CIAO DATE: 05/02

Civilians in War: 100 Years after the Hague Peace Conference

Table of Contents

Introduction
Dealing with the Local Level: Belligerents in War
Strategies for Protection: Evidence from Cases
Organizations and the International System: Constraints and Challenges
Universal Norms: A Progress Report?
Developing a Framework for Integrated and Effective Response
Next Steps: Additional Issues and Future Work
Conclusion
Annex I: Keynote Address
Annex II: Agenda
Annex III: Participants

Introduction

In the centenary of the First Hague International Peace Conference, convened in the wake of the Franco—Prussian war, the International Peace Academy and Carnegie Corporation of New York held a symposium to address the enduring challenge that prompted Czar Nicholas II's initiative: limiting the carnage that accompanies war. Andrew Carnegie supported the efforts that arose from the first event; his portrait watched over the proceedings of the second. While the continuity was striking, the passage of a century had distinctly shifted concern toward the particular vulnerability of civilians and efforts to protect them from the effects of war.

The timing of the symposium was both fortuitous and fortunate. In the same week, the protection of civilians took center stage at the United Nations. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights addressed the Security Council for the first time in its history, helping to introduce a report on 'The Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict;' ₁ at the UN's General Debate, member states alternately attacked or supported the Secretary—General's defense of humanitarian intervention, a debate which has continued in the pages of leading journals; and, most significantly, the Security Council authorized a peace—enforcement mission to halt ethnic cleansing and deter mass killings in East Timor — a humanitarian intervention of the classic kind often debated but rarely deployed.

Against this backdrop, academics, international policy—makers, and field practitioners from the legal, security, and humanitarian fields presented a range of views on protecting civilians. Discussion covered the issues of evolving norms and laws, international organizations and their strategies, the interests and behavior of belligerents, and case reviews of the local contexts in which violence against civilians occurs. Underlying the ensuing debate was a determination to focus less on developing new laws or norms than on increasing the prospects for the implementation and enforcement of those that already exist but are so persistently violated.

The striking challenge that emerged from the conference was that achieving meaningful protection of civilians in and from war requires much greater coherence among distinct types and levels of international response than currently exists. These must begin with more nuanced understanding of the local context in which war and protection efforts take place. From this foundation, which is also the starting point of the essay, more productive efforts need to be made by international actors to develop complementary protection strategies. These, in turn, can be more effectively implemented by the international and regional organizations who design them. Finally, the normative framework which both informs and is informed by such practice warrants ongoing attention.

This document constitutes an analytical essay by two of the symposium participants. It draws from the major themes of the symposium and highlights connections between them. In so doing, it also outlines key policy and research challenges ahead. As a text, it is the responsibility of the authors; as a body of ideas, it is the product of the symposium participants and of their hosts. It respects the Chatham House rules under which the symposium proceeded but, where possible, cites the ideas and arguments of participants, especially those that have been committed to paper as contributions to the symposium volume.

Dealing with the Local Level: Belligerents in War ₂

It is at the local level that protection strategies ultimately succeed or fail, in the highly specific context of a given conflict. There is little doubt that the sine qua non of effective protection of civilians is a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of specific local contexts. While specific contexts can refer to the history of a conflict, or elements of the culture of a people in question, what is arguably most important and certainly most frequently given short shrift, is the particular question of understanding those belligerents whose actions expose civilians to violence in the first place. Enhanced understanding requires seeing belligerents in context and examining their varying behavior, objectives and instruments of war in order to shed light on how belligerents deal with civilians and to draw out the implications for international protection efforts.

Unconventional belligerents — meaning rebel groups, militias and other non—state actors — have been significantly understudied for reasons ranging from a bias towards legitimate state actors to the practical and security constraints on close analysis of militia groups. Nonetheless, this is an important area for further inquiry, particularly if the international community wishes to influence the behavior of militias in order to protect civilians and resolve conflicts. Among the first tasks is to draw a number of analytic distinctions that establish a rough typology of the highly diverse types of militias. Such a typology has been developed by Marie—Joelle Zahar, who identifies the following three primary dimensions: ₃

(i) In—group vs. Out—group. This refers to differences in patterns of behavior by militias with respect to what they consider their 'in—group' (i.e. allies) and their 'out—group' (i.e. enemies). Militias are well—known for their human rights violations against civilians considered to be in the out—group (e.g. Bosnian Serb militias and their treatment of Moslem civilians in Bosnia). However, it is often ignored that militias also act quite differently toward civilians in their in—group. For example, Hizballah, a group accused of terrorist tactics against Israeli citizens in its drive to push Israel from Lebanon, also sees itself as a provider of social services for the poorest members of Lebanese society.

(ii) Symbiotic vs. Parasitic. This dichotomy is a reference to how militias relate economically to their in—group. In a symbiotic relationship, militias will attempt to foster economic activities for civil society and then subsequently take a share of the revenue. This is close to what is often termed a 'patron—client' relationship. In contrast, a parasitic relationship involves the direct extraction of wealth from civil society without anything offered in return by the militia. This is similar to what could be called a 'protection racket' or extortion. Obviously, some groups do not easily fit into just one of these categories. For example, the leaders of Republika Srpska were primarily symbiotic toward their in—group, but they also extracted personal wealth through extortion and corruption.

(iii) Objectives. The relative importance of various goals for a particular group is perhaps the most crucial dimension of their relations to civilians. If a militia is seeking legitimacy and/or greater inclusion in the existing political system, then its tactics would be much different than if it is seeking secession (when it may be less likely to respect human rights). For example, some rebel groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have collaborated with international humanitarian organizations to enhance the welfare of populations under their territorial control; this had the dual purpose of enhancing their standing with those populations and with the international diplomatic community. Both purposes served to further their political objective of sustained political rule in eastern DRC. ₄ On the other hand, Bosnian Serb militias used ethnic cleansing as a tactic to clear territory of even minimal minority opposition, as part of a wider strategy of consolidating Serb rule in Bosnia. In Sierra Leone, rebels in the north brutally attacked civilians as part of a wider tactic of disruption of political and economic life, which was designed to enhance their control over a parallel political economy largely based on resource extraction. In each example, behavior towards civilians, even in the case of brutality, can be understood (though not accepted) as part of a strategy for achieving certain political, economic, or security objectives.

It is important that behavior be understood in this way. Too frequently attacks on civilians or other atrocities are portrayed simply as acts of insanity, barbarity, or hatred, without understanding their strategic purpose. Understanding the objectives of belligerents is central to the prospects for successful negotiations. Also important is to realize that objectives often change throughout the course of a conflict, greatly influencing the behavior of militias. Thus, with respect to negotiating with belligerents and militia groups, timing emerges as a crucial factor.

Economic objectives are also an important and understudied element of this equation, as is the varying interest of belligerents in political and diplomatic recognition. The two sets of interests suggest different strategies for engagement on issues of protection and conflict resolution, as well as the importance of strategic flexibility in order to adapt to changing economic and political interests of militias. Economic objectives may rise through the course of a war as militias and others find alternative economic space created by the war. This poses significant challenges, because ending of wars will entail for belligerents a loss of economic opportunity; however the evolution of the interests and behavior of belligerents also provides important negotiating opportunities, if it is well understood.

Understanding the different elements of belligerents' interests and behavior helps generate a more pragmatic approach to dealing with them. From the perspective of a belligerent, humanitarian considerations are necessarily secondary or tertiary: in the heat of battle, there is little time to reflect upon the Geneva Conventions. This is in part because choices are brutally simple — life or death. Recognizing the horror of such a dilemma helps to humanize belligerents, and increases our ability to understand them. For instance, in a context where grown men are fighting child soldiers, the choice may be either to fight back or to sacrifice one's own life in order not to draw arms against children. Some belligerents will make such sacrifices. All too frequently, of course, the willingness of belligerents to make use of child soldiers is emblematic of a wider willingness to trade civilian life for political and economic gain. In Angola and Mozambique, for example, UNITA and RENAMO respectively used child soldiers as a deliberate strategy of war; government forces also used child soldiers albeit to a lesser extent. These children were often forced to raid their own villages and were therefore effectively alienated from their own society. Aside from those children who were direct participants, most other children were either victims of war or were forced to carry supplies or do other forms of labor for the armies. Furthermore, belligerents target civilians for labor, manipulate the efforts of humanitarian organizations to achieve power or secure their own survival, and make little distinction in general between civilians and combatants.

In either case, a focus on belligerents highlights the horror, the trauma, and the essential struggle for death and survival that is the reality of war — too often diminished by the abstract words used by policy—makers and academics. Moreover, understanding belligerents in their relation to civilian populations, and in particular to their objectives, helps to highlight that there are a number of persistent patterns in war, recurrent dynamics that either protect or expose civilians to death and displacement. These patterns are critical, for they serve as an important entry point for international efforts in local contexts.

