Global content summary II Flashcards
What are the advantages & disadvantages of intergovernmentalism & supranationalism?
Intergovernmentalism (between governments)
- Advantages: states are able to cooperate to achieve common interests but retain sovereignty & democratic accountability. NAFTA is an example – though there is free trade, member states retain their political systems.
- Disadvantages: if states refuse to share sovereignty, decision making becomes difficult & the organisation may be ineffective. The IGOs become battlegrounds for national interests & ‘lowest common denominator’ outcomes or deadlock are likely – eg the Doha Round of the WTO has collapsed, the Copenhagen Accord left out any binding emissions targets & the 2011 Durban agreement is still essentially an aspiration rather than a done deal.
What are the advantages & disadvantages of intergovernmentalism & supranationalism?
Supranationalism (above government level)
- Advantages: decision making is easier if member states can’t obstruct (eg the ECB sets interest rates). Possible to pursue goals which reflect the common good rather than national interests. The rules can in theory be enforced on recalcitrant member states, achieving fairer & more effective outcomes – eg the EU Commission can force member states to comply with EU law by threatening to refer them to the ECJ.
- Disadvantages: decision making becomes remote from citizens & is undemocratic and may not reflect local circumstances (all accusations made by critics of EMU – both its original concept & the way it has operated, with key decisions made by the unelected ECB). States are likely to break the rules & in practice there is little that any current supranational bodies can do to stop them, especially if they are powerful (eg even the EU can do little if its rules are broken by France & Germany, as happened over the Stability & Growth Pact; it is now clear that Greece deliberately misled its partners over the level of its borrowing when it joined EMU).
How has the UN peacekeeping role changed since the start of the 1990s?
- The classic UN peacekeeping role was to separate the two sides in a conflict between states & monitor a ceasefire to facilitate a withdrawal of forces & peace settlement, as in the various Arab-Israeli conflicts. This role does continue, as in the UN mission in Ethiopia in 2000.
- However, since the 1990s, the UN has increasingly gone beyond traditional peacekeeping to intervene in a number of vicious conflicts within states that broke out after the Cold War. In the violent conditions in which some of the operations took place, peace enforcement to suppress outbreaks of fighting under a Chapter 7 mandate became more common, as in the relatively unsuccessful UN missions in the former Yugoslavia, the more successful UN intervention in E Timor in 1999, and the deployment of a brigade to disarm rebel militias in Congo in 2013. In 2011 the UNSC also gave its backing for the first time to a humanitarian intervention to protect a civilian population against its government under the ‘responsibility to protect’ principle with the Libyan no-fly zone.
- Peacekeeping has also become more multi-dimensional – peacekeepers have to perform a wider range of tasks. The UN has begun to shift its emphasis from traditional peacekeeping to peace-building after conflicts. Peace building seeks to address the causes of conflict & tries to prevent a relapse into violence. Peacekeeping missions have remained primarily military but have been joined by a range of electoral monitors, police, administrators & other experts. As well as keeping the peace, the missions have begun to involve other tasks such as delivering humanitarian aid, repairing economic infrastructure, monitoring elections, collecting weapons from militias & retraining former combatants & de-mining.
In what circumstances can the UN play an effective peacekeeping role ?
- ‘Peacekeeping’ usually involves activities such as monitoring ceasefires and elections; the title could also cover rarer peace-enforcing operations under Ch 7 of the UN Charter. The ‘circumstances’ ultimately centre on the will of member states to intervene, together with the cooperativeness of local forces – the absence of these factors has resulted in the very mixed record of UN peacekeeping.
- The Security Council must sanction all operations – which will not happen if a permanent member’s interests would be adversely affected.
When members of the UNSC are united, action can be speedy & effective, as in the case of the 1991 Gulf War.
However, divisions among UNSC members leave the UN on the sidelines as in the 1999 Kosovo War and the 2003 Iraq War, when the leading powers were unable to agree on the response to Saddam’s defiance of UN Resolutions about WMD, and the US - led coalition overthrew the Iraqi regime without UN sanction. There was also deadlock in the UNSC over the 2008 war between Russia & Georgia & over Syria’s repression of protesters in 2011 – 13.
Except in Ch 7 operations, the host country must also accept UN involvement – until recently there has been no consensus among UN members for breaching the principle of national sovereignty enshrined in the UN Charter. Where these pre-conditions don’t apply, the UN is unable to play any role. Prior to 2007 the UNSC failed to act against the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of black Africans in Darfur – the Sudanese government rejected UN peacekeepers, and China, which has economic ties to the Sudanese regime, blocked economic sanctions.
Factors affecting the success of peacekeeping operations
- When the UNSC does authorise peacekeeping operations, the will of the leading members to support UN resolutions has a key influence over the operations’ success:
The UN has no resources of its own and can only be as effective as its members allow it to be. This above all applies to the superpower, the US, whose military muscle (or at least financial and logistical backing) is vital for major operations. A major effort by the leading UN members, leading to an ‘effective’ intervention, is most likely if their national interests are at stake, as in the case of the Gulf War, where Iraq’s threat to Middle Eastern oil supplies put at risk the vital interests of the USA and much of the industrialised world, as well as uniting a wide range of UN members because of the affront to the principle of sovereignty. Hence the US led a coalition which defeated Iraq and expelled it from Kuwait and the Arab states; Germany and Japan were prepared to pay for the operation. Domestic political factors may also play a part, eg media coverage of the famine helped to bring about US intervention in Somalia. Regional backing may make an intervention more likely by giving the leading powers political cover – eg the support of the Arab League for a no-fly zone in Libya in 2011 enabled the US & NATO to avoid the hostility an intervention in a Muslim country was likely to generate after the Iraq War.
Where this is not the case, the support of the leading UN members may be lacking, resulting in an ‘ineffective’ role, as in the case of the massacres in Rwanda, where the UNSC showed little willingness to intervene and the UN was impotent in the face of genocide. In Bosnia there was a lack of will to support UN resolutions - UNPROFOR’s 16,000 troops were meant to deal with a war, whereas 60,000 heavily armed NATO troops were considered necessary to implement the peace settlement in 1995. The result was a series of humiliations for the UN, above all the Srebrenica massacre.
