Implementing UN's Humanitarian Norms in World Politics - Research Paper Example

Has the UN been a success or failure in implementing humanitarian norms in world politics since the end of the Cold War? I. Introduction Since its establishment in 1945, the United Nations has vowed to act as an international institution to maintain global peace and security, to help preserve friendly relations among countries and to advocate a better collaboration amongst its member states for a safer world. The foundation treaty of the organization, that is, The Charter of the United Nations, stood as an “embodiment of the international political and moral code. It encapsulates the international consensus and articulates best-practice international behavior by States and regional and international organizations” (Thakur, 2001). This international moral code and consensus provided nothing else but a set of international norms, which have then transcended to global humanitarian norms, when the Declaration of the Human Rights was signed in 1948. That is why, since the most relevant meaning of humanitarian norms converges towards the way human rights are respected in each country, we should look in this paper at the manner the United Nations, as an international organization, has pursued its mission of advocating, implementing and preserving human rights in critical areas of the globe. These critical areas are to be identified as those marked by an ongoing conflict or/and poor living standards and can be found in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Middle East. The end of the Cold War promised to put the United Nations in an easier position and brought hope for a rebirth of the organization. The threat of a nuclear war has vanished as the Soviet Union disintegrated, putting an end to a bipolar world of power struggling. This has opened the way to a new international arena, concentrated on the establishment and the sustainability of democratic governments and where the United Nations could better advocate and implement the humanitarian norms. “By directly affecting democratization, globalization, domestic conflict, and interstate conflict, the end of the Cold War was hypothesized to exert an indirect effect on the propensity of governments to respect the human rights of their citizens” (Laqueur, 2006). At the same time, the end of the Cold War was seen at the moment as the end of any kind of global conflict and the instauration of universal peace. However, the situation evolved quite differently in the next years, Africa with its civil wars and the Middle East with its tensions standing as relevant examples in the matter. So, the position of the United Nations wasn’t that easy after all. Even if the world wasn’t constantly alert for a war with weapons of mass destruction and the disappearance of the communist bloc enabled the advocacy of the human rights to reach a larger audience, new issues arose in the following decade. During the Cold War, the power was frozen between two major countries, which set some sort of balance in the world. With the disappearance of one side of the balance, the world has become unmonitored and created a situation that allowed older or newer regional conflicts to evolve to a major scale and drag the attention of the international community. The opinions in the academic literature regarding how successful the United Nations has been in implementing international humanitarian norms after the end of the Cold war are split. There can be found evidence of the successes that the United Nations has encountered, as well as of its failures. However, it is hard to make a final conclusion; therefore, in this paper, I will demonstrate that the United Nations had its failures, but the achievements in peacekeeping and development have to also be taken into account. The presence of such an organization is necessary to the functioning of the world we know today and its disintegration would bring damage to the global political, economical and social order; on the other hand, if the organization is not productive enough, its functionality should be reformed, but as a result of constructive criticism. II. Failures. In order to understand how the United Nations failed to meet the expectations of the international community in implementing humanitarian norms, one should take a look at the number of conflicts that have remained unsolved or that had a terrible outcome due to the lack of prompt decisions and actions from the UN’s part; their impact upon the political and economical situation in the region of conflict, as well as on people’s condition and standards of living should also be taken into consideration. For example, for decades, Africa has been entangled in a large number of conflicts, deaths and tragedy. Virgil Hawkins, who is an assistant Professor at the Global Collaboration Center at Osaka University in Japan and who writes a lot on the topic of stealth conflicts, presents, in one of his books, Stealth Conflicts; How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored, a map that can stand as a very powerful argument in the matter; this map shows the amount of deaths resulted from conflicts in the world, between 1990 and 2007: (Shah, 2010) -the map is constructed on the principle that the square area of continents/regions represents number of deaths encountered on their territor and we see that Africa is the top region, followed by Asia and the Middle East; “If this scale of destruction and fighting was in Europe, then people would be calling it World War III with the entire world rushing to report, provide aid, mediate and otherwise try to diffuse the situation” (Shah, 2010). The United Nation failed its mission of implementing humanitarian norms, by the simple fact of not insuring the basic right to life for the people involved in the conflicts and making sure that they are not exposed to physical and moral agression, torture or starvation. At the same time, one should analyze how human rights are respected in countries that are not engaged in a conflict, but are marked by critical political and social situations. For example, “the findings for a sample of 79 countries showed that torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings continued at about the same rate even after the Cold War ended” (Cingranelli, 1999). This certainly demonstrates that the work of the United Nations did not follow a successful curve in the implementation of