Understanding the behavior of belligerents is only the first step, however. It is also critical to sufficiently appreciate the needs and motivations of civilians as well, even the most victimized. Take, for instance, the use of general amnesties as a tool for conflict resolution, a usage opposed by many of those who seek more principled international engagements in civil conflicts. On the one hand, the provision of general amnesty to war—perpetrators has been used as a tool for conflict resolution in such settings as Guatemala and Sierra Leone. On the other hand, laws and norms relating to human rights have gained currency and strength, and the international community is increasingly seeking to hold individuals accountable for human rights abuses. The tension between these positions was dramatically evident over Sierra Leone, when the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights publicly declared her opposition to the amnesty negotiated by the Lome peace accord, signed in 1999. In similar fashion, efforts to ensure that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is conducted according to universal judicial standards has required the adoption of operating procedures and rules of punishment that appear to have weakened its potential contribution to reconciliation in Rwanda and eroded support from the Rwandan government.

While the pros and cons of amnesties are many and debatable, an oft—overlooked perspective is that of the war—weary civilian, who may prefer an 'unjust' end to war to a continuation of hostilities with the possibility of future justice. The disjuncture between what is sought by civilians in war and what the international community may seek to provide is potentially significant. This is but one illustration of the tension between the imperatives of a particular conflict and the aspiration to universal standards, where what is needed to provide protection for civilians on the ground may contradict emerging universal norms. But even this example is not straightforward in its trade—offs, not a simple matter of 'peace versus justice;' for as the next section shows, there is evidence from some cases that human rights strategies can be effective in protecting civilians, not least by providing early warning of impending conflicts. This question of strategies — when they are helpful, how different strategies interact with one another — is the issue to which we now turn.

Strategies for Protection: Evidence from Cases ₅

One step removed from the analysis of belligerents are issues relating to the practical experience of international actors in working with civilians in war. The issues are framed by a number of major challenges, prominently including: complications arising from the interactions between the protection strategies of different international organizations; and limited use by those organizations of local resources, both human and cultural, for reasons of both inherent difficulty and inadequate effort on the part of international actors.

The question of interactions — and frequently tensions — between the different strategies used by organizations is well illustrated by the case of Colombia. In Colombia, four main types of international human rights and humanitarian actors play roles related to protecting civilians: Peace Brigades and similar organizations; human rights groups; Médicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and similar organizations; and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Each type of organization has its own mandate and mode of operation which frames its interaction with the belligerents (the Colombian government, right—wing militias, and left—wing guerrilla groups). Tensions arise because human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch, use exposure in order to deter human rights abuses (on the assumption that belligerents are at least somewhat responsive to international public opinion). Organizations such as MSF use their provision of medical services in order to gain access, but do not hesitate to publicly denounce human rights violations by combatants. The risk of using denunciation as a tactic is that other international actors — namely, humanitarian groups such as the ICRC — may lose access to vulnerable populations because they are conflated with human rights groups who may be seen as partial. The humanitarian organizations typically refrain from publicly denouncing the conditions faced by those in detention. This approach has created a relationship of trust for the ICRC, for example, with all of the combatants and has maintained international humanitarian access in the country. On the other hand, in Colombia human rights reporting has provided crucial information to the broader international community which serves as an indicator of the emergence and escalation of conflict. There are thus a number of tensions between protection strategies in Colombia, most notably a tension between sustained access to civilians during conflict and the advocacy and negotiations required to generate sufficient political action to end human rights abuses and conflict.

Although adaptation to varying local contexts is responsible for some variation among international strategies, there remains a much deeper and more problematic incoherence in the international system's collective capacity to develop effective protection strategies. In many cases, there is evidence of substantial contradictions between the strategies pursued by different organizations. The risk of seeking greater coherence among international efforts, of course, is a lowering of the common denominator: many have argued, for example, that the effort to develop a common international front for international agencies in Afghanistan forced a compromise of values rather than effecting an appropriate trade—off among humanitarian actors, or between them and their political and development counterparts.

Of course, it is not likely to be the case that any one given strategy is going to be effective in all cases. Rather, different strategies will have varying impacts, depending substantially on the nature of the case and the interests and objectives of the belligerents. However, the evidence suggests that the international community as a whole has done a poor job of identifying the comparative advantages of different organizations, relating those advantages to particular strategies, and identifying mechanisms for ensuring that appropriate organizations, with effective strategies, are deployed to achieve certain tasks at key junctures.

The question of the comparative advantage of different strategies is perhaps best illustrated by reference to the question of neutrality as a strategy. In the discussion above about Colombia, it was clear that neutrality served as an important operational tool for protection, because of the specific context. But in other situations the limits of neutrality may be evident. Failure to adequately incorporate an understanding of the interests and behavior of belligerents into a program of 'neutral' humanitarian assistance and protection strategies can lead to circumstances where one form of protection (i.e. food assistance) undermines another (e.g. when food is diverted by belligerents into military purposes). The case of Sudan is seen as an acute instance of this problem. In other contexts, where belligerents see an important strategic and political gain from launching direct attacks on civilians — one thinks of Burundi, Rwanda, northern Sierra Leone, and East Timor — neutrality loses its vigor as a source of protection. The UN's recent mea culpas on Srebrenica and Rwanda highlight the inadequacy of neutrality as a protection strategy in these cases.

In cases where neutrality runs up against its political limits, humanitarian organizations like the ICRC are often the first to recognize that neutral humanitarian assistance alone will prove inadequate; the onus shifts to those responsible for collective security. Yet in the process of calling on the Security Council or regional organizations, humanitarian organizations themselves, as well as journalists and others, frequently mount their calls in terms and words that muddy the waters for those actors who would seek — for the sake of future action — to retain their neutrality. Again, there is no shortage of different actors with distinct comparative advantages in mobilizing international opinion, negotiating with the Security Council, working with regional actors — but there is little evidence of anything other than ad hoc systems through which these organizations are employed or deployed to perform these various tasks. Put simply, how can we protect the neutrality of traditional humanitarian organizations like the ICRC, while recognizing the limits of neutrality and the need for political and military action to protect civilians in certain kinds of war?

The case of Colombia also illustrates a second theme that arises in terms of strategy: use of local resources. The situation in Colombia is characterized by a seeming paradox where humanitarian and human rights organizations make very limited use of what is in fact a very sophisticated domestic legal apparatus. More effective use of this system could in theory provide better protection from human rights abuses, in particular. However, in this case, the limited use of these resources by international actors is largely a function of security concerns: the fact that judges and international actors are often taken hostage or assassinated severely constrains the option of using the local court system as method of protection.

In Somalia, a very different case, the effectiveness of international protection strategies has waxed and waned. Somalia was at war from 1989—1992 until the international community intervened militarily; it is estimated that this intervention may have saved the lives of over one million Somalis. Yet, when the third UN peacekeeping force left Somalia in 1995, war broke out again between the two most powerful clans in the country and regional efforts to mediate the conflict have since been unsuccessful. Since that time, regional efforts have focused on dialogue with warlords, in the perceived absence of viable civic alternatives. The central state of Somalia has collapsed, although in some local cases elders and district councils have successfully maintained a modicum of stability. The only agency currently operating nation—wide in the country is the Somali Red Crescent Society, which recently conducted over 1,000 surveys among the population as part of the ICRC's People On War campaign. ₆ Their surveys revealed a wide—spread sense that Somalia has been abandoned by international humanitarian organizations which operate from Nairobi. In contrast, the Somali Red Crescent Society, which is based in the country and operates in all regions of the country, can conduct humanitarian efforts more credibly. Importantly, the Somali Red Crescent Society draws on traditional Somali codes of conduct during war, which are consonant with the Geneva Conventions but are both more familiar and more authentic in the Somali context. This traditional code is little known and less used by international actors.

The limited use of local culture and rite is often based on a lack of understanding of the way in which war is conceived by local actors. In such conflicts as occurred in Angola and Mozambique, according to the local perspective, war is a 'total crisis' which effectively disrupts all previous social norms for behavior. The space of war is conceptualized as an 'abnormality' where one is rewarded for letting children kill adults, and vice versa. It is only after war stops and people must once again cope with everyday needs that people 'normalize' their situation. At this point, rituals, including those related to burial rites, become extremely important for two reasons: pardon and cleansing. The use of such rituals has been shown to be an important part of post—conflict reconciliation processes, to name only one use.