- A workable mandate is essential
This is linked to point (a) - unworkable mandates reflect a lack of will by the UNSC. They must be achievable and not mix peacekeeping and peace enforcing as in Bosnia (where UN observers were taken hostage by Serbs angry at NATO air strikes authorised by the UN). Resources must be adequate for the task. UNPROFOR lacked the troops needed to defend the ‘safe zones’ in Bosnia, leading to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims under UN protection.
This contrasts with the success of the well equipped forces led by the US in the Gulf War, which expelled the Iraqis from Kuwait, & Australia in E. Timor, which had the Chapter VII authority & firepower needed to suppress the militias terrorising the country in 1999.
- Effective command and control in peace enforcing operations
UNPROFOR’s unhappy experience in Bosnia showed that the UN lacked the trained staff, HQ facilities, intelligence gathering facilities etc needed to conduct large scale military operations.
Realistically, such operations should be conducted by countries or regional groupings acting under UN authority (eg the US in the Gulf War in 1991; NATO in the case of the peacekeeping forces sent to Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan after the conflicts in these places. Australia led the UN troops entering E Timor in 1999).
- The warring parties must be ready to stop fighting
Where both sides are ready to end the fighting the UN can separate them and monitor the ceasefire. A force of 100 UN observers successfully supervised troop withdrawals at the end of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2000, for instance. In 2006 a UN force entered S Lebanon to implement a peace agreement & enable the Israelis to withdraw.
On the other hand, the failures in Somalia and Bosnia partly reflects the fact that one side was unwilling to stop fighting; in Croatia, Croat forces swept past UN troops to drive the Serbs out of the Krajina. The operation in Sierra Leone descended into chaos after a peace agreement collapsed, with 500 peacekeepers taken hostage by rebels.
The potential role of the UN
The UN could be more ‘effective’ in many crises if a standby force ( as proposed by Boutros Ghali in his 1992 Agenda for Peace) was created, so the UN could intervene before things get out of hand - for instance, it could have prevented the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda. However, Boutros Ghali’s ideas didn’t win support, although some countries now place troops on standby for UN operations. The support shown by the UNSC for Annan’s ‘responsibility to protect’ in 2006 appeared open the way for more aggressive UN intervention to prevent the repression of minorities by their governments in future – however, this did not led to a successful intervention in Darfur, where the Sudanese government has limited the effectiveness of the underpowered UN force that finally arrived in 2007. It remains to be seen if the 2011 intervention in Libya to prevent massacres by Gaddafi’s forces will act as a precedent –it hasn’t been applied to the bloody repression in Syria.
Has the UN been a success or a failure?
- ‘Success’ would imply that the UN has lived up to its original, highly ambitious aims – ensuring collective security , solving economic & social problems and promoting and encouraging respect for human rights, as well as ones it has taken on more recently, like tackling environmental crises. Inevitably the UN has fallen short in these areas, but it is nevertheless indispensable as the main organisation of global governance & has many achievements to its credit.
- The principal mission for the UN when it was founded in 1945 was to ensure collective security and prevent aggression, eg identifying the aggressor and mobilising the global community to deal with the threat to peace. Divisions in the Security Council (above all during the Cold War, when the superpowers protected their clients from any action, but also more recently) have undermined this goal, & the authority of the Security Council itself has been questioned, as its permanent membership still reflects the power balance in 1945 and excludes leading Southern countries like India & Brazil as well as Japan and Germany.
- Nevertheless, its claim to represent the whole global community gives the UN a legitimacy in bringing peace & security which regional bodies like NATO lack.
When its leading members are united and have the will to act, the UN has been successful in enforcing peace against aggressors, as in the 1950 Korean War and the 1991 Gulf War, when Iraqi forces were expelled from Kuwait by a US-led coalition. More frequently, the UN has taken a more neutral ‘peacekeeping’ role & has been able to bring a number of conflicts to an end, for instance a UN force restored order to E. Timor prior to independence in 2002, and UN peacekeepers moved in to preserve peace in Lebanon after the fighting between Hizbollah & Israel in 2006.
However, divisions among UNSC members and a lack of will by leading powers to support UN operations have also resulted in many failures. The UN can only be as successful as its members allow it to be, and particularly the USA, the global superpower, whose reluctance to intervene after it lost troops in Somalia was a major cause of later disasters in the 1990s . The UN failed to intervene effectively in a series of messy civil conflicts, especially in Bosnia, where inadequate force levels led to the humiliation of UN forces and the massacres at Srebrenica of civilians under UN protection and worst of all, in Rwanda, where the UN failed to prevent the genocide of Tutsis. In the absence of vested interests for the leading powers (like oil in the 1991 Gulf War) or strong pressure form domestic public opinion in the leading states, UN interventions have frequently been underpowered and suffer from unrealistic mandates, as in the case of the operation in Sierra Leone in 1999, which had to be rescued by British intervention. Moreover, deadlock in the UNSC has prevented any UN role in many major crises, as in the case of the Kosovo & Iraq Wars.
- The UN’s peacekeeping role continues to evolve - in 2005 the General Assembly accepted a ‘responsibility to protect’ people from atrocities (a major departure from the principle of national sovereignty), and a Peace-Building Commission was set up to restore shattered countries after civil wars, a logical development of ‘multi-dimensional peacekeeping’. However, the failure of the UN to stop the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Darfur, where the government resisted UN peacekeepers until 2007 with the support of China at the Security Council has not been encouraging. The 2011 Libyan intervention by the US & NATO on behalf of the UN has been the only example of the ‘responsibility to protect’ being put into operation so far. It succeeded in stopping a massacre in Benghazi, but critics have argued it was twisted to bring about ‘regime change’ & Russia & China blocked any sanctions against Assad’s regime in Syria in 2012.
- The UN also seeks to foster economic and social progress through a range of UN bodies and autonomous agencies. Many of these perform vital tasks, often tackling problems that can only be handled on a global basis. These include environmental issues like action against the ozone hole or, currently, global warming with the 2011 Durban climate change conference , or health issues like the WHO’s elimination of smallpox or its battle against AIDS and swine flu. The UN is active in many other areas, such as the response to refugee crises via UNHCR, disaster relief as in the aftermath of the earthquakes in Pakistan in 2005 & Haiti in 2010, and human rights – including the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2003. Since the 1940s the number of poorer Southern members has grown and development issues have been tackled in UN organisations like UNCTAD. The UN General Assembly & other forums give these countries a voice in international politics.