humanitarian norms in these countries. Therefore, in this section, I will analyze a couple of important UN missions that haven’t turned out to be succesful, catagorized by continents and/or regions. RWANDA (AFRICA) Back in the colonial era, that is, in the 1800s, Rwanda was a Belgian colony and the population was represented by the Hutus and the Tutsis. Belgium divided the people of Rwanda in two categories: the Hutus represented the working force and the Tutsis were the extenders of the Belgian rule, division that set the ground for a permanent conflict between the two. Back in 1994, the government at that time in Rwanda, represented by the Hutus, has taken catastrophically violent actions against their opponents, the Tutsis that were refugees in the neighboring country of Uganda, killing approximately 500,000 Tutsis. Unfortunately for this country in central Africa, the major powers did not have any economic interest in the area, leading to a total lack of action from United Nations. The United Nations and its member states failed to react and take action in Rwanda in 1994; they ignored any evidence which was available before had about a genocide being planned in the area and they have abandoned the people of Rwanda which had their hopes set for a United Nations intervention. The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda began in October 1993 with the purpose of closely observing a cease-fire agreement between the Rwandan government represented by the Hutus and the opposing Patriotic Front in Rwanda. No military force was allowed to be used for the mission to reach its purposes, so all activity from the part of the UN troops was unveiling in the range of investigating the situation, spotting and reporting any violations in the cease fire, as well as delivering humanitarian and insuring the security of Rwandan capital city. However, the mission proved to be insufficient, since 500,000 minority Tutsis were still massacred by the government on April 6, 1994. The United Nations was perfectly aware of the situation, even months before the date of the genocide. For example, the Canadian commander Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, who was in charge in area, sent a cable to the United Nations, warning about the possibility of a genocide being planned. This cable was sent on January 11, 1994 and was received by the General Secretary at that time, Kofi Annan, so the information reached the United Nation; still, its importance wasn’t properly evaluated, as Kofi Annan didn’t make the information available to the Security Council. This was the first key point in the United Nations’ mistaken approach to the critical situation in Rwanda. The UN human rights investigator for Rwanda has also reported in the local situation in August 1993, highlighting the growing tensions and the possibility if a genocide, but the United Nations didn’t react as well. Still, most of the criticism in the matter is pointed towards the way the United Nations, particularly its Security Council members, reacted to the situation when the actual massacre began in Rwanda. The council practically lacked any political will, as several countries inside the council had their own reasons that restrained them from taking action. For example, the United States was held back after the failure of the failed peacekeeping mission in Somalia, which had an outcome of eighteen deaths among the American missionary troops. At the same time, ten Belgian peacekeepers got killed right when the genocide started, so the Council was no longer willing to keep the peacekeeping troops in the area and expose them to the terrible violent scenario. However, the Rwandans were in critical need of support and were hoping for a major intervention in their favor. The peacekeepers left thousands of civilians refugees in a school, pretending that they were in fact, not leaving. This ultimate act is a sure proof of UN’s failure to implement humanitarian norms in the area. BOSNIA (EUROPE) Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country situated in the Eastern part of Europe, with a very interesting historical evolution. After the First World War, Bosnia, which used to be part of the Ottoman and then Austro-Hungarian Empire, has engaged into a territorial unification with other Slav territories and formed Yugoslavia; the country’s government was mainly formed of Serbs an was leading its activity in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Nevertheless, a territorial unification didn’t mean an ethnic and cultural unification. On the contrary, by 1980 the population of Bosnia was a congregate of 3 nationalities with distinct religions: the Bosnian Serbs represented a bit over the one third of the total population and were of Orthodox Christian religion, the Bosniaks represented one third and were of Sunni Muslim religion and the Bosnian Croats, of Roman Catholic Christian religion, were a bit less that a forth of the population; all of these ethnic groups strongly claimed historical rights to the territory. It is not hard to understand that the federation was exposed to serious tensions among the three ethnic groups and the integrity of the country was essentially insured, at that time, by the communist president Tito. When Tito died in 1980, the integrity of the federation was questioned and consequently, Croats and Bosniaks strived for independence, while Serbia’s new leader, Slobodan Milosevic, strongly encouraged Serbian nationalism. These internal disruptive forces have exponentially increased in 1992, when the leader of Bosniak government, A. Izetbegovic, called for Bosnia’s independence, following the example of Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia, who were all already recognized internationally by the USA, France and England. Bosnia's Serbs, however, didn’t see the situation as an advantageous one; they thought of themselves and the land they inhabited as part of Milosevic's ideal of a ‘Greater Serbia’, not of an independent Bosnia. Therefore, in this conflict of interests, the Yugoslav Army, mainly formed of Serbs, decided to oppose the Bosniak government, who, at its turn, had little military force at its disposal due to a previous arms restriction. The situation became truly critical by the end of 1993, when the Serbs set up their own republic in the eastern part of Yugoslavia; by that time their army was already in control of almost three quarters of the