International humanitarian and human rights agencies, however, rarely adopt reconciliation and rehabilitation approaches that make effective use of local rites. The Somalia example is not unique in what it suggests about the very serious limits on international actors' knowledge about local custom, law, norms and culture. These are important, but underutilized, resources for enhancing the protection of civilians. This is true both in terms of understanding existing cultural norms that influence the behavior of belligerents, and of the cultural requirements for successful protection strategies. Lack of attention to local culture, rites, and the role of ritual, means that scarce resources are typically wasted on culturally inappropriate initiatives. This point echoes the issue raised in the section above, namely the importance of understanding the perspective of those civilians whose protection is the raison d'Etre of engagement.

These problems —the limited use of local resources and the tension between strategies of different organizations — arise because the approaches employed are as much a function of the bureaucratic and political realities for each international organization as they are a response to the specific context for protection efforts. This dimension of protection strategies must be fully appreciated. Just as it is necessary to be pragmatic in our understanding of belligerents, so it is crucial to be realistic — though not uncritical — in our understanding of the people and organizations that are involved in humanitarian and political responses.

Organizations and the International System: Constraints and Challenges ₇

The capacities of international organizations (and their regional and non—governmental counterparts) are primarily determined by organizational mandates, history, assumptions, personnel, and other such factors. These elements impose limits on individual organizations, and also on the inter—connected system of organizations that constitute the front—line of protection. Moreover, international organizations are part of a wider international system that has its own premises, logic, modalities and constraints. The nature of organizations and the systems in which they are located is an important dimension of the overall equation of connecting universal protection norms to effective local actions.

Tackling first the question of the constraints of international organizations, much is revealed by an exploration of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the archetypical neutral humanitarian agency, and guarantor of the Geneva Conventions — one of the first major efforts to codify the protection of civilians. ₈ This organization is based on the tenets of humanitarian protection which were initially developed at the first of the Geneva Conventions in 1864, and which in turn were based on a set of four key assumptions: a) that non—combatants have no strategic value, and should thus be spared the effects of hostilities, and that militaries should follow utilitarian considerations; b) that parties to a conflict should provide access to humanitarian actors; c) that humanitarian assistance should be neutral; and d) that an international treaty would serve as an important guarantor of protection mechanisms.

In the evolving international context in which current protection efforts are based, there are reasons to doubt that these assumptions are still valid. Four key distinctions can be made between the validity of the norms in theory and their implementation in practice. First, civilians are targeted during war so they must have military value (e.g. Spanish Civil War and Burundi). Second, the distinction between civilians and combatants is very blurry (e.g. Sudan and Eastern Zaire). Third, neutrality is very problematic because any assistance provided to warring parties or civilians has both a real and perceived effect upon their capability to maintain the war effort. Fourth, there is some question as to whether a state—centric approach is the most efficient or practical way to provide for humanitarian protection.

However, ICRC is an organization with a strong history and its own self—interest, and may not want to change its mode of operations or its place within the international regime. Moreover, ICRC is widely noted for its professionalism, a characteristic that emerges out of strict attention to a set of core principles and consistent application of policy parameters that guide the organization as a whole, as well as individual delegates. How can a professional organization like the ICRC attune itself to the local situation for each conflict while at the same time maintaining the professionalism that consistency imparts?

This challenge — of being open to learning and adapting to local circumstance, while maintaining a consistent, professional capacity grounded in core principles — is replicated across the range of international, regional and non—governmental organizations. Moreover, in an era of changing international and legal parameters (to which the paper will shortly turn), many organizations are internally divided on protection questions. The United Nations itself is often seen as conflicted when it comes to humanitarian intervention. First, there is some question regarding its institutional 'disinterest' and impartiality (i.e. if it is disinterested, then why intervene?). Second, there is at times an unrealistic belief in the prospect of sanctions that are both 'painless' for civilians and effective as an enforcement measure. Third, there are tensions between the accountability functions (e.g. International Criminal Court) and the stability which may be required for a peacekeeping operation. Fourth, there is still division on the question of regional organizations and co—operation with them. Fifth, the United Nations lacks its own capacity for intervention and member states are reluctant to empower the organization for this purpose; this creates the perception and the reality of inconsistency. Additional problems stem from the institutional inability of the United Nations to take a long—term approach to conflict prevention. Finally, it is not always clear how to reconcile the potentially competing mandates of creating peace and enforcing humanitarian norms.

It is one thing to understand the constraints facing one organization or government; it is a second question altogether to understand the constraints on getting effective protection from a system of intersecting organizations. Therefore, quite apart from these internal issues of mandate, organizational learning, and incentive systems that drive and constrain individual organizations, there are also external constraints that arise from the simple fact that all protection organizations exist and operate in a wider international political system. At the level of the international system — and the states that drive it — it is clear that there are major constraints both on the effectiveness of protection efforts and the consistency of their application. These constraints can be understood both in terms of ambivalence toward humanitarian intervention, which should be understood as the rule rather than as the exception, and in terms of the system of incentives and disincentives created by the political and financial context in which organizations function. These issues are addressed in reverse order.

The system of incentives and disincentives within which protection organizations function is one of the least understood dimensions of the question. A substantial organizational challenge of getting appropriate interventions from organizations with a comparative advantage in a given situation lies in the nature of the incentives offered — in terms of funding, professional advancement, prestige and organizational clout. Protection organizations (and the people that staff them) see an imperative of presence in every major conflict and crisis setting, irrespective of whether the strategies and comparative advantages their organization can bring to bear are in fact relevant to the needs of protection in the given case. (Of course, incentives and disincentives are only one part of what makes an organization act. The people who staff those organizations have their own decision—making capacity, and their role is an important but oft—overlooked dimension of the protection equation. The capacity of these individuals to influence selection criteria for intervention and the development of strategy is substantial, usually ignored, and almost wholly unaccountable.)

Secondly, the international political system constrains protection organizations due to a persistent ambivalence towards humanitarian intervention. ₉ There are a number of sources of this ambivalence, among them:

• ambiguity regarding the nature of a particular conflict
• a sense that the enforcement of humanitarian norms is an 'international' responsibility and thus not the burden of any particular state
• frequent competing interests and responsibilities between the United Nations Secretariat and agencies, and its member states
• and the fact that enforcement mechanisms have real consequences and are therefore usually the result of the strategic calculation of self—interest among member states.
• Even where there is not a priori ambivalence, there is need for pragmatism with respect to humanitarian intervention because:
• belligerents are 'thugs' who create a strong disincentive for international action
• the risk of escalation is often ignored by the UN Security Council
• there are large disparities among the responses of member states and these should be understood within the context of their respective domestic political arenas
• and each conflict is different and should be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

In order to overcome both ambivalence and pragmatic constraints, the United States is often thought of as indispensable, both in terms of the authorization of humanitarian intervention and the provision of the means for implementation. There are practical military considerations — air power, sea power, logistical support, and intelligence — which dictate that U.S. support is almost always necessary for an effective large—scale enforcement action. Given its high profile and massive capabilities, the United States is often criticized for its inconsistency in the enforcement of humanitarian norms. In some ways, however, the U.S. is not that much different from other states: its international policies are often derivative of domestic political concerns and realities (in recent cases, exerting pressure against international involvement). On the other hand, in some cases, the position of the United States is clearly at odds with the rest of the world (e.g. the 'exceptionalism' asserted by the Pentagon with respect to the International Criminal Court).

Moreover, a U.S.—backed humanitarian intervention will generally only succeed with the support of other UN member states. Unfortunately, the P—5 states in the Security Council suffer from 'selective attention' to international developments and 'modest capabilities' which limit their scope for intervention. Similarly, the 'middle powers' (e.g. Germany, Japan) lack capacity for enforcement measures which often renders their rhetoric on the need for a more robust international response to crisis situations unconvincing. As for the developing countries, there is a reluctance to devolve sovereignty, a bias toward non—interference, and a concern for equity which all act contrary to pressures for the international enforcement of humanitarian norms.

Thus, understanding the organizational dimension of protection means understanding both the way in which individual organizations do or do not learn and adjust their strategies in the face of specific challenges in local contexts, and the complex and evolving way in which those organizations interact with a wider international political system, that both shapes and to a lesser extent is shaped by their activities. If this were not sufficiently complex, there is the added complication that this international system of protection organizations is ultimately grounded in a series of universal norms and principles, which are themselves in flux. It is to this question of transforming international normative frameworks that the paper now turns.

Universal Norms: A Progress Report? ₁₀

In both their inventiveness and their dysfunction, international organizations are the primary conduit through which universal norms are developed, refined, and implemented. Indeed, the flux, competition, innovation and systemic dysfunction that appears to characterize modern international organizations can be seen as primarily a function of the current process of molting which is taking place in the realm of universal norms themselves. Discussion of norms per se highlighted the state of transformation for the predominant universal norms dealing with various elements of protection.

