{"id":216,"date":"2008-12-11T01:40:11","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T06:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress65\/?p=216"},"modified":"2013-02-12T06:05:04","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T11:05:04","slug":"grayman-blogging-guest-u-n-responsibility-protect-doctrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/grayman-blogging-guest-u-n-responsibility-protect-doctrine\/","title":{"rendered":"The GrayMan as Blogging Guest: U.N. Responsibility to Protect Doctrine"},"content":{"rendered":"

I answered a call for guest bloggers from All American Blogger, and was asked to write about how the new Administration might address the United Nations’ “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Below, I cross-posted the text from this page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nWhat Will a President Obama Likely Do With the U.N. Responsibility to Protect Doctrine?<\/strong>
\nby Gray Rinehart<\/p>\n

Given that many in the international community seemed to interpret the recent U.S. election in terms favorable to themselves \u2014 so far accepting that the President-elect bodes well for their own nations \u2014 will our incoming President be likely to honor the goodwill he has gained by acceding to one of the United Nations\u2019 most obnoxious doctrines?<\/p>\n

The U.N. \u201cResponsibility to Protect\u201d doctrine, abbreviated R2P, sounds laudable enough in that it requires sovereign nations to protect their citizenry against maltreatment and human rights abuses; however, the doctrine goes further: it enjoins other nations to intervene if domestic nations fail to protect their people to the satisfaction of the international community.<\/p>\n

R2P is a transnationalist\u2019s dream. It requires nations to intervene in other nations\u2019 internal affairs, and requires that they do so at the behest and under the authority of the United Nations Security Council. (The recent Russian incursion into sovereign Georgia, for example, would not qualify as an R2P event \u2014 not simply because the humanitarian cause was overstated or even drummed up, but because the U.N. Security Council did not authorize it.)<\/p>\n

According to the Genocide Intervention Network<\/a>, R2P \u201cwas created [in 2001] by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, an independent international commission established by the government of Canada,\u201d to address concerns raised by then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in response to the genocide in Rwanda. \u201cIn his report to the 2000 General Assembly, [Annan] challenged the international community to come to a consensus on when and how humanitarian interventions should proceed.\u201d Furthermore,<\/p>\n

R2P has redefined the conception of state sovereignty by arguing that international community [sic] has the responsibility to protect civilians in states that are unwilling or unable to do so. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nRebecca J. Hamilton, writing in the 2006 Harvard Human Rights Journal<\/a>, put it well that this means (emphasis added)<\/p>\n

Each state has a responsibility to protect its citizens; if a state is unable or unwilling to carry out that function, the state abrogates its sovereignty<\/strong>, at which point both the right and the responsibility to remedy the situation falls to the international community. This proposal refutes the long-standing assumption enshrined in Article 2(7) of the 1945 U.N. Charter, that there is no right to \u201cintervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nFor the international community to usurp a nation\u2019s sovereignty is a very serious matter, but R2P seems to treat it quite cavalierly. In a May 2008 paper for the Heritage Foundation<\/a>, Stephen Groves argued that \u201cAdopting a doctrine that compels the United States to act to prevent atrocities occurring in other countries would be risky and imprudent,\u201d and that the U.S. \u201cneeds to preserve its national sovereignty by maintaining a monopoly on the decision to deploy diplomatic pressure, economic sanctions, political coercion, and especially its military forces.\u201d<\/p>\n

R2P actually involves three escalating responsibilities which nations owe not to their own people but to the people of foreign lands: as stated by the Genocide Intervention Network<\/a>, the responsibilities to prevent<\/em> \u201cinternal conflict and other man-made crises putting populations at risk;\u201d to react<\/em> to the same with \u201cappropriate measures\u201d ranging from sanctions (which have historically hurt more than helped indigenous populations while affecting determined tyrants hardly at all) to military action; and to rebuild<\/em> after the event. The last \u201cresponsibility\u201d is actually the least troublesome, since the U.S. in particular has shown greater will and ability to rebuild former enemies than any other nation in history. Most troublesome are the first, a clear blow against a nation\u2019s sovereignty, and the second, a call for nations to intercede under the U.N. flag in matters which do not threaten other sovereign nations.<\/p>\n

How might a President Obama handle R2P?<\/p>\n

In October 2007, Senator Obama was noncommittal in his answer to a presidential candidate questionnaire. He said<\/a> R2P was \u201can important and developing concept in international affairs and one which my Administration will closely monitor.\u201d Cynics might point out that his answer was a somewhat verbose way of saying \u201cwe don\u2019t know yet.\u201d In contrast, we may take some encouragement from his unwillingness to commit to following the U.N. doctrine, and believe that he may weigh U.S. national interests above nebulous international interests or unproven geopolitical assertions.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, his nomination of Senator Clinton as Secretary of State is problematic in this regard, because her take on R2P appears to be much different \u2014 and Foggy Bottom is already known for playing by its own rules in the realm of diplomacy. In November 2007, in answer to the same candidate questionnaire, Senator Clinton said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

It is essential that the new Secretary General of the United Nations begin to bridge the gap between [the doctrine] and the institution\u2019s deeds through a series of reforms intended to operationalize this concept. I am \u2026 committed to seeing that the United States and other economic and militarily capable states and organization take steps to bolster UN action.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nSenator Clinton said that if she were elected President she would \u201cadopt a policy that recognizes the prevention of mass atrocities as an important national security interest of the United States, not just a humanitarian goal.\u201d That\u2019s an interesting take on what should constitute a national security matter: a fine example of transnationalist thinking that would make a good topic for another day. Because she is not the President-elect, we may dismiss for the foreseeable future her promise to \u201cdevelop a government-wide strategy to support this policy.\u201d However, given the position to which she has been nominated, we should consider that she also said,<\/p>\n

I will authorize my Secretary of State to institutionalize atrocity prevention into the work of the State Department, and I will direct my Secretary of State to strongly support the mission and activities of the office of reconstruction and stabilization, which plays an increasingly critical role.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nAs U.S. Secretary of State, then, is Ms. Clinton likely to subordinate Foggy Bottom to the directives of the U.N.? Is she likely to re-order U.S. diplomatic efforts in such a way as to support R2P and other international doctrines, to the detriment if not exclusion of our legitimate national interests? We wonder if such questions will be asked in her confirmation hearing. We hope her answer would be \u201cno.\u201d It is too soon to tell how independent her State Department would be from her President\u2019s Administration \u2014 or if they would operate in synch \u2014 and which interests they would prioritize highest.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

\nPresident-elect Obama was careful during his campaign not to make the mistake Senator Kerry did in 2004, of saying he would subject questions of U.S. involvement or action to a \u201cglobal test.\u201d It remains to be seen whether he and his appointees will place the sovereign interests of the U.S. ahead of transnational interests, or if they will subordinate U.S. interests to some \u201cgreater good.\u201d Once he occupies the Oval Office, he will no longer be able to circumlocute his position; perhaps in his first \u201cState of the World\u201d address* he will tell us what direction he plans to take our nation, and the world.<\/p>\n

\n_____
\n*In October 2007, Senator Obama reportedly said, \u201cI\u2019ll give an annual \u2018State of the World\u2019 address to the American people in which I lay out our national security policy.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I answered a call for guest bloggers from All American Blogger, and was asked to write about how the new Administration might address the United Nations’ “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine. Below, I cross-posted the text from this page. What Will a President Obama Likely Do With the U.N. Responsibility to \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1015,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/1015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}