Yugoslavian territory. This had a powerful impact on the Bosnian Croats, who were forced to leave their homes and migrate, although a small number of them continued to resist and fight for their territory. This lasted for about one year, when the Bosniaks, at their turn, were showing resistance in main Yugoslav towns. Mediation was first attempted by the European Union, however, without any success. Still, it was the duty of the United Nations to arbitrate the conflict and insure the application of humanitarian norms in the region. Unfortunately, the United Nations refused to make an intervention and only provided peacekeeping troops for humanitarian aid. Given the fact that the situation was getting worse, the UN peacekeeping force agreed to protect six safe areas, which were mainly Bosniak, including the Bosniak capital, Sarajevo and the newly established Serb republic, in order to respect the principle of impartiality. However, the mission failed and each of the safe regions, except Sarajevo, was exposed to an “ethnical cleansing”, which means the extermination of the Bosniaks by the Serbs. Despite the fact that the international law demanded their intervention, the members of the UN Security Council didn’t act in any way to prevent or stop the genocide. ISSUES IN THE MIDDLE EAST One of the greatest issues that I would like to talk about is the use of torture, which is definitely against the humanitarian norms and which remains as practice in many countries. The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is an international human rights instrument, which was adopted on 26 June 1987 and seeks to diminish the use of torture around the world and, as of January 1st 2010, was signed by 146 countries. Despite the existence of the legal document by which the United Nations intends to implement the humanitarian norm, the use of torture is geographically widespread. In preparation for the third international campaign to stop torture, Amnesty International conducted a survey (1997-2000) which revealed shocking statistics, based on the realities found in 195 countries and territories. Even if the information of torture is usually hidden, such reports are hard to document properly, so the information could be underestimated. However, this wasn’t the case, as the figures were very impressive. “There were reports of torture or ill-treatment by state officials in more than 150 countries. In more than 70, they were widespread or persistent. In more than 80 countries, people reportedly died as a result” (Amnesty International USA). The government in Afganistan, for example, is making use pf torure for testimonial purposes, toruture that includes inflicting physical pain on the human body using various techniques, such as beating, sleeping derprivation, water dropping, drowning simulations and others. Amnesty International reports that "Torture of civilians in their homes has become endemic [...] In almost every jail run by the armed political groups, torture is reported to be a part of the daily routine". In Iraq, during Saddam Hussein's regime many cases of torture has also been identified; the extent of the actions performed by members of the civilian police and army reach cruel extremities; The Human Rights Commisioner reported in 2002 that children were tortured in front of their parents, experiencing electrical torure, the exterpation of their fingernails and toenails, crucification and rape. However, the regime used to release many prisoners which would terrify the other population with their stories and ultimately insure the instauration of a regime based on terror. In Istrael, besides the fact that any form of torture was officially banned in 1999, all Palestinian detainees that are charged with the potenmtial participation or organization of a terrorist act are still subjected to various forms of torture, such as eclosure in very tight spaces, sleep and sight deprivation, beatings and others. Given all the information, one would urge the United Nations to act against these violations of human rights. Still, any intervention might me considered a hypocrisy, since one of the main members of the Security council, the USA, is suspected of the use of torture on detainees. For example, since the U.S. has removed the Taliban from power in Afganistan, U.S. troops are reported to have made use of torture in several cases. The uses of torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba or Abu Graib, Iraq by the U.S. interogators on detainees are also known. I will restrain from describing the methods used, as they are similar to those described above. However, the fact that the U.S. troops make use of torture is a violation of an international treaty to which the United States itself is a party and which is issued by the United Nations, who is supposed to implement humanitarian norms againts such use of torture. III. Successes. This section of the current paper will come as a contra-argument to the previous one. The end of the Cold war didn’t pose an easy mission for the United Nations. The world was developing new conflicts and new emerging issues had do be solved. As the United Nations is an association of states, any decision is not a one-party decision, but a consensus of more than two countries. In order to act, the United Nations as an organization needs an aproval from its member states, which would dispose of their military and humanitary resources for an eventual intervention. The measures of the United Nations are supported only as much as the member nations are willing to; financially wise, even if a million dollars might be promised by the members, only a few tens of thousand dollars might actually become available and missions sometimes suffer accordingly. Therefore, it is hard for the United Nations to meet all international expectations; still, looking at the number of succesful missions that the UN has completed, all the conferences and commissions that were organized, one can say that the activity of the institution has not been useless. On the contrary, the United Nations has helped many states to stabilize their political situation and has ofered aid to many refugees and other people that found themselves in need of assistence. SIERRA-LEONE (AFRICA) Before the outbreak of the civil war in 1991, Sierra Leone was rated as the poorest country in the world, mainly due to the high level of corruption in governmental and public institutions, as well as