Where Angels Fear to Tread

1 James Gow, `A Revolution in International Affairs?', Security Dialogue, vol. 31, no. 3, September 2000, pp. 293-306, on p. 294.

2 Barbara Walter, `The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement', International Organizations, vol. 51, no. 3, Summer 1997, pp. 335-364; and Negotiating Settlements to Civil Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming). In the latter, Walter analyses all civil wars that began between 1940 and 1992 and finds that in 23 of the 73 cases (32% of the cases) the combatants signed formal peace settlements, and of these only 13 were actually implemented.

3 UNICEF counts the number of complex emergencies as 55 in 1999, up from 15 in 1994; see The State of the World's Children 2000, p. 28, available at http://www.unicef.org/sowc00, on p. 28. SIPRI states that in 1999, `There were 27 major armed conflicts in 25 countries throughout the world. Only two of the conflicts were interstate.' Taylor B. Seybolt, `Major Armed Conflicts', in SIPRI Yearbook 2000 (Oxford: OUP, 2000), pp. 15-49, on p. 15.

4 See Mats Berdal & David Malone, eds, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, CO & London: Lynne Rienner, 2000); and Paul Collier, Economic Causes of Civil Conflict and Their Implications for Policy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2000), available at http://reliefweb.int/library/documents/civilconflict.pdf.

5 See Frances Stewart, `Crisis Prevention: Tackling Horizontal Inequalities', QEH Working Paper, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, 2000.

6 Jonathan Moore, `Introduction', in Jonathan Moore, ed., Hard Choices: Moral Dilemmas in Humanitarian Intervention (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), pp. 1-7, on p. 5.

7 The December 1999 decision by the Clinton Administration to supply food to the Sudanese People's Liberation Army provoked serious debate. See Michael Maren, `Using Food as a Weapon', New York Times, 2 December 1999.

8 Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (A/55/305 - S/2000/809), 21 August 2000 (also called the Brahimi Report), available at http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/.

9 Secretary-General's Address to the Opening of the Fifty-Fourth Session of the UN General Assembly, 20 September 1999, available at http://www.globalpolicy.org/secgen/sg-ga.htm.

10 Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 53/35 (1998): The Fall of Srebrenica, 15 November 1999; Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, 15 December 1999; `We, the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century', Report of the Secretary-General to the Millennium Assembly, April 2000; documents available at www.un.org/news/ossg/sg.

11 Francis M. Deng, Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1996); and Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations & The Third World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

12 Liberal interpretations of what constituted a threat to international peace and security were evident particularly in operations in places like Haiti. Thematic debates in the Security Council on matters such as conflict prevention and HIV/AIDS also saw it push the envelope in this regard.

13 The Secretary-General's statement to the General Assembly in 1999 elicited strong rebuttals during the general debate that immediately followed; for example, Algerian President Bouteflika argued that `sovereignty is our final defense against the rules of an unequal world'. Bouteflika's speech is available at http://www.algeria-un.org/English/United%20Nations/General%20Assembly/ 54rd%20GA/Pres%20Statment.htm.

14 The debate about intervention in the 1990s, and even before, was not along strictly North-South lines. African governments demanded Chapter VII actions against the governments in Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa, and clamoured for UN intervention in the intrastate wars of the 1990s. Latin America's democratic governments demanded action in Haiti, and even China has not uniformly blocked humanitarian intervention by the UN. For instance, China did not object to the creation of `no-fly zones' in Iraq to protect the Kurdish minority in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south. Finally, international reactions to the Kosovo campaign were very mixed, with many developing countries supporting the intervention. See Albrecht Schnabel & Ramesh Thakur, eds, Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention: Selective Indignation, Collective Action, and International Citizenship (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, forthcoming), available at http://www.reliefweb.int/library/.