The recent examples of Kosovo and East Timor demonstrate the apparent salience of humanitarian intervention as an emerging norm of international relations, which is even more striking with the historical perspective that systemic efforts toward civilian protection are actually quite new. Civilian protection is largely treated in the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Additional Protocols of 1977; both are limited in scope. For example, the Geneva Convention really only deals with civilians in the context of: a) militarily occupied territories and b) detention by an adversarial military force. Nonetheless, an analytic paradigm persists which places emphasis on breaches of civilian protection and actually overstates the case regarding the gap between principle and practice. Furthermore, commentary that only portrays civilians as fully innocent bystanders in war situations misrepresents the ugly complexities of war and can lead to dubious conclusions and policy recommendations (e.g., that 'safe areas' during the Bosnian war could and should be thoroughly demilitarized). International law is the product less of ideals than of 'hard negotiation' among states which unavoidably reflects their self—interests.

Is there a right to humanitarian intervention? According to the classic definition, humanitarian intervention is: a) a military operation, b) without the consent of warring parties, and c) for the purpose of preventing civilian deaths. Typically, the principle of non—intervention in the affairs of sovereign nation—states has been conceptualized as being in direct opposition to the practice of humanitarian intervention as defined above. However, one could re—interpret humanitarian intervention as not necessarily undermining the overall integrity of the non—intervention principle. For example, there have been a number of international interventions, such as the recent operation in East Timor, where there was an 'element of consent' even though formal authorization was lacking for the operation — thus indicating a potential middle ground between the poles of humanitarian intervention and strict non—intervention.

Overall, there is little hope of obtaining a clear legal doctrine for humanitarian intervention. First, the position of China and many of the Non—Aligned Movement countries on this issue (stemming at least in part from the history of colonialism) makes this highly unlikely. Second, the issue of consent is actually very complex in practice (e.g. East Timor intervention). Third, more consideration needs to be given regarding the means for humanitarian intervention (e.g. NATO bombing of civilians in Kosovo and Serbia). Fourth, there is a need to recognize that external actors have limited interests and are often reluctant to commit adequate resources. Finally, rather than searching for new legal instruments to further regulate humanitarian intervention, perhaps the international community should concentrate efforts on determining what could be learned from recent state practice.

This constitutes one approach to the problem. Another involves historicising the problem, or more accurately, problematising the history. In order to understand the laws of war and their application toward civilian protection, these laws should be put into their proper historical context. The framers of the Hague Conventions of 1899 were faced with two crucial juridical puzzles: a) can one make a conceptual distinction between 'just war' and 'justice in war' and b) how can one distinguish between combatants and non—combatants? In the former case, a 'middle ground ideology' emerged which argued that such a determination is possible. According to this line of thought, one can separate issues regarding how a war is fought from a discussion of why a war is fought. In the latter case, combatants were defined as 'those who fight' and non—combatants were termed 'those who are passive'. In a sense, the perceived need for guidelines which set standards of 'neutrality' for the conduct of war effectively created laws of war that are not 'neutral' themselves. The Hague Conventions were drafted to 'professionalize war' and thus pertain to the conduct of standing armies toward each other. However, practice has shown that war is often between soldiers and civilians (and thus outside the scope of the rules developed at the Hague Conference). To a certain extent, the contemporary inadequacy of international humanitarian law for the protection of civilians in conflict can be traced to earlier failures to resolve the contradictions inherent in legal conceptions of 'neutrality' and 'combatant.' Thus, it may be necessary to think more deeply about our own assumptions regarding these terms and how they relate to protection issues in practice.

A third approach favors exploring new efforts to develop the international law of individual accountability. Ironically, there is some sense that massive human rights violations should be handled at the domestic level, while individual crimes have been dealt with more comfortably at the international level. For example, some Chileans, even those who have opposed Pinochet, view their own past as intrinsically linked with the present and therefore may see a trial abroad of former President Pinochet as a challenge to the nation as a whole. Nonetheless, the case clearly has legal merit as established by the UK courts, the objections raised by Chileans and their government regarding the issue of sovereignty notwithstanding.

Some recent developments under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), paved the way for agreement on the Statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC) via treaty in Rome in July 1998. Despite the fact that a number of supra—state or inter—state forms of jurisdiction already exist in international law (e.g. Security Council law, laws on crimes against humanity) the ICC has provoked a number of objections, in part because it is difficult to explain to those who are not international law specialists. Though international lawyers point out that since states consented to the creation of the statutes of the ICC — indeed were instrumental in its creation ? the ICC cannot be seen as impinging on national perogatives, nevertheless the ICC is perceived by many as posing a direct challenge to state sovereignty. Accordingly, some proponents argue for a cautious approach to setting up the ICC so that it will not be marginalized by powerful states (e.g. United States). Other advocates argue that the moment is right to push forward with the establishment of the court — regardless of the objections of certain key state powers.

Despite an apparent 'progress narrative,' there remains a powerful clash between the 'interstate order' model of law and diplomacy and what could be called the 'criminal law' model derived from domestic legal systems. Whether the two can be productively reconciled is not yet clear. There are likely to be political pressures for international courts to work 'preventatively' — particularly since political and financial costs for a possible alternative (i.e. humanitarian intervention) would be much higher. Yet, there are serious potential disadvantages to this approach: a) the capacity of international courts is limited, b) prosecuting individuals for violations personalizes conflict, and c) a backlash may be created which would lead us back to the emphasis of 1899 on protecting standing armies.

While there is little hope for reaching consensus in the near—term regarding such possible solutions, it is also evident that the claims of states to benefit from non—intervention have diminished. Three issues are particularly worth exploring: a) the question of the 'process solution' proposed as a way forward through the current state of doctrinal debate; b) the question of competition among evolving norms; and c) the question of how it might be possible to structure interaction within these normative frameworks. Such issues relate closely to the more operational questions of comparative advantages among international and humanitarian organizations. Can the international community find mechanisms or processes whereby the preventive value of accountability laws and norms are maximized while their potential to undermine processes of reconciliation are also minimized?

One suggestion, proposed by international law expert Lori Damrosch, has been to develop a so—called 'process solution,' whereby multilateral bodies would be charged to determine the nature and existence of a humanitarian crisis but not be asked to expressly authorize a particular response. In theory, such findings would function as a diagnosis of a critical situation, after which states would be permitted legally to develop an appropriate response to protect the lives of civilians at risk. Variations on this solution might enable the General Assembly (instead of the Security Council) to make the initial determination which would then be relayed to the Security Council. The burden of proof would thus be placed on the Security Council by confronting it with findings of fact rather than more contentious issues regarding possible solutions. The advantage of such a system is that a determination of applicability of intervention criteria would be made democratically (and thus presumably more consistently) than is likely if the question were left to a closed body like the Security Council.

Unfortunately, this proposal is also problematic: the GA does not sit permanently, has no independent access to information, and operates through heavy—handed and slow bureaucratic machineries. Moreover, a high number of members of the GA do not endorse humanitarian intervention, because of a concern for the erosion of sovereignty. Of course, this concern is fueled by the suspicion that intervention will operate at the whim of the great powers, rather than on the basis of consistent criteria. Presumably, if the GA were able to control the application of the criteria this concern would diminish. This point notwithstanding, there are a number of other significant obstacles to overcome for such a solution to be effective.

Interestingly, elements of the 'process solution' are already to be found in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — the first piece of international legislation to codify the need for military response in the face of gross human rights violations. The Genocide Convention, as it is popularly known, creates a legal opportunity — though not an obligation — for member states to call on the UN to 'take such measures under the Charter' as may be necessary to prevent or punish genocide or acts of genocide. The Genocide Convention has been notable not only for the absence of actions taken under its rubric, but even more so for the recurrent reluctance of states to reference the Genocide Convention to justify even bona fide humanitarian actions. Does this mean that a 'process solution' could not work?

Not necessarily. There are two substantive differences between the Genocide Convention and the process solution that was proposed and discussed at the conference. First, while the black—letter law of the Genocide Convention does not compel international intervention when genocide occurs, there is a widespread perception that such an obligation does exist. This goes a long way to explaining states' reluctance to make use of the Convention: namely, fear of creating precedents. Second, and perhaps more important, is the fact that there is nothing in the Genocide Convention to structure the process by which a determination is made that a genocide is in fact occurring. Nothing in the text identifies responsibility for this determination, or suggests means by which such a determination occurs. As a result, an enormously wide range of actors, some credible and competent, others distinctly unprofessional, can raise the flag of genocide and seek action. This generates a 'cry wolf' phenomenon which reinforces the unwillingness of states to make use of the Convention.