- Despite these achievements, there have been failures here too. Member states are often not prepared to give up their sovereignty and respond effectively to the UN’s campaigns – for example, the US under Bush refused to accept the Kyoto Treaty or the ICC, and rich countries provide only some of the money needed to fully meet the 2000 Millennium Development Goals. Vested interests impede success in many areas – for instance, main UN body charged with upholding human rights up to 2005, the Human Rights Commission, often had the worst abusers of human rights as members, and only the most unpopular countries were condemned. The UN organisations have been over-bureaucratic and wasteful, with funds lavished on headquarters rather than field operations –UNESCO was a notorious example. Although serious efforts have been made to cut inefficiency in recent years, problems continue, as with the revelations of corruption and mismanagement in the handling of the Oil For Food programme as a result of the Volker report in 2005. In 2005 the General Assembly accepted reform proposals to improve the UN’s performance, such as the replacement of the Human Rights Commission with a smaller Human Rights Council, and it remains to be seen how far these will be effective. Despite its failings, one of the UN’s main problems is that it is chronically under funded - its current budget is only around $5 billion & many members are in arrears: the periodic withholding of funds by the US in the past has often made the situation even worse
Why are there calls to reform the UN and what obstacles lie in the way?
- There are a number of reasons why there are calls to reform the UN. However, reform depends on the agreement of a 2/3 majority of member states, including all the existing permanent members, which makes it extremely difficult to make radical changes because states with vested interests will object. As the former Secretary General Annan said in 2005, “with 191 member states, it’s not easy to get an agreement”.
- Firstly, the UN was set up to address the problems of the world of 1945 and some of its key institutions remain unchanged - it is hardly surprising that there is pressure to make them more responsive to the world of the 21st century. The most important example is the reform of the Security Council, which reflects the distribution of power in 1945
. Powerful developed countries which were losers in WW2 – Germany and Japan – wish to gain permanent seats, and there is also a strong case for giving greater representation to the South, much of which was still colonised in 1945. Leading Southern states like India and Brazil want permanent seats, and there is also pressure for representation for Africa, which has no permanent seats at present. As a result a range of options for more permanent or semi-permanent members have been put forward to make the UNSC more representative, as well as for more temporary members. However, in this as in other areas, reform has encountered strong opposition. The most obvious candidates all have regional rivals who oppose them - Pakistan resists India, China Japan, Italy Germany & Spanish neighbours oppose Brazil. Moreover, existing permanent members with dubious claims to a seat – eg France & Britain – will not give them up & cannot be made to (so if Germany were to be given a seat, Europe would be over-represented). There is also the risk that an over large Council will become unworkable, especially if more members have vetoes. As a result, all attempts to reform the UNSC have failed up to the present.
- Another reason for reform is to make the UN more effective in tackling peace and security issues. A major obstacle has been the lack of a consensus among UN members over whether it is legitimate to disregard national sovereignty and intervene in the internal affairs of states where regimes grossly abuse human rights and deny their people democracy - this led to the UN being sidelined over Kosovo. This attitude reflects the reluctance of many states who abuse human rights to agree to intervention in a state’s domestic affairs – which could one day be used against them. The 60th General Assembly session accepted a ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) people from genocide and other atrocities when national governments fail to take action, including by force if required (a major departure from the principle of national sovereignty). The UN Security Council endorsed this in 2006 – nevertheless, many governments remain highly suspicious of western proposals for intervention after the Iraq War & China & Russia are generally hostile. ‘R2P’ wasn’t put into effect in Darfur & though the 2011 Libyan intervention finally provided a first & relatively successful test for ‘R2P’, it remains doubtful whether the circumstances that permitted it (Russian & Chinese abstentions & a western & especially US willingness to act) will be replicated often in future (there was no attempt to invoke ‘R2P’ to protect the people of Syria from the regime’s oppression in 2011 - 13).
Another area where reform has been called for is in the UN organisation itself.
- The UN has often been accused of being wasteful and inefficient, duplicating effort and spending far too much on HQ activities. Steps have been taken to streamline the UN organisation since the 1980s, but there are major obstacles - as well as resistance from those with vested interests within the bureaucracy, there is also a long running political battle between the US, impatient for reform and sometimes ready to use its 22% funding as a lever, and many other members, especially Southern countries, who fear reform is part of a drive by the US to impose its control on the UN.
- Concerns about mismanagement were brought to a head by the scandal over the handling of the Oil for Food programme in Iraq, where an independent inquiry headed by Paul Volker has found evidence of gross mismanagement and corruption. In the aftermath, efforts to stamp out corruption have been stepped up & Annan’s successor Ban Ki-moon pressed ahead with reform (for instance, extending the work of the Procurement Task Force, set up after the oil-for-food scandal to look at fraud in UN procurement contracts) & some officials have been sacked for corruption.
- Although the UN can be accused of wasting resources, one of its main problems is that it is chronically under funded, both for peacekeeping and its regular tasks – its current budget is only around $5 billion. Here the obstacle is the reluctance to fund the UN adequately on the part of member states, who often fail to met their existing obligations - many are frequently in arrears, and the periodic withholding of funds by the US because of right wing hostility to the UN in Congress has made matters worse.
Why have the IMF and the World Bank attracted so much criticism?
- The World Bank provides loans for development and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acts as a forum for tackling problems affecting the global economy & helps Southern countries & transition economies deal with debt & sudden financial & economic crises. However, both organisations have been heavily criticised by a wide range of opinion including economists like the former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz, Marxist academics, poverty campaigners and Southern governments.
- Though the IMF has been criticised for failing to do enough to warn of the build-up of the instabilities in the global financial system that led to the 2007-9 crisis, the most sustained criticism of both institutions relates to their role in the South. They are attacked as prioritising the interests of the rich North, & there is no doubt that both are dominated by Northern countries via a weighted voting system; the US and Europeans also traditionally divide up the choice of the Presidents of the organisations (eg Dominique Strauss-Kahn was replaced as head of the IMF by another European, Christine Lagarde, in 2011). Though some reform of voting weights has taken place since the 2007-9 global financial crisis, the emerging economies remain under-represented & the US still has a veto.