15 The `democratic peace' thesis posits that democracies never go to war with each other, experience very low levels of internal violence, do not produce refugees or engage in terrorism, and thus make better trade partners. The UN's Agenda for Democratisation states that `a culture of democracy is a culture of peace' (A/51/761, December 1996, p. 4). Some see this as a justification for external intervention, even military intervention, to promote democracy. However, studies do indicate that while democracies do not fight other democracies, they are as war prone as autocracies. See Melvin Small & J. David Singer, Resort to Arms: International & Civil Wars, 1816-1980 (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1982); William J. Dixon, `Democracy and the Peaceful Settlement of International Conflict', American Political Science Review, vol. 88, no. 1, March 1994, pp. 14-32; Zeev Maoz & Bruce Russett, `Normative and Structural Causes of Democratic Peace, 1946-1986', American Political Science Review, vol. 87, no. 3, September 1993, pp. 624-638.

16 In 1999, for the first time, a ground-breaking resolution promoting the right to democracy was passed at the UN Commission on Human Rights by a vote of 51-0, with 2 abstentions (China and Cuba): CHR Resolution 1999/57 of 27 April 1999 on `Promotion of the Right to Democracy'. See also Thomas Franck, `The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance', American Journal of International Law, vol. 86, no. 1, January 1992, pp. 46-91, on p. 50.

17 In June 2000, a major `Community of Democracies' ministerial meeting was held in Warsaw, with 107 governments represented. The UN has repeatedly, in the deliberations of its Credentials Committee, de facto upheld democracy over territorial control as the key characteristic of a regime by refusing to accredit a new regime, or even by leaving in place representatives of a previous constitutional regime, even though the former regime in question often controlled little or none of the territory of the state. A number of times in the 1990s, the UN accredited the delegations of legitimate governments that had been unconstitutionally deposed (among them those of Afghanistan, Haiti, Liberia and Sierra Leone). In 1997, the question of Cambodia was considered (A/52/719 of 11 December 1997), and it was decided that no one would fill the Cambodian seat. On the other hand, ousted President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was accredited as leader of the Sierra Leone delegation to the General Assembly. In 1999, the Credentials Committee addressed the question of Afghanistan's representation (A/54/475 of 18 October 1999) and reiterated its decision to allow the representatives of the Rabanni regime to continue to participate in General Assembly proceedings.

18 The incorporation of democracy conditionalities into bilateral assistance programmes is now quite common on the part of Western liberal democracies.

19 In Latin America, the Organization of American States (OAS) has established regulations and procedures to safeguard democracy. The Santiago Commitment (1991), Resolution 1080 (1991), the Protocol of Washington (1992) and the Declaration of Managua (1993) commit the OAS to act collectively and immediately to protect democracy when the latter is interrupted or overthrown in a member-state, and allow it to suspend the participation of any government whose regime came to power through a coup or by overthrowing a democratically elected government. MERCOSUR has established similar procedures. The EU, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe and other European entities include democracy and human rights enforcement mechanisms as prerequisites for membership. Perhaps most significant are similar developments in Africa and Asia, where governments have traditionally resisted any infringements on their sovereignty or territorial integrity. In Africa, entities like the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Economic Community of West African States, as well as coalitions of states and individual countries, have condemned approximately ten coups d'état since 1992, and the OAU declared at its 1999 summit in Algiers that it would no longer recognize governments that have come to power through undemocratic means (Declaration of OAU Summit at Algiers, 14 July 1999). In Asia, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been discussing democracy as a possible condition for membership.

20 Gow (note 1 above), p. 297.

21 Major proponents of a `human security' approach include Canada, the UK and Japan, although their understandings of the concept differ. UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) was the first major publication to introduce the concept, with a relatively broad definition.

22 This has been evident for example in discussions on the role of UNDP in governance, which became decidedly more heated following the Secretary-General's speech. Efforts by UNDP's new Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, to focus UNDP's mandate were met with such suspicion on the part of some developing countries that the agency was forced to reassess and rearticulate its role in this area. See reports on sessions of the UNDP Executive Board in 2000 at http://www.undp.org/execbrd/. Sections of the Secretary-General's Millennium Report sought to address some of these concerns.

