iR2P

A few weeks ago, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a lifelong advocate of ‘humanitarian intervention’) invoked R2P when the Government of Burma/Myanmar appeared to be obstructing relief efforts in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. However, when the French Ambassador to the UN requested a briefing to the Security Council on the humanitarian situation, even this overture was blocked by China and others.

When Kouchner’s UK counterpart, David Miliband, voiced support in a BBC interview, critics, like the interviewer, worried that he was promoting military intervention.

A fair criticism of Kouchner’s stance was that it would prove counterproductive - i.e. that it would derail ongoing efforts to persuade the Junta to open up access to humanitarian agencies.

A more fundamental objection, albeit with a different goal in mind, was voiced by R2P champions including Gareth Evans and Ramesh Thakur, was that the best chance of achieving consensus on the new norm is if it can only be invoked in relation to mass atrocity crimes.

As Gareth Evans acknowledged, deliberate denial of life-saving relief can constitute a crime against humanity: The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court refers not only to widespread or systematic attacks directed against civilians, but also to “Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health”.

All this demonstrates the different paths down which legal and political considerations can take us. At first glance, neither line of thought is of immediate practical use. It was inspiring to see that such debates didn’t get in the way of decisive action to stop that shipment of arms from reaching Zimbabwe, (or, for that matter, ongoing relief efforts in Burma).

In crisis situations, the longer-term goal of consensus-building should not obscure clear thinking about how to respond.