- Both organisations have been committed since the 1980s to the neoliberal ‘Washington Consensus’ approach of cutting back the state’s role & trade liberalisation as the path to growth for Southern countries. However, critics claim that this is a rigidly applied formula that ignores local conditions & often seriously damages Southern economies, also inflicting a harsh social cost & that the real beneficiaries are Northern TNCs & banks.
Both organisations force Southern countries to adopt their policies by imposing conditions for loans (until recently called ‘structural adjustment’ programmes) - these are so desperately needed that supposedly sovereign states have little alternative.
They involve tariff reductions (which open up markets to Northern imports, undercutting local firms), the removal of controls on movements of capital (leaving fragile economies at the mercy of sudden influxes or flights of money, as in the 1997 SE Asian financial crisis) along with the privatisation of state – owned industries and cuts to government spending (increasing unemployment and removing subsidies for essentials, so that the poorest suffer).
These policies are claimed to be deflationary to an extent that no Northern country would tolerate, and ignore the heavy state involvement in shaping successful growth strategies in the Newly Industrialising Countries, like S Korea, that are held up as models (for instance, protecting growing industries from competition) Meanwhile the IMF & WB have insisted until recently on full debt repayment, so that money flows from the South to the North at the expense of spending on development (in 1998, Sub-Saharan Africa spent $11.5 per head on health, $25.3 on education and $22 on servicing debt).
The recommended path of export led growth, especially of primary products, is condemned by Marxist critics for reinforcing dependency on the North; green activists also attack WB loans for projects such as mines and dams that degrade the environment.
- It is therefore claimed that both organisations are following misguided policies that are damaging & benefit the North at the cost of poverty in the South. Both argue that since the 1990s their conditions have taken more account of poverty and involve poor countries in the planning of the reform packages. They have also agreed to major debt cancellation initiatives and the IMF has begun to rethink some of its policies – for instance it now accepts the need to limit capital flows in an emergency. Nevertheless, critics claim that the neoliberal approach of these institutions remains unchanged in some respects – for example, severe spending cuts are still being forced on poor countries like Malawi & richer countries needing bailouts, like Hungary & Greece.
Does the WTO serve the interests of the rich countries at the expense of the poor?
- The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is a body set up in 1995 to supervise international trade, implementing agreements made under the GATT process of multilateral trade negotiations. It arbitrates in trade disputes between its members & also seeks to secure further trade liberalisation, currently through the Doha Round of talks.
- Critics argue that the WTO is dominated by rich Northern countries because the US, EU and Japan have great leverage as powerful trading blocs & there are subtle biases within the decision making structures that systematically favour developed over developing countries. The poorer countries may not be represented at all at the WTOs Geneva Headquarters & their delegations at the major conferences are often smaller and less well briefed. Developed countries are more likely to bring issues before dispute settlement panels & can intimidate poorer countries into giving way because of the costs involved. Critics also argue that the WTO pursues an agenda that advances Northern interests, & especially those of TNCs who influence the rich countries’ negotiating positions, at the expense of the South
WTO rules have allowed the USA, EU and Japan to keep up tariff barriers against Southern exports, particularly textiles and food. Meanwhile, Northern pressure, including conditions set by the IMF and World Bank, has forced many Southern countries to open their markets to subsidised US and EU food exports which are ruining Southern farmers.
The TRIPS agreement that defines how products can be protected from piracy (concluded as part of the Uruguay Round of GATT & implemented by the WTO), enables firms in rich countries to protect their profits with patents but makes it more costly for poor nations to develop their industries & produce cheaper alternatives.
The North also seeks to use the WTO to further open up Southern markets, for instance the EU has demanded that Southern countries agree to relax restrictions on TNC investments as part of the Doha Round.
It is also argued that WTO rulings take insufficient notice of humanitarian and environmental considerations – for instance, the EU was ordered to drop its quotas for Caribbean bananas, threatening to ruin many poor farmers in the Windward Islands and elsewhere (the beneficiaries are US fruit TNC’s who sell bananas from Latin America). The WTO ignores labour standards & has angered environmentalists by ruling that attempts to impose environmental standards on some imports were protectionist (for instance, the US was found to be in breach of WTO rules when it tried to ban shrimps caught in ways that killed dolphins in 1998).
- It is therefore claimed that the WTO is an agent of a form of globalisation that benefits the North at the cost of poverty& environmental degradation in the South. The organisation’s defenders would interpret things differently however:
They argue that power is shifting within the WTO as the BRICs & other emerging economies rise – hence the stalemates at Seattle, Cancun & subsequent negotiations - & that the poorer countries have much to gain from the WTO, since they are in a stronger position in multilateral trade negotiations, where agreement is by consensus than from bilateral deals with the rich countries, where poor countries are at a disadvantage. The US and EU have already signed numerous bilateral deals, some of which give them demands they have failed to achieve via the WTO (for instance, easier investment rules for multinationals).
They also argue that the poor would benefit the most from further trade liberalisation – it has been estimated that a 1% increase in trade would benefit Africa more than a fivefold increase in aid and debt relief. Seen in this light, the suspension of the Doha Round in 2006 after a failure to reach agreement was lost opportunity for the developing world
What roles does NATO continue to play?
- NATO is the world’s most powerful military alliance. It has adapted to the end of the Cold War & taken on new roles, especially peacekeeping & peace – enforcing and offering stability & security to the countries of E. Europe. There is still a political will among the leaderships of the member states to continue the alliance.
- As the world’s most powerful military alliance, it deploys forces to meet new military tasks and challenges that its members wish to respond to– eg peacekeeping and peace-enforcing in the Balkans (Bosnia & Kosovo), the 2011 Libyan no-fly zone & and Afghanistan. However, the difficulty & strains caused by the deployment in Afghanistan may mean that many members would be reluctant to undertake an operation on this scale again.
- The NRF should enable NATO to combat threats to Western interests (eg terrorism, states developing WMD etc) globally. Involvement in the NRF is also intended to help members upgrade their forces. It continues to link the US, with its overwhelming military strength, to European security.
- The Kosovo War showed how dependent the Europeans were on US power. Without the US, the Europeans would find it hard to mount even modest peacekeeping operations, let alone military actions to enforce peace or defend Western interests.
