Making Peace in Slivonia

An exercise in peacekeeping/ conflict resolution

MUIMUN 2011

This file can be downloaded from my website

• http://reinhardmeyers.uni-muenster.de There you can also find further material

to accompany our seminars on International Theory, International Politics, and Peace & Conflict Studies

Lost in the maze ??? Send email to

meyersr@uni-muenster.de

Role Game (i) - Definition

• A fictitious behaviour process used for research, training, and preparation of decisions

• A process in the course of which the participants playing defined roles are confronted with practical problems making up a scenario; on the basis of prior determined rules these problems demand decisions and actions which lead to an appropriate solution

Role Game (II) - Ends

• To test purposive, rational, flexible, and reaction-reliable decision-making behaviour in planning processes

• The optimisation of cooperation and decision-making behaviour under the pressure of time

• The intensification of learning effects by emphatic participation

Role game (III) - Particulars

• Information:• Use all information given to you orally or in

printed form (handouts etc.) or by electronic devices

• Add on own information sources (newspaper clippings, learned articles, books, internet)

• Ask the academic staff in residence if you cannot find your own solution to your information deficit

Role game (IV) – Particulars contd.

• Negotiating Process:• What aims do you want to achieve ?• What resources do you have, by which

means are you to achieve your aims ?• What are the temporary/permanent alliances

you can forge and use in the process of achieving your aim ?

• What is the most likely character, composition, and content of your negotiation partner’s interests and aims ?

Role game advice

The problem: humanitarian intervention

H.I. defined as „military intervention in a state, without the approval of its authorities, and with the purpose of preventing wide-spread suffering or death among the inhabitants“ (Adam Roberts 1993)

► use of military force, exclusion of non-forcible action

► absence of the target state‘s permission (incl. situations of state failure & state collapse)

► aim to help non-nationals

Consequences of different theoriesfor the legitimation of H.I.

what should we do ?

what are the limits of our ambitions ?

Realism Rationalism Idealism

Political International Responsibility Expediency, legal to National appropriateness protect - R2P interest

Consequences … if you are a Realist…(I)

International humanitarian intervention poses no akward questions to political decision-makers.

Within a rationally calculated framework of national interests and political expediency, intervention can be regarded as one instrument in a whole battery of means from gentle persuasion to outright warfare.

Reference back to the „ethics of responsibility“ – Verantwortungsethik (Max Weber)

Consequences …if you are a Realist (II)

What has to be assured in H.I. is ►a logically cogent definition of aims,►a clear formulation of a maximizing/ optimizing/satisfying means – ends relationship, ►a clear calculation of hardware, manpower, and financial ressources needed in order to fulfill specific aims, ►a realization of the availability of such ressources, and► a communicable entry – stay - exit – strategy.

(legal) form follows (political) function

Consequences…if you are a Rationalist…

Early discussion of the concept backtraced to 16th & 17th Century Internat. Law classics – from Vitoria to Grotius

De Jure Belli ac Pacis 1625 states that states are entitled to exercise the right to H.I. „ves- ted in human society“ on behalf of oppres-sed individuals & to end human suffering

► Grotian Tradition in International Affairs allows full-scale use of force to end human suffering (political) function follows (legal) form

Legally speaking…

Slow change from doctrine of intervention to doctrine of non-intervention in the 19th century and beyond

► Monroe Doctrine 1823►Calvo- & Drago- Doctrines 1868 & 1902►2nd Hague Convention 1907►Briand-Kellog-Pact 1928►UN Charter Art. 2(4) & Art. 2(7); authorization

of H.I. by Security Council under Ch. VII in response to emergencies that constitute a threat to peace & security

• The United Nations, formed in the aftermath of World War II to promote peace and stability, recognize the importance of sovereignty…• Cf. Art. 2(7) "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state." • The principle does not rule out the application of enforcement measures in case of a threat to peace, a breach of peace, or acts of aggression – cf. Ch. VII.

H.I. - a post- Cold War dead end ?

• tension between the principle of state sovereignty and evolving international norms relating to human rights and the use of force

• Proponents: imperative action in the face of human rights abuses, over the rights of state sovereignty

• Opponents: often viewed as a pretext for military intervention devoid of legal sanction, selectively deployed and achieving only ambiguous ends – cf. In particular Third World criticism, e.g.non-recognition by group of 77: H.I. a neo-imperialistic tool !

Consequences… if you are an Idealist …or, respectively, a Liberal Internationalist, or,

respectively, a Liberal Institutionalist…

• Problem: States, particularly in the Third World, have long seen intervention as a threat to their sovereignty.

• Humanitarian intervention is regarded as no different [cf.Myanmar May 2008].

• Interventions have to be about regime change if they are to have any chance of accomplishing their stated goal.

Solution: change of perspective

• In 2000, the Canadian government and several other actors announced the establishment of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) – task: to address the challenge of the international community's responsibility to act in the face of the gravest of human rights violations while respecting the sovereignty of states.

• "If the international community is to respond to this challenge, the whole debate must be turned on its head. The issue must be reframed not as an argument about the 'right to intervene' but about the 'responsibility to protect.'" (Gareth Evans, Foreign Affairs, 2002)

• Responsibilty instead of control…

R2P – a continuing story…

Report by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, December 2004 [ A more secure world: Our shared responsibility]

Resolution by the World Summit, Sept. 2005:„ Each individual State has the responsibility to protect

its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This re-sponsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means. We accept that responsibility and will act in accordance with it…“

R2P accepted into customary international law ? ?

R2P much more than military intervention – a whole continuum

• The responsibility to prevent: to address both the root causes and direct causes of internal conflict and other man-made crises putting populations at risk;

• The responsibility to react: to respond to situations of com- pelling human need with appropriate measures, which may include coercive measures like sanctions, international prosecution, and, in extreme cases, military intervention;

• The responsibility to rebuild: to provide, particularly after a military intervention, full assistance with recovery, reconstruction, and reconciliation, addressing the causes of the harm the intervention was designed to halt or avert.

…but the main point still is…

…the question of military action remains, for better or worse, the most prominent and controversial one in the debate.

Whatever else it encompasses, the re-sponsibility to protect implies above all else a responsibility to react - where necessary, coercively, and in extreme cases, with military coercion - to situations of compelling need for human protection.

(Evans 2006, 709)

More info…

• Gareth Evans: FROM HUMANITARIAN INTER-VENTION TO THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT, in: Wisconsin International Law Journal Vol.24,No.3, 2006

• International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (Hrsg.): The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Ottawa 2001.

• http://www.iciss.ca/menu-en.asp

…and now for…

… THE ROLE GAME