Redefining Sovereignty and Intervention

Abstract

In his millennium report to the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked, If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica--to gross and systematic violations of human rights that offend every precept of our common humanity? ... We confront a real dilemma. Few would disagree that both the defence of humanity and the defence of sovereignty are principles that must be supported. Alas, that does not tell us which principle should prevail when they are in conflict. (1) Annan's remarks force us to confront some uncomfortable facts: The fiftieth anniversary of the Genocide Convention was haunted by the shameful neglect of Rwanda. The Mogadishu fiasco, the cruel ambiguities of Srebrenica, the silence over Chechnya, and the confusions of the Kosovo intervention fed a contentious debate on the circumstances, authority, and means to intervene. Nonetheless, human rights and humanitarian discourses asserted themselves in international affairs throughout the 1990s: Once synonymous with the defence of territory from external attack, the requirements of security today have come to embrace the protection of communities and individuals from internal violence. (2)