- Ultimately, US participation makes credible NATO’s security guarantee that its members will be defended collectively if they are threatened – the main reason the E. European countries have wanted to join is as an insurance against aggression from Russia. The crisis in Georgia in 2008 alarmed E European members of NATO; though the 2010 Lisbon Summit showed an improved relationship with Russia, tensions remain.
– NATO also aims to stabilise E.Europe by reassuring former Soviet Bloc countries about their security & bringing them into a ‘club’ where membership entails democracy. 12 new members from E Europe joined between 1999 & 2009. Arguably enlargement has also been seen by the US as a means of limiting Russian power; it remains to be seen if this process can be extended further into the ‘near abroad’ (eg Georgia & Ukraine) in the face of Russian hostility.
NATO Main problems
- Tensions between the US & the European members of NATO. These have greatly eased since the days of the Iraq War, when there seemed a risk that NATO could be torn apart by US unilateralism & the desire of France & Germany for a stronger EU defence role. However, there remain tensions over the disparity in capabilities & defence spending between the US & the Europeans, & these have been reinforced by the reluctance of some members to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Obama administration’s criticisms are similar to those of its predecessors. With the focus of the US turning to Asia & the Europeans cutting defence spending, NATO’s ability to act may slowly decline
- NATO’s expansion. NATO has expanded so much that it is in danger of turning into more of a political than a military alliance, with a large number of new members with limited military capacity, which NATO could not easily defend. The crisis over Georgia in 2008 raises the question of whether NATO would really be wise to expand even further – yet if it rules out Georgian & Ukrainian membership, it is effectively allowing Russia to carve out a sphere of influence & exercise a veto over new members.
- Relations with Russia. In any event, NATO has to adapt to the fact that Russia is now much more powerful than in the 1990s. The desire of countries like Germany & France to avoid a confrontation with Russia, now backed also by Obama’s USA, is viewed by some of the newer members, who still fear a Russian threat, as complacent & likely to encourage future Russian aggressiveness. This has new context with the expansion of Russia in to Crimea.
Steps necessary for NATO to survive
- It requires the US to continue to follow multilateralist policies so that there is less of an incentive for the Europeans to act independently of the US and to avoid further splits within the alliance, as over Iraq. This is now a given under Obama, & with the US weakened by the 2007-9 global financial crisis. The US should accept a stronger defence role for the EU, as France & some others want – on the other hand, the French must accept that the EU can’t rival NATO (as they now seem to do).
- European states, must be willing to act against common dangers; several European members have been reluctant to deploy the necessary forces to NATO’s Afghanistan operation, & have put limits on their forces’ roles. German voters, in particular, seem reluctant to agree to the use of force in almost any context [Econ 31/3/12]. It will be important for agreement to be reached on finding a use for the NRF, other than minor operations & training exercises.
- It is also essential that European members of NATO improve their capabilities so that they can operate alongside the US, eg in the NRF, and reduce the disparity between the US and European effort within NATO. With the focus of the US switching to Asia, the US will be less & less prepared to intervene on the border of Europe & may ultimately give up on NATO, because its European members would seem neither willing nor able to share the burden of upholding global order.
- Another issue is the danger that further enlargement – to include Ukraine & Georgia- might make NATO too unwieldy and add huge territories that it would be hard pressed to defend, as well as antagonising Russia. The Georgian crisis in 2008 seemed to bear both these points out. Opponents would therefore say that NATO’s success in the medium term will depend on avoiding further enlargements & consolidating its recent expansion (& the Ukraine is no longer seeking membership under the current government). On the other hand, some critics say that this would be defeatist & encourage further Russian aggression.
Why is the divide between the North and South still growing?
- The gap between the industrialised, relatively rich countries of the global north, and the relatively poor countries of the global south is huge.
- The North (including the rich countries of America, Western Europe and Japan plus the former Soviet bloc countries) contains only 20% of the world population yet consumes 60% of world production.
- The South (including Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and most of Asia) has 80% of the world population yet consumes only 40% of world production.
- Many argue that the divide is growing, as the North continues to absorb more and more of global production, yet the South remains stuck in a poverty trap of low income, leading to low levels of saving, which restricts investment.
- Low levels of investment in turn restrict the development and progress of firms, thereby restricting income growth and therefore savings etc.
‘The poverty of the global South is the result of neocolonialism’
- Neo-colonialism is a left wing (neo-Marxist) theory that seeks to explain the relationship between the richer Northern countries and Southern countries that are politically independent, like Sierra Leone (a former British colony). It is claimed that the North still exercise great political & economic influence over these supposedly independent countries, as in the days of empire, & that this causes the poverty of the South. On the other hand, supporters of the orthodox view of poverty would argue that in many developing countries, internal obstacles such as poor governance have contributed to their predicament. These arguments & evidence of the progress made by some Southern countries suggest that the claim in the title is too sweeping.
- The North clearly does exercise great power over many Southern economies, especially as a result of globalisation, & some of the results of this are damaging as supporters of ‘neo-colonialism’ argue.
Northern multinationals control a large proportion of the economies of many southern countries & their critics argue that they take an unfair share of the profits generated, which could otherwise have contributed to national development. Taxes paid to local governments are minimised as in the case of Glencore in Zambia, which declares a large proportion of its profits in Switzerland. Revenues that are gained often end up in the hands of corrupt elites, especially in the case of ‘enclave economies’ based on extraction of raw materials (eg Shell’s Nigerian revenues have had little benefit for the country as a whole). Even TNCs investing in factories are seen as exploitative by critics, as low wages are paid, leading to campaigns by NGOs against firms like Nike, and independent local firms and producers are driven out of business.
The problems of the South are also worsened as a result of unfair terms of trade for its exports. Supporters of neo-colonialism stress the position of the South in the global market was that established under colonialism – producer of low value commodity exports, which fluctuate in price and have until recently suffered from declining terms of trade over the longer term. The North acts as the producer of processed and manufactured goods and protects its markets against Southern imports in these areas with tariffs and quotas.
