A Court Cannot Stop Genocide
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has announced it will investigate alleged war crimes in Sudan. While those responsible for the genocide in the Darfur region should indeed be brought to justice, the involvement of the ICC is hardly the kind of forceful action the international community needs to take.
This is much like the police arriving at the scene of an on-going murder rampage and rather than doing anything to stop it, calling the local judge and getting the courts to look into the matter. With the United Nation's tepid and almost nonexistent reaction to the Darfur genocide, it's now more clear than ever that the UN is simply not an effective body for addressing world crises. In the coming years, the world community, particularly the democratic nations, are going to have to seriously address the UN's many failings.
posted by Alan Stewart Carl @ 4:11 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Your analogy is misplaced. It's as if, during a murder rampage, no police are available or willing to go to stop it, and a court begins prosecuting the accused. In this analogy, of course, the court is independant of the police and will prosecute irrespective of the presence of the police or the feasibility of actually capturing the accused.
Your comments on the UN, however, are right on. The Security Council is generally handcuffed when member states fail to volunteer troops or money to create a peacekeeping force to enter a situation like Sudan. The UN is only as strong as the resolve of its members, and the resolve of the members in this case has proven tenuous at best.
How, then, is the international community to prevent genocide, as is ongoing in Darfur, and occured unabated for 100 days in Rwanda in 1994?
One option is an independant UN rapid reaction force, a force of troops at the disposal of the SC and free to enter a country on their orders. This is ideal because it allows intervention without the deliberation time and pitfalls of international politics.
The second option is the system as it currently operates.
Without an independant force, the SC (and, for the most part, the international community), cannot or will not do much to stop a genocide. Eliminating the ICC is certainly not the solution. It is far worse to have no police AND no court. The ICC is by no means a replacement for troops on the ground; they serve different functions entirely.
In the analogy, it's as if the court is disbanded because the police are unavailable. That's counterproductive. If anything, the international community has built the court before it built the police, a far more desirable option than building the police before the court.
If not the United Nations who?
I saw the movie Hotel Rhwanda over the weekend and the same that happened in the movie in Rhwanda is happening in Durfur.
If some major country like the United States doesn't do something then everybody involved in the decision should be thrown out of office or shot. The later seems to be the fitting punishment for turning away from a world tragedy.
Somebody do something and now!
C.P. Davis
California
A rapid reaction force could do an enormous amount of good if under the command of the SC. In Rwanda, UNAMIR (U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda) troops numbered only about 1200 (I think) and had a mandate so limited it could barely justify firing even if fired upon. Suppose, however, that the SC sent 5000 troops (as Dallaire wanted) to Rwanda the day the genocide started. It is likely that the entire episode could have been stopped before even a few people were killed. In the world of international politics, however, the genocide was over before the SC (especially the US and France) could even formulate a reasonable response.
A rapid reaction force could enter a country immediately and stabilize a volatile situation before it explodes. That would give the UN member states time to formulate a more permanent response, without sacrificing the effect of an immediate response.
In addition, there is no reason to believe that a rapid reaction force will be received any worse than any other UN peacekeeping operation. Also, the SC seems to be headed for reform, with a reshuffling of membership to reflect current geopolitical realities (not 1945 ones).
Remember, the UN is nothing to fear. It is nothing more than a servant to its member states. The SC, however, could be a remarkably effective tool to prevent gross violation of humanitarian law.
A rapid reaction force could do an enormous amount of good if under the command of the SC. In Rwanda, UNAMIR (U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda) troops numbered only about 1200 (I think) and had a mandate so limited it could barely justify firing even if fired upon. Suppose, however, that the SC sent 5000 troops (as Dallaire wanted) to Rwanda the day the genocide started. It is likely that the entire episode could have been stopped before even a few people were killed. In the world of international politics, however, the genocide was over before the SC (especially the US and France) could even formulate a reasonable response.
A rapid reaction force could enter a country immediately and stabilize a volatile situation before it explodes. That would give the UN member states time to formulate a more permanent response, without sacrificing the effect of an immediate response.
In addition, there is no reason to believe that a rapid reaction force will be received any worse than any other UN peacekeeping operation. Also, the SC seems to be headed for reform, with a reshuffling of membership to reflect current geopolitical realities (not 1945 ones).
Remember, the UN is nothing to fear. It is nothing more than a servant to its member states. The SC, however, could be a remarkably effective tool to prevent gross violation of humanitarian law.
I'm sorry this is so difficult to understand. The SC cannot properly address today's peacekeeping needs for three reasons: (1) the SC cannot act fast enough to intervene early in a crisis; (2) member states (or a UN-commanded mission) cannot train troops fast enough to intervene early; and (3) the members of the SC are politically unwilling to commit troops, equipment or money from their home countries.
A rapid reaction force addresses all three: the force is available for deployment within days, it is already trained and the political will currently required to commit troops, equipment and money becomes unnecessary because the force is already in place.
Currently, deployment is the end result of much political manuvering and military planning. That explains why the SC has such a poor record of humanitarian intervention. With a rapid reaction force, the deployment (and military logistics) become the primary consideration, not the end result of months or years of international and domestic politicking.
Actually I think having a will to want to utilize forces and really putting it into practice are two tough issues to tackle. I suppose the reason why genocide has faced such lukewarm response from international bodies is because it is not like Israel-Lebanon conflict where innoncent civilians of the opposite side are killed, but rather this is an internal conflict. UN could interfere in the former because innocent people from both sides were killed by the other country's troops, but for genocide, it is somewhat like suicide. People are killing each other and they come from the same country, so it's hard to put a real stop to that because it's like a parent disciplining their child. Of course this is a horrible analogy but it's along that line.
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