Nevertheless, the idea of a 'process solution' raises intriguing prospects worthy of further consideration. Research, policy development, and practice are creating new arrangements, pushing the boundaries of existing certainties, and opening up further space for humanitarian engagement because norms, and their implementing organizations, are in a state of flux. This creates complexity, but also possibility. Between complexity and possibility, and somewhere between the reach of the International Criminal Court, the ICRC and the Security Council, lies a combination of effective strategies that can be put together in varying ways to meet the protection needs of civilian populations in a wide range of local conflicts. But, exactly, where?

Developing a Framework for Integrated and Effective Response

How do the different levels explored here — local contexts, strategies, organizations, the international system, and principles — connect, both analytically and in real terms? How do we link universal standards with local challenges and success stories? How can concerned actors ensure that there is consistent, effective protection of civilians while contending with the political constraints and parochial interests of the governments and international organizations ostensibly responsible for insuring it? What causes one set of norms to be applied in a given case, and another in a second? Are there international mechanisms that manage or coordinate such processes, making best use of the comparative advantage of different bodies of law and the institutions that employ them? Or is protection primarily a function of diffuse organizational and national politics, of shifting interests and competing norms? That symposium participants discerned more evidence of diffusion than coordination raises serious questions about the prospect of consistent, effective implementation of strategies for protection in the wide range of specific contexts in which civilians are exposed to violence.

The diagram below may be helpful in order to highlight the relationships among the four levels of crisis and response discussed above. It can also serve to emphasize that there are at least two ways of building connections from local contexts to international norms: through an imagined system of effective strategic coordination; or through the reality of contentious and complex systems and politics.

The first, perhaps the critical, step is to emphasize our starting point: that there are patterns in the local success stories. Case material in this and related workshops provides ample evidence of the variation of conflict settings, attributes and actors. Less attention is typically paid to patterns within that variation, but this symposium made a significant contribution in this regard. These patterns can be mapped, explored, understood, and to a limited extent, even predicted. Of particular salience in terms of the protection of civilians are the patterns that emerge in the relationship between belligerents and civilian populations — relations of protection, service delivery, extraction, and abuse. Understanding how these relations vary, principally as a function of the type of war and the objectives of belligerents, provides a critical foundation for strengthening the architecture of international protection efforts.

Improved understanding of these issues can also inform better strategy. To provide effective protection (e.g. through humanitarian assistance) strategies must be built on an understanding of how the belligerents and civilian populations relate in a given context. In a situation where militias are important providers of social services and protection to a given population under their control, humanitarian assistance will likely be most effective if it seeks to maximize, rather than displace, that service delivery function. When militias are using civilian populations primarily as a source of extraction, introducing new material goods — i.e. food assistance, tools, shelter materials, and other such items — may simply expose civilians to further levels of harassment, attack, and abuse, as militias seek to extract even greater levels of resources from those civilians. At the extreme, when militias either deliberately put civilians between themselves and other belligerents, or directly attack civilians to displace them or generate an environment of fear and uncertainty, in which their rule can flourish, traditional humanitarian assistance is unlikely to do much at all in the way of assistance. Protection of civilians in such circumstances will require either concerted political and economic interventions designed to alter the political economy of warfare from which such militias profit, or direct military intervention to deter abuses. Of course, a greater level of specificity would be required to translate these loose concepts into actual correlations between situations and strategies. For the purposes of this report, however, the key is that the range of strategies required does not need to span the full breadth of specific local contexts; it need only match the patterns of variation. In a world in which there were, for example, twenty instances of civil war in which a given organization was trying to protect civilians, the patterns discussed above would likely function in such a way that only a few different types of strategies are needed, not twenty unique ones. Of course, these will be tailored to local contexts; but they will be cut from a more manageable number of patterns.

This is important, because for the organizations involved in providing protection, the complexity of that organizational world is such that matching the wide—ranging, complex, and fractured world of international organizations to each specific context, makes for an unwieldy, perhaps impossible task, at the international policy level. Making effective connections between organizations and specific contexts is aided by a degree of conceptual grouping on both sides of the equation — in dealing with the patterns of variation in local contexts, but also in understanding the nature and types of organizations engaged in protection efforts, and the systems in place for activating or deploying them to intervene in a given context. With reasonably effective systems for matching the capacities and comparative advantages of organizations to particular types of situations, it might be possible to construct the basic framework of a system for provision of adequate, consistent protection. Strong systems of what is referred to as strategic coordination would be required to manage a system of matching the comparative advantages of institutions (and the norms they embody) to cases which fit certain patterns.

Of course, there is little evidence of any such systems being in place. There is ample evidence from recent cases — in Bosnia and Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Liberia, East Timor and elsewhere — of the weakness of existing systems for strategic coordination. Each of these cases is characterized by multiple, overlapping actors with similar mandates, weak histories of collaboration, competitive fundraising tools, and separate reporting lines. The situation is particularly difficult in Europe, which is increasingly characterized by a multiplicity of regional organizations able to take on political, economic, and humanitarian functions — including, but not limited to, NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE. Each of these organizations functions in uneasy relation to the others and to the UN.

The period following NATO's conflict with Serbia is particularly notable for what it revealed about the competition and potential for collaboration between all of these organizations. An extraordinary collection of international and regional organizations seeking to play key protection roles is present in post—conflict Kosovo. These include: 1) NATO seeking to provide physical protection to civilians, based on Security Council law; 2) the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia seeking to collect evidence and prosecute war—crimes, based on war—crimes legislation; 3) UNHCR seeking to provide assistance and legal protection to refugees and internal displaced persons, based on refugee law; 4) the ICRC seeking to provide assistance and legal protection, based on the Geneva Conventions; 5) the OSCE seeking to provide human rights protection to civilians, based on a UN—assigned role in 'governance and institution—building', and with particular attention to European human rights conventions; 6) the UN seeking to provide legal protection through its responsibility for justice issues in Kosovo; and 7) the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights seeking to establish a human rights reporting mechanism, based on international human rights law and standards. Yet the challenge of providing effective protection to civilians in Kosovo remains a daunting one. The disjuncture between the array of protection assets deployed in Kosovo and the limits on protection efforts, is extraordinary and revealing.

Is civilian protection simply so hard that even with an enormous number of protection assets, assembled by the richest possible collection of regional and international organizations, efforts are bound to fail? Or is the case that the current complexity and structures of the international systems for protection actually diminish our response capacity? Surely, it is some measure of both things.

Effective protection of civilians outside the framework of a functioning and responsible state is extraordinarily difficult. But this argues all the more sharply to ensure that international protection efforts are as focussed, disciplined, and well—managed as possible. This means, in ideal terms, the creation of systems of incentives that will allow organizations to respond only when they have a comparative advantage to offer, and to do so consistently. It means having methods or systems that regulate or coordinate the conflicting strategies of relevant organizations, and help those organizations find ways more effectively to combine their efforts.

The reality, far too often, is that multiple and in some sense competing norms, and a diffuse international political system, are driving complex, competing and frequently ineffective organizations to develop responses based principally on their mandates and expertise, rather than on the basis of comparative advantage, serious analysis of the specificity of a given situation, or appropriate response strategies. The result is a far less efficient and effective system for protecting civilians in war than we are capable of imagining or implementing.

In a recent work on peacemaking, I. William Zartman has argued:

'On the edge of the millennium, the methods of conflict have been more brutal and the methods of conflict resolution more sophisticated than ever before, leaving a tremendous gap between reality and theory that remains to be filled.' ₁₁

Surely part of this gap arises from the complexity, diffusion, and normative flux that currently characterizes the international systems for protection. These features inhibit making the kinds of effective connections between norms, organizations, strategies, and local contexts which must be made in order to achieve effective, consistent protection for civilians in war.

Next Steps: Additional Issues and Future Work

If there is to be progress in implementing existing norms and laws for the protection of civilians, the challenge of making effective connections across the four different levels discussed herein emerges as a central one. Taking the agenda forward requires new work in three domains: research; organizational development; and politics.

Research Agendas

There are a number of specific areas of research that would aid the implementation effort. A first field of inquiry addresses the question of the relations between combatants and civilians. These include:

• collecting further data (or present existing data in more accessible forms) on the motivation, interests, and incentives of combatants to attack/protect civilians in war — plus mapping the evolution of those interests over the course of protracted conflicts;
• extending existing analyses to different kinds of contexts, in particular relating to militias that have significant economic agendas for pursuing war strategies (e.g. UNITA, RUF and Taleban);
• mapping the 'sub—local' variation in protection — i.e. the manner in which, in one given war context, the degree and manner of attacks on civilians, or protection thereof, varies from village to village, county to county;
• collecting further data (or present existing data in more accessible forms) on traditional modes of social reconciliation and codes for conduct in war.