private businesses, including the bad management of the diamond sector. As the state structures in Sierra Leone were unable to function properly, many opportunities arose for the trafficking of drugs, arms and ammunition. This process didn’t have a good impact upon the national security of the country; on the contrary, it mainly facilitated crime within the country and between Sierra Leone and Liberia. Besides the bad situation inside the country, another key point that led to the outbreak of the civil war was the ongoing conflict in Liberia, a neighbor country. Liberia also supported the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone (RUF) formed by radicals that declared themselves to be in opposition with the country’s political class, which they accused of being corrupt. The RUF started its first operation in eastern Sierra Leone where they rushed to demonstrate their cruelty, by killing local leaders. They attempted to advocate their political beliefs, while “forced recruitment of children was also an early feature of rebel strategy” (AFROL). The United Nations mission in Sierra Leone started in 1999 it turned out to be very successful. It was a 17,500-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission disarmed a large number of rebels (approximately 50 000), as well as fighters that were supporting the government. At the same time, the United Nations posed sanctions on the Liberian President; this has reduced the issue of trafficking (arms, diamond, and ammunition, as previously mentioned). GUATEMALA (CENTRAL AMERICA) The United Nations achieved many successes in this region regarding the implementation of the humanitarian norms, mainly successes in peacekeeping and in the protection of human rights. In Guatemala, before the intervention of the United Nations, the dictatorship was showing no respect for the human rights and the civil war started as a response of the working class to the militaristic government and the critical situation with the human rights which affected the great majority of the population. It started in 1945, followed by more than 50 years of terrible violence and lack of national and individual security. The United Nations has worked for the diminution and salvation of the Guatemalan civil war, as well as for strengthening a fair government in the region and creating institutions that were competent enough in order to guarantee a high respect towards the human rights in the case of every citizen. The effort of the United Nations has to be praised in legal matters as well, as the organization manage to sign The United Nations and Guatemala have signed different accords with the Guatemalan officials in order to open an Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and to create a special committee that would examine and disperse the underground groups that would represent a threat to the society; this demonstrates clear signs of the country’s dedication to implement the humanitarian norms and the success of the UN mission in the area. RESPONSE TO TORTURE The United Nations is unable to closely monitor everything that is happening in a country that is suspected to use torture on its citizens. It can only impose the ceasure of such practice by international treaties and direct communication with the national government. Nevertheless, this doesn’t stop the United Nations to assist those in need; the United Nations High Commission on Refugees has given help to more than 22 million internally displaced people, refugees and returnees, of which a lot were torture survivors. Prior to leaving their homes they were persecuted and often tortured in police stations, prisons or detention camps. “According to the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, studies indicate that 20-30% of external refugees are torture survivors; however, the total numbers are much higher because many displaced peoples – even most – do not leave their home countries” (Amnesty International USA). IV. Conclusion. In recent years, the United Nations has been subject to increased criticism that has encompassed its designated roles, its organization and its effectiveness. One of the most important roles of this international institution is the implementation and the insurance of human rights in most of the world’s geographical and political areas and ultimately, the implementation of humanitarian norms in the critical areas that have been identified by its commissions. Regarding this matter, the United Nations has had its failures and they haven’t been regarded well by the international community. Certainly, these failures have occurred due to errors and circumstances that cannot stand as an excuse for the lack of action and initiative that the United Nations have demonstrated in such cases as Rwanda and Bosnia. Still, the general overview of the organization’s work and effort is also impressive and powerful. The United Nations has devoted great attention and funds in order to develop and support human skills and capacities, as well as monitor their growth and integration into the society. This is how the UN development program was initiated- a program that helps to design several projects for their ultimate implementation in agriculture, industry, education and other sectors of human activity. “It supports more than 5,000 projects with a budget of $1.3 billion. It is the largest multilateral source of grant development assistance. In addition, UNICEF spends more than $800 million a year, primarily on immunization, health care, nutrition and basic education in 138 countries” (United Nations, 2002). Therefore, I believe, that considering the limitations of the human power -as the United Nations is guided by representatives of different countries- and the limitations and complications of a diverse and complex political scenario that has unveiled after the end of the Cold War, the United Nations was successful in keeping a trend line in its actions and in pursuing its goals, including the implementation of humanitarian norms (human rights, political stability and fairness, education, normal living standards). Its failures, however, cannot be forgotten either, but they shouldn’t be interpreted as a demonstration of the institution’s lack of use or potential; on the contrary, they should be considered as evidence that reform is needed, which if implemented, will increase the efficiency of the United Nations’ works and missions. References: Read More