengthening the United Nations through Deepened Coopera- tion with NGOs, the Private Sector, and Parliaments.” Briefing Paper 1, German Development Institute, available at www.die-gdi.de/die_homepage.nsf/6f3fa777ba6 4bd9ec12569cb00547f1b/aa2a4c2a9a995aa1c1256f810030655d/$FILE/Fues-1-05- B.P.pdf.

Gurowitz, Amy. 2004. “International Law, Politics, and Migrant Rights.” In Politics of International Law, edited by Christian Reus-Smit, pp. 131–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Held, David. 2002. “Law of States, Law of Peoples: Three Models of Sovereignty.” Legal Theory 8, no. 1 (March):1–44.

Higgins, Rosalyn. 1994. Problems and Process: International Law and How We Use It. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty). 2001. The Responsibility to Protect. Ottawa: International Development Research Center, available at www.iciss.ca/pdf/Commission-Report.pdf.

ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross). 1977, June 8. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), available at www.icrc.org/ihl. nsf/WebPrint/470-FULL?OpenDocument/.

International Criminal Court. 1998. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, available at www.un.org/law/icc/statute/english/rome_statute(e).pdf.

Jackson, Robert H. 1990. Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Jentleson, Bruce W. 2007. “A Responsibility to Protect: The Defining Challenge for the Global Community.” Harvard International Review 28, no. 4 (winter):18–23.

Leebaw, Bronwyn. 2007. “The Politics of Impartial Activism: Humanitarianism and Human Rights.” APSA Perspectives on Politics 5, no. 2 (June):223–239.

McNulty, Mel. 2000. “French Arms, War and Genocide in Rwanda.” Crime, Law and Social Change 33, nos. 1/2 (March):105–129.

Moose, George. 2004, April 14. Interview on PBS Frontline, “Ghosts of Rwanda,” available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/interviews/moose. html.

Panyarachun, Anand, et al. 2004. A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. New York: United Nations, available at http://un.org/secureworld/report2.pdf.

Roberts, Adam, and Richard Guelff, ed. 2000. Documents on the Laws of War, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Singer, Peter. W. 2003. Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Indus- try. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Stahn, Carsten. 2007. “Responsibility to Protect: Political Rhetoric or Emerging Legal Norm?” American Journal of International Law 101, no. 1 (January):99–120.

Stowell, Ellery C. 1921. Intervention in International Law. Washington, D.C.: John Byrne. ———. 1939. “Humanitarian Intervention.” American Journal of International Law

33, no. 4 (October):733–736. Tesón, Fernando R. 1988. Humanitarian Intervention: An Enquiry into Law and Mo-

rality. Ardsley-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Transnational.

218 P UBLIC INTEGRITY SUMMER 2010

Dave O. Benjamin

Organization of American States. 1933. Montevideo Convention, available at www. yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/intdip/interam/intam03.htm.

UN Department of Public Information and Non-Governmental Organizations. 2003, September 8–10. Human Security and Dignity: Fulfilling the Promise of the United Nations. Final Report of the 56th Annual DPI/NGO Conference, available at www. un.org/dpi/ngosection/annualconfs/56/56final.pdf.

UN General Assembly. 1950, November 3. “Uniting for Peace,” General Assembly Resolution 377(V), 302nd Plenary Meeting, available at www.un.org/Depts/dhl/ landmark/pdf/ares377e.pdf.

UN General Assembly/Security Council. 2001, June 7. “Prevention of Armed Con- flict” [A/55/985–S/2001/574], Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, available at www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/2001/un-conflprev- 07jun.htm.

UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA). 2005. Human Security in Africa (December), available at www.un.org/africa/osaa/reports/Human%20Security%20 in%20Africa%20FINAL.pdf.

Whitaker, Raymond. 2007, November 1. “US Marines on Trial for Iraq Atrocity.” Independent, available at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/ar- ticle3081853.ece/.

White House. 2002. National Security Strategy, available at www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/ nss/2002/nss.pdf.

Wippman, David. 2004. “The International Criminal Court.” In The Politics of Inter- national Law, edited by Christian Reus-Smit, pp. 151–188. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dave O. Benjamin is assistant professor of international political economy and diplo- macy at the University of Bridgeport. He received his B.A. Hons. degree in history from Carleton University (1986), diploma in international relations from the University of the West Indies (1987), M.Phil. in international relations from the University of Cambridge (1988), and Ph.D. in international studies from the University of Cambridge (1999). His articles include “Protecting the Protectors: NGO Action and the Responsibility to Protect,” International Journal on World Peace (March 2009); “Implications of Mass Terrorism for the Caribbean Community: The Case of Grenada,” University of the West Indies (February 2002); and “Sudan and the Responsibility to Protect,” International Journal of Human Rights (June 2010).

Copyright of Public Integrity is the property of M.E. Sharpe Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.