- Some of these arguments are credible – there is no doubt that the protectionist policies of Northern countries damage the South’s ability to develop through trade. Nevertheless, there are sufficient counter arguments to suggest that the theory is unconvincing as a whole. Firstly, not all of the South’s problems can be blamed on the North. Obstacles to development are imposed by many countries’ own political systems & policies. The Congo, for instance, is a potentially rich country that has been ruined by the gross misappropriations of national resources by the dictator Mobutu & subsequent rulers, as well as by civil war. The North connived at Mobutu’s rule for decades and multinationals have profited from the country’s wealth, but not all the blame can be laid at the door of the North. In many other countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, corruption and the absence of a stable legal and political framework, gives entrepreneurs little incentive to play their part in generating growth (as, for instance, in Zimbabwe, whose economy has been wrecked by Mugabe’s policies). Total or partial State control, excessive bureaucracy and regulation has also held back economic development in countries like China and India in the past, & the greatest concentration of poverty is still in India, which lavishes a sizeable proportion of its resources on a space programme & nuclear weapons.
- Secondly, some Southern countries have been able to make dramatic progress within the existing global trading system; this suggests that close links with the North in terms of trade and investment are not doomed to bring poverty, and can in fact stimulate development.
A number of Southern countries have succeeded in achieving economic growth through trade, particularly in SE Asia – ‘Newly Industrialised Economies’ like S. Korea, which were on a similar level of development to African countries like Ghana in the 1960s. It is notable that having cast off the socialist models of the past and opened up to the global economy, China and India have made remarkable economic progress, lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty - China has become the second largest global economy.
Though multinationals are often criticised, the fact that many Southern governments are keen to attract their investments suggests that they are seen as beneficial. They bring job in countries like Vietnam which pay better than local alternatives, even if they are low by Western standards, as well as access to western technology. Moreover, the flow of investment between North & South is no longer just in one direction – for instance, the Indian Tata group now owns the much of the British steel industry and Jaguar & Land Rover. This shift in global economic power has been further accelerated by the 2007-9 financial crisis, which the Southern BRICs coped with much better than the Northern countries.
What are human rights and why has it been argued that they do not apply universally?
- The concept of human rights was enshrined in the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – they reflect liberal thinking & are considered to be are rights and freedoms that everyone is entitled to; they are an inherent part of being human & are absolute & universal (eg they can’t be taken away by national laws). They include civil rights like freedom of speech and social, economic & cultural rights like the right to join a trade union or to receive an education. The Universal Declaration set out norms that weren’t legally enforceable, but a number of other international declarations have made them legally binding on signatories, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.
- Several arguments have been put forward to question the existence of universal ‘human rights’.
In the West, ‘communitarian’ thinkers have challenged them on philosophical grounds because they see individual rights & moral values as shaped by their own societies.
In some parts of the South, human rights are dismissed by claiming that they are in fact not universal at all but reflect the historical evolution of western societies. Other regions, it is argued, have different cultures and traditions and their own equally valid interpretations of human rights. This view has been put forward by a number of Muslim countries, who reject some of the Universal Declaration’s ‘rights’ as contrary to Sharia law – for instance, religious freedom cannot include the right for a Muslim to choose another religion. In Asia a number of regimes, such as in China, have argued for the existence of ‘Asian values’ which legitimise curtailing of individual freedom (eg freedom of speech) to protect collective goods like social & political stability
They have also been attacked on political grounds - the insistence that all countries adhere to what are seen as western concepts of human rights amounts to cultural imperialism. Some (like for instance, President Omar al Bashir of Sudan) also regard human rights as part of a neo-colonial project to control the rest of the world for economic & political reasons – for instance, as a justification for political interference in a state’s internal affairs or even ‘humanitarian intervention’.
How effective have recent war crimes trials been?
- Since the 1990s a number of trials have been held of those accused of war crimes (violations of the laws of war) or crimes against humanity (which are committed by governments against populations under their control & aren’t confined to wartime). Tribunals were set up under UN auspices for crimes committed during the conflict in Yugoslavia (ICTY) & to bring to justice those responsible for the genocide in Rwanda (ICTR). Hybrid courts have also been set up jointly by the UN & local governments to try those accused of atrocities in the civil war in Sierra Leone & in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Members of Saddam Hussein’s regime have also been put on trial by the new Iraqi government.
- It could be argued that the tribunals’ effectiveness has been disappointing on a number of fronts. Relatively small numbers have been brought to justice in relation to the scale of the atrocities, especially in the case of the Rwandan tribunal – the 92 indicted & 29 convicted represent a tiny proportion of those responsible for the deaths of 800,000 people. As the tribunals have been set up to try members of regimes opposed by the leading Western powers, critics accuse them of being ‘victors’ justice’ – this is has been an accusation made repeatedly by Serb nationalists, and especially by Milosevic, who argued that he was only on trial because the then Yugoslavia was defeated by NATO, & that Blair & Clinton should have been on trial for starting the Kosovo War. Similar points were made by Saddam Hussein, who claimed his trial was a sham organized by puppets of the Americans. Whether or not these claims are well founded, to avoid the taint of bias in future it would be preferable to use the ICC for war crimes as a permanent, neutral court. The trials have also been very expensive – the Rwandan tribunal alone cost $286m in 2009.
- However, despite these limitations, the courts have arguably still fulfilled important functions. Those responsible for some appalling crimes have been brought to justice - General Krstic who organized the Srebrenica massacre, has been punished & Karadzic & Mladic have finally been brought to trial. They have given a chance for the victims or their relatives to make their voices heard – for instance, some confronted Milosevic face to face at the ICTY. They have also established important legal precedents - the former Rwandan PM, Jean Kambanda was the first head of government to be convicted for genocide, & the ICTR also established that rape can legally be considered an aspect of genocide; Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, has become the first former head of state convicted by an international court (the Special Court for Sierra Leone) since Nuremberg. These developments may have a deterrent effect in the future, if potential perpetrators believe they may face retribution.
What is the role of the ICC and what factors limit its effectiveness?
- The ICC is a permanent court established by international treaty in 1998 which covers the most serious cases of abuse of human rights – genocide, war crimes & crimes against humanity; crimes of aggression will be covered if enough states ratify the relevant amendment. It began trials in 2009 & has jurisdiction over the nationals of states party to the Treaty, or over anyone committing a crime on the territory of a state party & it can also hear cases referred to it by the UN Security Council. It operates as a court of last resort and will not hear cases if they have been already tried in the state that has jurisdiction over the accused.