A second field of inquiry relates to the manner in which the international community gains the consent of local actors to engage on protection issues, short of full—scale military intervention. In this context, the concept of 'pressured consent' is useful. A specific proposal follows:

• research the case of East Timor, and the use in that instance of various tools to pressure the Indonesian government into consenting to the deployment of a UN protection force; trace the debates within New York, Washington, and other capitals about the decision to apply various forms of pressure; trace the evolution of the position in Jakarta, asking the question — which (or which combination) of the pressures applied led to the change in Indonesia's position;
• conduct similar inquiries into a representative set of cases in order to establish some guidelines as to 'what works' in what circumstances with respect to pressured consent;
• map the entry points for pressure with respect to militias whose primary objectives are economic and who may prove to be the least responsive to more traditional sources of legal and political pressure.

In addition, several issues that arose only briefly at the symposium should not go unaddressed. These include:

• The privatization of security. There is a growing phenomenon where states are functionally unable (let alone politically willing) to provide security for their civilian populations. Private security actors are emerging in this void, but largely in the service of corporate and private interests, not public ones.
• The connection between globalization and intractable wars of economic gain. One participant made the point that a diamond contract is infinitely more valuable than a seat on the General Assembly. How can the international community engage corporate and economic actors on a protection agenda? How can we ensure that private actors are also held accountable?
• The role of NGOs, especially regarding North—South links. Local, domestic NGOs are particularly important partners in the protection of civilians. Links between international and local NGOs are increasing, and providing an important channel of resources and a focus of activity. However, there are risks that excessive diversion of resources and political support to NGOs may undermine state formation and democratic processes in weak states.
• Prevention and the linkages between security and development. Protection should be the focus of long—term preventive initiatives, not solely emergency responses to conflict situations. Developing effective long—term policy requires research and dialogue to bridge the existing gaps between development and security literatures and practioners.

In each of these areas, the appropriate methodology is one similar to that employed for the workshop, namely a triangular conversation between case specialists, analytical 'framers,' and policy—makers. This is a methodology for policy—relevant research that is being employed by IPA and their research partners (notably, Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation) in a number of different projects, and is proving useful for generating high—quality research that charts the fine line between excessive generalization and overspecification, while also formulated in a way that leads to the development of clear policy options.

Organizational Development

If the organizations involved in developing protection responses are to make use of good research and knowledge about local contexts, and the patterns to which they conform, there must also be substantial reform and development of the system of international organizations. This would be in two realms: first, in the realm of strategic coordination, i.e. in terms of the systems that exist or do not exist for forging effective linkages between norms, policy, strategy and specific action; and second, in the realm of making determinations about where and when protection actions — including humanitarian interventions — are needed.

Strengthening the strategic coordination capacities of the international system is a major challenge in a context where there is serious and sustained international debate about the role of the UN vis—a—vis regional and subregional organizations, where the UN itself is embattled and frequently unresponsive, and where much of the energy and innovation lies in the non—governmental world which, by nature, is least amenable to strategic coordination. Of course, it remains debatable whether the real problem of strategic coordination lies with inadequae coordination, or with poor strategies. There have certainly been a number of situations where lead entities, including the UN, had employed strategies that were well coordinated but ill—conceived. Nonetheless, it is surely the case that even with an appropriate strategy, implementation would be dependent on some kind of appropriate coordination capacity. Unfortunately, there is evidence that the collective capacity of international and regional political and humanitarian organizations to collaborate towards implementation of an effective strategy for protection in a given case has been deteriorating, not improving — notwithstanding the multiple efforts towards the creation of policies or frameworks for strategic coordination. Indeed, the proliferation of such efforts is more indicative of the fractured and disparate nature of the international protection 'system' than it is of substantive progress. In the UN system, it is only recently that systematic attention to the question of strategic coordination, notably by the Deputy Secretary—General, has begun to bear fruit, and this comes at a time when the demand for increased interaction between the UN and other organizations adds a whole new dimension of complexity.

The question of coordination is most frequently discussed in the humanitarian world. However, recent episodes such as Kosovo reveal that the issues which drive the coordination debate in the humanitarian community — overlapping mandates, resources wasted on duplication, conflicting and competing strategies among ostensibly like—minded institutions — increasingly characterize the political sphere as well. Europe is probably the region where the growth in overlapping, often competing regional and sub—regional organizations has been most notable, but other regions are not far behind. In this realm, one is repeatedly confronted with the reality that one government may have four or five very different positions on the same protection issue, depending on which organization they are speaking through.

Fundamentally, however, the question of strategic coordination depends on a willingness of both bureaucrats and political actors within organizations, and outside them, to place the protection needs of a given population ahead of the specific interests of their own organization. However, this in turn reflects a problem with the nature of existing organizations: the interests of civilian populations and of protection organizations should be more or less synchronized but often they are not. Existing financial and organizational structures are such that strategic coordination is so much at odds with the basic parameters of institutional survival and development that substantive initiatives in this realm must overcome serious obstacles. In determining when a situation exists that calls for a concerted international effort to mount a protection response, especially where strong political or military action is needed to protect the basic human rights of civilians, the difficulty of getting consistent criteria for intervention is acute (as noted above in the section on norms). However, progress in this area will likely depend very substantially on prior progress in a fourth area for further work, namely in the realm of domestic politics.

Politics

Reform of international and regional organizations in a way that will generate more effective strategic coordination and consistency in intervention is highly dependent on the nature of political support for such reforms among member states. But here, dialogue and debate is usually constrained by the 'international community' — i.e. a collection of generally like—minded individuals and bureaucratic departments that represent and manage 'foreign policy' and multi—lateral agendas. Increasingly, however, the nature of domestic politics in a number of key states is such that this grouping of actors is in fact either unable to represent their government's view or to make credible commitments on the part of their own governments. Rather, a much wider set of actors whose inputs has traditionally been confined to domestic politics is increasingly powerful on international issues, and the process of achieving a coherent policy — let alone action — within a given capital requires a far wider set of negotiations and compromises than most multilateral organizations are typically set up to facilitate. Moreover, existing foreign policy bodies and multilateral agencies have traditionally done a rather poor job of lobbying domestic constituencies in order to develop domestic political support for international policies or action in the humanitarian and protection fields.

This suggests, then, that those concerned with the strengthening of the international capacity to implement international norms and laws to protect civilians in and from wars would be well served to shift some of the emphasis of their intellectual and political work from the international to the domestic arena. The job of building political coalitions among and between domestic constituencies is fundamental if we are to witness the emergence of a more consistent, more effective regime for the protection of civilians in and from war. Here, the exciting fact is that we live in what must surely be a unique historical moment, where the world's only major power is not only a democracy but a democracy uniquely open to non—governmental influence. International actors have long decried the fact of an ability among a variety of domestic lobbies in Washington to influence foreign policy debates in ways which adversely impact upon their preferred strategies. Until very recently, and still only in small measure, what had not been done was to join the fight, to take the case for consistent, principled international action to the domestic lobbies, to sell the argument in the domestic arena. But the potential to make a case for the rule of law in international affairs and to develop a constituency for principled international action is far greater than the effort that has been given to date. Until a more concerted effort has been made, both in the United States and across a range of other implicated countries, it is unlikely that there will be a major shift in the underlying international systems that condition the pursuit of implementing protection principles.

Conclusion

And so we end on a paradox — that the search for a more effective and consistent implementation of international norms and laws to protect civilians in war, begins with a more consistent and effective engagement in domestic politics. Just as the real test of effective protection lies at the local level, so the real political will to make this happen derives from the local level. The complex international system that currently manages and sustains interventions needs to do much less to separate these twin realities, and far more to bridge them.

Currently, international protection efforts are too frequently characterized by inconsistency, incoherence and ineffectiveness. Fledgling international protection efforts are fractured at a variety of levels. Developing a framework for consistent and effective protection requires new energy and political will to solve a range of challenges discussed in this essay. Enhanced understanding of local dynamics and actors, improved strategies and systems for coordination, strengthened and reformed protection organizations, and a productive mediation between established and emergent laws and norms — these are the building blocks of a more solid international regime for the protection of civilians in war.

Annex I: Keynote Address

The Honorable Lloyd Axworthy, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Canada

I am delighted to be among you this evening. It is a particular pleasure to be a guest of Vartan Gregorian so soon after his arrival at the Carnegie Corporation. Andrew Carnegie would surely be gratified to know that his work still inspires us to think about what needs to be done to protect people caught in the horrors of war.

