Rubber Helmets: The Certain Pitfalls of Marshaling Security Council Resources to Combat AIDS in Africa

Abstract

The same colleague who applauds the effort of the Council to attend to the problems of Africans typically forgotten challenged the author to consider whether Gore’s proposal can be modified to make it viable. After due consideration the author must answer in the negative. Because the author remains convinced both that the practical limitations on Security Council powers precludes tangible benefits and that there is a great risk of future Council abuse of the principle Gore enunciates the author is not shy about advising the international community to decline Gore’s invitation to expand Council responsibility to cover disease and quality of life issues. The “new and wider prism” through which he exhorts us to view the world is as capable of distorting the world as it is of creating rainbows. It is undeniable that Security Council attention would further raise--has already raised--the profile of this crisis and that in and of itself may galvanize the community to greater action and save lives. Surely that is a benefit worth pursuing? No it is not; at least not this way. A favorite legal aphorism is that “hard cases make bad law.” It is certainly hard to think about people dying from AIDS too poor to receive basic treatment that would alleviate symptoms and provide comfort. It is harder still to think of children orphaned or condemned to a life of illiteracy or hardship by the toll AIDS absent a cure will surely take on the infrastructure of many African nations. Yet the impulse to do something to do more should be channeled in a constructive and not destructive manner and should certainly not be manipulated for political gain. Al Gore ’s proposal risks all of these harms and consequently must be rejected. (excerpt)