- The ICC’s effectiveness is limited by a number of factors. Some of these were deliberately built into its founding treaty by states concerned about losing sovereignty – including the USA, which didn’t subsequently accede to the treaty. They include the ability of the UNSC to delay prosecutions by an unanimous vote. The ICC also has no jurisdiction over nationals of states that aren’t party to the treaty (unless they commit a crime on the territory of a member that is) & this currently excludes major powers (US, China, Russia, India) & most of the Middle East. As a result, all indictments so far have related to African conflicts, which opens the ICC to the charge of being a selective, neocolonial body.
- The ICC has no enforcement arm of its own and depends on the cooperation of states to arrest those indicted, which is problematic. Undefeated militia leaders and members of regimes involved in human rights abuses are unlikely to hand themselves over to the ICC. President al Bashir of Sudan has defied his indictment with the backing of the African Union, & this will undermine the deterrent effect of an ICC indictment. Libya has also insisted that Saif Gaddafi will be tried in Libya rather than handed over to the ICC. ICC prosecutors also find it difficult, with relatively few staff, to sift through highly complex conflicts, often based on tribal affiliations, and select the right people to indict - some human rights NGOs feel that the ICC’s choices have often been poor & focus on militia leaders while ignoring the roles of local governments.
What arguments could be put forward to support and oppose international interventions for humanitarian reasons? - SUPPORT
- Liberal interventionists would argue that human rights are indivisible & the international community has a duty to protect victimised groups like the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Kosovo Albanians or the Libyan population; states should collaborate to secure justice as an important element in international order & should look beyond their narrow self interests & national borders.
- It is unacceptable in the 21st century for states to hide behind national sovereignty to excuse gross abuses of human rights, eg genocide (Rwanda), war crimes & ethnic cleansing (Bosnia, Kosovo). The UN General Assembly finally accepted the concept of a responsibility to protect’ in 2005 & the UNSC in 2006.
- In many cases, domestic repression has a major impact on surrounding states because it creates refugees, as in the case of Kosovo or Syria – regional stability is justifiably an international concern. It was a legitimate concern of the international community to avoid a Gaddafi controlled Libya – a pariah state on the fringe of Europe, maybe supporting terrorist groups.
- There is a growing body of international law that refuses to allow leaders to hide behind state immunity, as in the case of the Hague and Arusha war crimes trials and the ICC’s indictment of al Bashir of Sudan. The logic of this points to intervention to stop crimes against humanity, as well as bringing justice to the perpetrators after the event.
What arguments could be put forward to support and oppose international interventions for humanitarian reasons? - OPPOSE
- Realists would argue that states should act to secure their own national interests & are
not justified in sacrificing their troops to protect the citizens of other countries in the pursuit of spurious ‘universal’ human rights. - The principle of national sovereignty protects states from intrusions into their jurisdiction by other powers under international law. ‘R2P’ will be used by powerful states like the US to excuse military interventions designed to impose their will on weaker powers, as in the Iraq War. If this example is copied, it will lead to anarchy and increased warfare as states invade their neighbours to install favourable regimes.
- Intervention also rests on unfounded assumptions of moral superiority on the part of the Western powers, especially the US (Abu Ghraib? Guantanamo?), and double standards. It is hypocritical to intervene in cases of abuses by small powers and ignore equally bad abuses by more powerful states like Russia, or by allies of the US like Israel ( & recently, yes to Libya, no to Syria). They seek to intervene selectively in pursuit of their own agendas and definitions of ‘human rights’. It is might that determines right under these circumstances.
- There is a huge risk that intervention will make matters worse & lead to more rather than less deaths – eg the huge number of Iraqis who have died or been forced to flee after the US intervention in Iraq. Despite progress in Libya, the government is weak & the country is still beset by feuding militias. The huge cost & difficulty of nation-building in Afghanistan & Iraq has led the West, particularly the US & UK, formerly the strongest supporters of humanitarian interventions, to be extremely wary of further operations, as seen with the Syrian crisis, where even when Assad crossed Obama’s ‘red lines’ over the use of chemical weapons, there was no US military response..
Why is it so difficult to enforce an international standard of human rights?
- Different cultural traditions
In spite of the universal declaration of human rights there is no one standard of international human rights. Western powers have generally been influenced by the principles of the enlightenment which emphasise the importance of the individual. For examples, homosexuals in Western Europe have equality rights such as the 2007 up sexual equality act [sexual orientation] that are denied them in large parts of the developing world where homosexuality is a crime. Indeed in 79 countries, primarily in Africa and Asia homosexuality is illegal and in 10 countries homosexuality may be punishable by death. [Iran, Iraq, UAE, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania, Yemen]
Asian countries though have been more influenced by Confucian values which prioritize one’s duty to the well-being of society and so are much more likely to exercise the death penalty for those who have acted contrary to their duty to society.
In Russia the conservative principles of the orthodox church have been reflected in the government’s unwillingness to treat homosexuality and heterosexuality as equally legitimate, as well as the prosecution of “pussy riot” for offending public morals by their sexually explicit actions within an orthodox church.
Many Muslim countries’ standards of human rights are determined by the higher law of Islam. Iran, for example, is an Islamic theocracy in which the Koran is the ultimate authority in determining the meaning of the law. Saudi Arabia also bases its legal system on a literalist Wahhabi interpretation of the Koran which sets it at odds with many of the enlightenment principles of the universal declaration of human rights.
- State sovereignty
At best, the universal declaration of human rights is merely an example of soft law since nation states are sovereign over their internal affairs and can choose whether or not to accept outside jurisdiction in cases affecting their citizens. The lack of supranational authority to which all states are equally accountable thus undermines the possibility of enforcing an international standard of human rights.
The UK government, for example, is in defiance of the European convention of human rights over not allowing prisoners the vote and having life imprisonment for certain crimes
The International Criminal Court has also become increasingly unpopular in Africa where it is seen as prejudiced, hypocritical and neo-colonial because, so far, it has only convicted almost entirely Africans. In 2016, the African Union urged its members to consider withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the ICC since it has primarily focused on African human rights abuses.