I am also pleased to be associated again with the International Peace Academy (IPA) and its Chair, Rita Hauser, herself a force of nature, leveraging her far—reaching influence in support of the rule of law. Never has the IPA's blend of research, professional development and policy advocacy been more appreciated — or needed.

Finally, I would like to thank David Malone for his hand in organizing this event. We counted on his energy and ideas in Ottawa, which have clearly served the IPA well during his tenure.

I cannot think of a subject more important at the dawn of the next millennium than that of civilians in war.

In 1899, the Hague Conference on Peace set an agenda. The impetus for the generation involved in the first Hague Conference was a desire to make the act of war itself more humane, establishing rules to protect combatants at a time when civilians were largely bystanders.

In 1999, the world needs a new agenda — one that puts people at the heart of foreign policy. Today, we face new challenges which could not have been anticipated by those who participated in the Hague Conference. In World War I, 5 percent of casualties were civilians; today that figure is closer to 80 percent. In 1999, civilians are direct targets of war, and live on its battlefield. In 1999, civilians have become tools of warfare, herded about to destabilize governments, pressed into military service, held hostage, exploited sexually and used as human shields.

Modern day warlords have created a new war economy, selling resources to fund their ambitions, terrorizing local residents for economic gain. They are aided and abetted by the discrete complicity of those who benefit from the marketplace of conflict. Arms dealers, with governments often turning a blind eye, are only too happy to oblige.

I realize that this is not news to any of you. The point is that the onus is on our generation — 100 years after the Hague Conference — to respond to these new realities. We need to change the discourse of diplomacy. And we need to change its practice. Fundamentally, we need to make human security at least as important as state privilege.

In February, Canada triggered a debate on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict in the Security Council. Last week, the Secretary—General responded with a blueprint for action.

This morning, when I addressed the UN General Assembly, I urged the members to put people first. The UN Charter does not read 'we the state' or 'we the ambassadors' or 'we the P5' — it reads 'we the people.' To give renewed meaning to the Organization's founding credo of 'saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war,' we need to put 'we the people' first. I am convinced that the UN's future depends on it.

In Canada, we are determined to help establish the new agenda. We intend to make a real difference in the lives of the people actually living through conflict daily. Our approach is two—fold: strengthening norms and creating the instruments to apply them — in essence, setting standards to protect civilians and taking international action to uphold them.

Some have questioned whether additional international legal norms to protect civilians are really needed — Some argue we already have a legal framework that provides the basis for protection, and that what is needed is better implementation.

I agree and disagree! More rigorous implementation of existing norms is essential. However, as the circumstances of war change, the gaps in international standards widen.

This is the case, for example, with respect to the appalling issue of child soldiers. The rules governing recruitment and deployment of children in war are inadequate. It is for that reason that I met earlier this week with a group of Foreign Ministers and NGOs to build momentum for change. The world's children need a strong Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

By itself, a new Protocol won't stop abuse. But it will create a new norm. We will need to give the issue profile, to advance the consensus of world opinion, to create benchmarks against which violators are held, and to orient and legitimize action to enforce it. In short, we need to make sending children to war a war crime we can prosecute.

We also need to create mechanisms that hold violators of international law accountable for their actions. We must break the culture of impunity. The prospect of prosecution and punishment must be a real part of the calculus of those who resort to violence.

That is why we have been such strong supporters of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the Former Yugoslavia — and for the leadership shown by people like Canadian Justice Louise Arbour in making the tribunals work.

By the way, the indictments against President Milosevic and senior Yugoslav military authorities helped hasten the end of Belgrade's aggression in Kosovo. Far from complicating the problem — as some feared — resolute action by the Tribunal helped to solve it.

This underlines the need for swift and determined action in East Timor to ensure accountability. Certainly, we must not destabilize Indonesia. Without doubt we need to take care to support Indonesia's own fragile transition to democracy. But, we do not accept the view that supporting a tribunal undermines that democracy — what kind of future can Indonesians aspire to if it is premised on impunity? And what help can Indonesians expect from a world that is complicit?

Ad hoc arrangements — while necessary — are by definition temporary and limited. The world needs a permanent International Criminal Court. A Canadian is in the chair at negotiations underway to make the Court a reality. He has the full support of his Government.

Finally, making norms meaningful for the people they are intended to protect means making them the impetus for action. The Ottawa Convention on Landmines (AP mines) puts people first by marrying the principles of the Convention to a concrete plan of action for de—mining and rehabilitation.

From the outset, the landmine campaign was driven by the conviction that decisive action was needed to protect human lives swept up in war. Today, over $500 million has been mobilized for this effort — resources which are having a real impact in saving civilian life and limb. The number of mine victims is down; over 14 million mines have been destroyed; the number of mine producing countries is in decline; and exports have practically stopped.

We have succeeded in stigmatizing mines and mine users, and in bringing a people—centered approach to an issue that was once mired in the outmoded discourse of state sovereignty. We can and must do the same with the other issues that plague people living in conflict.

That is why Canada's main objective during our tenure on the Security Council is to make human security — in particular the protection of civilians — the central focus of the Council's work.

The shortcomings of the Council are no secret. Its failure to act more resolutely in preventing the endangerment of civilians — especially when the threats are patently obvious — is one of its principal defects. More preventative engagement by the Council would help.

Its reliance on comprehensive sanctions as a way of doing peace and security on the cheap — with their capacity to inflict harm on the innocent — needs revision. Sanctions need to be used smarter so they hurt where they are supposed to hurt. They also need to be enforced more resolutely. This is the goal of Canada's efforts as chair of the Angola Sanctions committee, to tighten up arms flows and the diamond trade in order to diminish the capacity of rebels to wage war.

I do not wish to exaggerate the Council's shortcomings. We are making progress. The Council is mainstreaming the application of humanitarian law. Council members are being exposed more and more to humanitarian actors and concerns (including for the first time last week to a presentation by the UN High commissioner for Human Rights). Peacekeeping operations now routinely include human rights components. References to human rights and humanitarian law in Council statements are standard practice.

All important advances, all useful in moving the Council, 'a petit pas,' in the right direction. Yet the Council's risk—averse culture remains entrenched and P5 privileges undiminished — particularly the obstructive recourse to the veto. Council actions are too often subject to the vagaries of national interests and exclusive power politics, and too rarely motivated by human concerns. This endangers the Council's credibility while leaving the security of people — for whom it was created — at risk.

Over the past decade, the Council has begun to establish a track record of authorizing enforcement for humanitarian purposes — even if we are troubled that it has been uneven and inconsistent in how it responds. We all know that the humanitarian imperative for action in Sierra Leone and Angola is as great (or greater) than in Kosovo and East Timor, but, regrettably, have no way of enforcing equal treatment.

That is why we believe the international community needs to establish criteria to trigger military intervention for humanitarian purposes. And, if such criteria are to be respected, we will need to find ways to overcome the reluctance of some to take risks on behalf of people in far flung places.

Canada is committed to grappling with these questions in order to make the Council more responsive to the human security threats we face.

But clearly, protecting civilians is not just a job of Canada, the Security Council or the UN. Civil society has an important role in elaborating norms and pushing governments to move beyond norms to results. The IPA and the Carnegie Foundation, with your commitment to expanding the reach of international humanitarian law, are ideally suited to making an intellectual contribution towards shaping criteria to guide humanitarian intervention. I hope you will do so.

I have focused this evening on the protection of civilians in conflict. However, this is only part of the picture. In a changed world, the sources of threats to civilians also come from the darker side of globalization — such as crime, drugs, terrorism, kidnapping and slavery. In the new global circumstances, if our aim is to protect civilians, we require a broader definition of security and comprehensive approach to protect it.

As Foreign Minister, my goal has been to adapt Canada's foreign policy to these new realities where prospects for global peace increasingly turn on issues of individual safety. This underlies Canada's human security agenda. That agenda is a broad effort to make the safety of people a new measure of global security and a new impetus for global action.

It is obvious that devotion to the privileges of the nation—state to the exclusion of all else is a dangerous anachronism. Peace will not be built behind walls of sovereignty, on the backs of the poor, the powerless and the dispossessed. To be sure, the state will remain an instrument of action. Reports of its demise are premature. But international law and practice will have to adjust. In any democracy worthy of the name, law comes before privilege. And in any diplomacy worth practicing, people come first.