23 See 'Bridging the Gap: A Report on Behalf of the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee Reference Group on Post-Conflict Reintegration', Emergency Response Division, UNDP, July 1999. Also see Shepard Forman & Dirk Salomons, `Meeting Essential Needs in Societies Emerging from Conflict', a paper prepared by the Center on International Cooperation for the Brookings Roundtable on the Relief to Development Gap, July 1999.

24 See `Overview: Rethinking the Money and Ideas of Aid', in World Bank, `Assessing Aid - What Works, What Doesn't, and Why', November 1998, available at http://www.worldbank.org/research/aid/pdfs/overview.pdf, p. 2.

25 The 1998 Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) overall received only about 54% of the funds requested. In 1999, the figure rose only marginally, and by the mid-term review of the 2000 CAPs, only 36.6% of the $2.2 billion appealed for had been forthcoming. All relevant documents are posted on Relief Web (http://www.reliefweb.int).

26 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, DANIDA, Evaluation of Danish Humanitarian Assistance, Volume 7, p. xiii, 1999.

27 Presentation: Mid-Term Reviews of the Consolidated Appeals, Mr. Ross Mountain, Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator and Director, OCHA-Geneva, 26 July 2000

28 Oxfam Great Britain, `An End to Forgotten Emergencies', Oxfam GB Briefing Paper, May 2000, ch. 2.

29 Global Humanitarian Assistance 2000: An Independent Report Commissioned by the IASC from Development Initiatives, May 2000; summary available at http://www.devinit.org/ghaprelims.pdf, pp. vii-xiii.

30 Michèle Griffin, `Blue Helmet Blues: Assessing the Trend Towards Subcontracting UN Peace Operations', Security Dialogue, vol. 30, no. 1, March 1999, pp. 43-60; David Shearer, Private Armies and Military Intervention, Adelphi Paper 316 (Oxford: IISS/Oxford University Press, February 1998).

31 Thomas G. Weiss, Beyond UN Subcontracting: Task Sharing with Regional Security Arrangements and Service-Providing NGOs (Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998).

32 Dennis McNamara, UNHCR Special Envoy to the former Yugoslavia/UN Deputy Representative of the Secretary-General in Kosovo, speech on `The Challenge for Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo', Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London, 10 November 1999.

33 See OECD/DAC, `The Influence of Aid in Situations of Violent Conflict', 1999, available at http://www.oecd.org/dac/pdf/synth_fin.pdf.

34 The 1999 Humanitarian Segment of the Economic and Social Council Humanitarian Segment focused on this issue. See `Strengthening of the Coordination of Emergency Humanitarian Assistance of the United Nations (A/54/154-E/1999/94 of 15 June 1999).

35 The policy framework is usually set by an agreement with the government or by Security Council and/or General Assembly Resolutions. In some cases, the UN has promoted a strategic framework that incorporates the political, development and humanitarian objectives of the international presence. Programming instruments include in particular the Common Country Assessment (CCA) and the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF), which were developed in the context of the 1997 UN reform package. Currently over 70 country teams are developing or planning an UNDAF, and more than 100 are at one stage or another of preparing a CCA. Resources are mobilized through Consolidated Appeals Processes (CAP), for complex emergencies, and Roundtables. The main information-sharing tools include Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)/Relief Web and weekly meetings of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC). Finally, the primary strategic coordination and management tools include, in addition to many of the above, the Special/Representative of the Secretary-General (S/RSG), Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator System, Friends & Support Group gatherings; headquarters processes such as country-specific task forces, the IASC and the executive committees on peace and security and humanitarian affairs.

36 The Brahimi Report (note 8 above).

37 `Bridging the Gap' (note 23 above).

38 Steven Erlanger, `Chaos and Intolerance Prevailing in Kosovo Despite U.N.'s Efforts', New York Times, 22 November 1999.

39 Alan Cowell, `Controversy over Diamonds Made into Virtue by De Beers', New York Times, 22 August 2000.

40 David Cortright & George A. Lopez, eds, The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000).

41 Barbara Crossette, `Canada Tries to Define Line Between Human and National Rights, New York Times, 14 September 2000.