The UN’s world court [ICJ], which arbitrates between countries, can only make a judgment if it is approached by a plaintiff country and then it has no coercive power to ensure that its judgment is enforced. Thus, in order not to undermine state sovereignty the decisions of the world court are non-binding so, for example, when the court condemned Israel for building a wall to separate it from the Palestinian territories Israel could quite legally ignore the ruling.
- Powerful states unaccountable for their actions
If an international standard of human rights law is going to exist all states need to be equally accountable before human rights law. However this principle is undermined because powerful states often ignore international law if it is against their national interests.
Russia refuses to co-operate in the establishment of an international criminal court to investigate the shooting down of mh17 over Ukraine, while the United States has continually resisted calls from the united nations to close down Guantanamo.
The war against terror has particularly highlighted how the United States has been prepared to infringe human rights in order to achieve their goals of defeating terrorism thereby protecting themselves from future attack. A US senate enquiry, in 2014, stated that the CIA used “abhorrent techniques” in the war against terror following 9/11. However, Dick Cheney, the former vice president dismissed the senate report, as “a load of crap”, asserting, “i think what needed to be done was done. I think we were perfectly justified in doing it. And I’d do it again in a minute”.
Water boarding, the indefinite internment of terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay and extraordinary rendition whereby the us has moved suspects to states, like Pakistan, where they can be quietly tortured, also highlights the way in which powerful states undermine the principle that human rights can be universally applied.
President Trump has also made clear that if it is in the interests of the united states to deploy torture then that will be justifiable in terms of defeating terrorism. The way, too, in which drone strikes have killed many innocent bystanders in the war against terror further shows how human rights can be undermined in times of war and that powerful states will not be held accountable for their actions. For example, two drone strikes failed to kill Ayman Zawahiri but did kill 76 children and 29 adults.
How effective are the institutions responsible for enforcing international law?
- United nations security council
The UNSC has not condemned Russia for the annexation of Crimea which infringed Ukraine’s sovereignty because Russia, as a permanent member of the security council, has vetoed this, while, although the general assembly has condemned the annexation this has no binding power.
- Un war crimes tribunals
In the 1990’s, there was growing concern about genocide and, since the un security council was no longer divided by cold war rivalries four un war crimes tribunals were established. They have achieved some significant successes because the countries involved have been prepared to co-operate with the united nations.
- Former Yugoslavia
The tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has achieved a significant number of convictions, “spearheading the shift from impunity to accountability” since without the court it is very unlikely that the Balkan states would have tried so many of those accused of war crimes in the Yugoslavian wars of the 1990’s.
The court also claims to have “brought justice for thousands of victims and given them a voice” and so advanced both justice and the principle that individuals can be held accountable by the international community for crimes against humanity.
Life imprisonment for murder of 100 Muslims.
The recently completed trial of Radovan Karadzic [40 years] and Ratko Mladic [life] both of whom have been linked to the Srebrenica massacre are simply the most high profile of such trials.
However, the court has also been criticised for bias since the majority of those convicted of crimes have been Serbs and Croats; Russia has, therefore, accused the court of being too western, although the tribunal has responded that the majority of convictions are Serb and Croat because they perpetuated most of the crimes! The court may then have succeeded in punishing many of the guilty, [justice / retribution] but it has been less successful in achieving a basis for reconciliation between communities.
- Rwanda
The UN tribunal for the Rwandan (ICTR) genocide in which almost a millions Tutsis died concluded its work at the end of 2015 having convicted 55 individuals. These include Jean Kambanda, the Hutu prime minister during the killings. It has been criticised though for not prosecuting any Tutsi atrocities after the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front regained power.
These war crime tribunals have succeeded in providing:
Retribution
Basis for reconciliation
Establishment of legal principle that heads of government can be tried by the international community for crimes committed within their country.
- ECHR
The European Court of Human Rights was established in 1951, sits in Strasbourg, and provides judgments in cases involving the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the court requires states to co-operate with it if its judgments are to be upheld and signatories can, therefore, still act in defiance of the court.
For example, the UK government “derogated” from article 5 [right to liberty] of the European convention of human rights when new terrorist legislation was introduced from 2001-5 which allowed foreign terrorist suspects to be held indefinitely without trial following 9/11. This is because parliament is legally sovereign and so cannot be bound by the judgments of an extra sovereign court. Eventually, the Blair government did release the prisoners because of the unfavourable publicity generated by the government’s failure to act in accordance with the convention. The convention thus possesses “soft persuasive power”, but cannot be enforced if nation states refuse to act according to its rulings.
Currently, the British government is in defiance of the ECHR by:
Not allowing prisoners the vote.
Allowing life imprisonment which according to the court amounts to inhuman treatment.
Russia has also passed a law, in 2015, which enshrines the principle that, in cases of conflict, Russian national law takes precedence over the rulings of the ECHR.
- The ICJ
The ICJ which attempts to arbitrate cases between states is also undermined by state sovereignty since states can ignore its rulings since they are only advisory. The world court has, for example, condemned Israel for building a wall to separate it from the self-governing Palestinian territories, but Israel has simply ignored the jurisdiction of the court. It also lacks coercive power, unlike the WTO, for example which can impose sanctions on countries that are in defiance of its judgments. China has notably taken a similar attitude over a ICJ ruling over sovereignty over the South China Sea.
However, the world court has achieved considerable successes because of the great deal of international prestige that it can wield. Countries do not want to be seen to be acting in defiance of the world court. Thus, Japan has accepted a recent ruling condemning scientific whaling brought in a case by Australia (in theory at least – there’s been allegations of them continuing in recent months).
Distinguish between Radical and Reformist Ecology - ideas
- The shallow perspective accepts the lessons of ecology but harnesses them to human needs and ends. In other words, it preaches that if we conserve and cherish the natural world, it will continue to sustain human life. In contrast the radical perspective advances a form of ‘strong’ ecologism that completely rejects any lingering belief that the human species is in some way superior to, or more important than, any other species, or indeed nature itself. It is based on the more challenging idea that the purpose of human life is to help sustain nature, and not the other way round.
- The most important distinction in the environmental movement is between what the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess termed ‘shallow ecology’ (or modern or reformist ecology) and ‘deep ecology’ (radical ecology).