Annex II: Agenda

Thursday, 23 September

9:00 — 9:30 Opening Remarks
Dr.Vartan Gregorian, Carnegie Corporation of New York
Rita E. Hauser, Esq., International Peace Academy

9:30 — 11:00 Panel 1: Humanitarian Intervention and Law from the 1890s to the 1990s
Chair: Dr. David M. Malone, International Peace Academy
Discussant: Professor Anne—Marie Slaughter, Harvard University Law School

Humanitarian Intervention
Professor Adam Roberts, University of Oxford

Evolving Conceptions of Civilians
Dr. Karma Nabulsi, University of Oxford

11:30 — 1:00 Panel 2: Capacities and Constraints in the International System
Chair: Ms. Lily Sucharipa—Behrmann, University of Vienna
Discussant: Dr. David Malone

Strategic Approaches to Humanitarian Protection
Mr. Claude Bruderlein, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

The Enforcement of Humanitarian Norms and the Politics of Ambivalence
Professor Edward C. Luck, Center for the Study of International Organization

2:30 — 4:00 Panel 3: Belligerents: Interests and Behavior
Chair: Rita E. Hauser, Esq., International Peace Academy
Discussant: Mr. Giandomenico Picco, GDP Associates

Protegés, Clients, Cannon Fodder: Civilians in the Calculus of Belligerents
Ms. Marie—Joelle Zahar, Stanford and McGill Universities

Putting Belligerents in Context: Contemporary Conflict in Africa,
Mr. Joao B. Honwana, Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town

6:30— 9:30 Keynote Dinner
The Honorable Lloyd Axworthy, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Canada

Friday, 24 September

9:00 - 10:30 Panel 1: Working with People in War
Chair: Dr. David M. Malone, International Peace Academy
Discussant: Mr. Martin Griffiths, Henri Dunant Centre

Access Negotiations: The Colombian Experience
Mr. Pierre Gassmann, International Committee of the Red Cross

Learning from 'People on War' in Somalia
Mr. Abdulkadir Ibrahim Haji Abdi, Somali Red Crescent Society

10:45—12:15 Panel 2: Protecting the Rights of the Vulnerable
Chair: Professor Thomas Franck, New York University School of Law
Discussant: Ms. Stefanie Grant, Lawyers Committee For Human Rights

Local Understandings and Resources: Children of War in Mozambique and Angola
Dr. Alcinda Manuel Honwana, University of Cape Town

Individual Accountability in International Law
Professor Michael Byers, Duke University School of Law

12:30—2:00 Lunch
Speaker: Mr. Harold H. Koh, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

2:00—3:30 Wrap—up Session: Where Do We Go from Here?
Chair: Dr. David M. Malone, International Peace Academy
Discussant: Mr. Bruce D. Jones, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Annex III: Participants

Co—Chairs

Dr. Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York

Rita E. Hauser, Esq., Chair of the Board of Directors, International Peace Academy

Dr. David M. Malone, President, International Peace Academy

Participants

Mr. Abdulkadir Ibrahim Haji Abdi, Somali Red Crescent Society

Ambassador Diego Arria, Board of Directors, International Peace Academy

Mr. Martin Barber, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Dr. Manfred Bardeleben, Friedrich Ebert Foundation

Professor Andrea Bartoli, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Dr. Esther Brimmer, Carnegie Commission for the Prevention of Deadly Conflict

Mr. Claude Bruderlein, Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

Professor Michael Byers, School of Law, Duke University

Mr. Fernando Cepeda

Mr. Simon Chesterman, Oxford University

Ms. Karen Colvard, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation

Professor Paul Cornish, Center of International Studies, Cambridge University

Ms. Barbara Crossette, New York Times

Mr. Richard Desgagné, School of Law, New York University

Ms. Catherine Dumait—Harper, MÈdecins Sans Frontieres, UN Liaison Office

Dr. Shepard Forman, Center on International Cooperation, New York University

Professor Thomas Franck, School of Law, New York University

Mr. Pierre Gassman, International Committee of the Red Cross

Ms. Elissa Golberg, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada

Professor David Golove, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Ms. Stefanie Grant, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights

Mr. Martin Griffiths, Henri Dunant Centre

Dr. David A. Hamburg

Dr. Alcinda Manuel Honwana, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cape Town

Mr. Joao B. Honwana, Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town

Professor Sharon Hutchinson, University of Wisconsin

Mr. Ian Johnstone, United Nations Executive Office of the Secretary—General

Professor Jok Madut Jok, History Department, Loyola Marymount University

Mr. Bruce Jones, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Ms. Monica Juma, Oxford University

Ms. Sylvie Junod, Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross to the United Nations

Professor Stathis Kalyvas, Department of Politics, New York University

Ms. Helen Kinsella, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota

Mr. Nico Krisch, Max Planck Institute

Mr. Roy Lee, United Nations Institute for Training and Research

Professor Edward C. Luck, Center for the Study of International Organization, New York University

Ms. Beatrice Pouligny Morgant, Institut d^(1)Etudes Politiques de Paris

Mr. Edward Mortimer, United Nations Executive Office of the Secretary—General

Dr. Karma Nabulsi, Oxford University

Hon. Georg Nolte, Max Planck Institute

Viktor Nyland, United Nations Children's Fund

Ambassador Herbert Okun

Mr. Olara A. Otunnu, Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary—General for Children and Armed Conflict

Ann Phillips, National Committee on American Foreign Policy

Mr. Giandomenico Picco, GDP Associates

Professor Adam Roberts, Centre for International Studies, Oxford University

Mr. Cesare Romano, Center on International Cooperation, New York University

Dr. Enid Schoettle, National Intelligence Council

Professor Anne—Marie Slaughter, School of Law, Harvard University

Ms. Lily Sucharipa—Behrmann, University of Vienna

Ms. Nishkala Suntharalingam, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations

Sir Brian Urquhart, Board of Directors, International Peace Academy

Ms. Marie—Joelle Zahar, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University

Carnegie Corporation of New York

Ms. Patricia Aquino—Macri
Ms. Deanna Arsenian
Mr. Stephen DelRosso
Ms. Patricia Moore Nicholas
Dr. Patricia Rosenfield
Dr. David Speedie

International Peace Academy

Mr. Charles K. Cater
Dr. Elizabeth M. Cousens
Ambassador John L. Hirsch

Endnotes

Note 1 Report of the Secretary—General to the Security Council and the General Assembly on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (New York: United Nations, 8 September 1999). Back

Note 2 This section draws substantially from presentations in Panel Three of the symposium: Marie—Joelle Zahar, 'Protegés, Clients, Cannon Fodder: Civilians in the Calculus of Belligerents;' Joao Honwana, 'Putting Belligerents in Context: Contemporary Conflict in Africa;' and Giandomenico Picco, Discussant. Back

Note 3 See Marie—Joelle Zahar, 'Protegés, Clients, Cannon Fodder: Civilians in the Calculus of Belligerents,' in the forthcoming edited volume based on papers presented at the symposium. Back

Note 4 The case is complicated by the differing objectives of the rebels' sometime backers, Rwanda and Uganda, whose objectives have more to do with establishing a security zone along their western borders, and with economic interests in eastern DRC. Back

Note 5 This section draws substantially from presentations Panel 4 and Panel 5 of the Symposium, including: Pierre Gassman, 'Access Negotiations: The Colombian Experience;' Abdulkadir Ibrahim Haji Abdi, 'Learning from 'People On War' in Somalia;' Martin Griffiths, Discussant; Alcinda Honwana, 'Local Understanding and Resources;' and Stefanie Grant, Discussant. Back

Note 6 The People On War campaign is an ICRC project aimed at consulting with those civilians who are directly affected by war in order to better target international humanitarian efforts toward local contexts and needs. Back

Note 7 This section draws substantially on presentations given in the symposium's second panel: Claude Bruderlein, 'Strategic Approaches to Humanitarian Protection;' Edward C. Luck, 'The Enforcement of Humanitarian Norms and the Politics of Ambivalence;' and Lily Sucharipa—Behrmann, Discussant. Back

Note 8 See Claude Bruderlein, 'Strategic Approaches to Humanitarian Protection,' in the forthcoming edited volume based on papers presented at the symposium. Back

Note 9 See Edward C. Luck, 'The Enforcement of Humanitarian Norms and the Politics of Ambivalence,' in the forthcoming edited volume based on papers presented at the symposium. Back

Note 10 This section draws on Panel 1 and 5 of the symposium, including: Adam Roberts, 'Humanitarian Intervention;' Karma Nabulsi, 'Evolving Conceptions of Civilians;' Anne—Marie Slaughter, Discussant; and Michael Byers, 'Individual Accountability in International Law.' Back

Note 11 I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds., Peacemaking in International Conflict: Methods and Techniques (Washington: USIP Press, 1997), Introduction: 3. Back