CIAO DATE: 06/03

The Responsibility to Protect: Research, Bibliography, Background Supplementary Volume to the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

Thomas G. Weiss and Don Hubert
December 2001

The Ralph Bunche Institute on the United Nations

 

Abstract

The Report of the Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty could not have been produced in an intellectual vacuum. There is an enormous literature on the subject, in many languages and going back many years, which the Commission had a responsibility to take into account – and every reason to want to. In order to aid our own work, and as a contribution to future scholarship, we asked our research team to prepare an annotated list – necessarily selective, but as wide-ranging as possible – of the best writing on the subject. The Bibliography thus produced, set out in Part II, is an important component of the present volume.

Notwithstanding the wealth of existing literature, the Commission felt the need to generate a good deal of additional research of its own, to fill gaps in that literature, to bring it up to date and to draw together in a more manageable way information and ideas scattered through many primary and secondary sources in many languages. Thus the Research Essays in Part I, which constitute the bulk of this volume. Between them, the nine essays cover, in depth, the full range of issues with which the Commission had to grapple. We were particularly concerned to ensure that we had before us, as an input into our deliberations, a thoroughly balanced analysis of all those issues, with all the major arguments and counter-arguments fully laid out. To the extent that views or conclusions are expressed from time to time in these essays – almost unavoidable in an exercise of this kind – they are, of course, those of the researchers and not the Commission.

The primary authors of these essays in their final published form were Thomas G. Weiss and Don Hubert, of the Commission's research team, to whom the Commission owes an enormous debt of gratitude. Their writing was based, in turn, on substantial contributions from over fifty other scholars and specialists, whose names are listed in the acknowledgements which follow, who submitted either specially commissioned research papers, or who made specifically requested contributions to the regional and national roundtables further described below.

The Commission's Report – and in particular its central theme of “The Responsibility to Protect” – goes in a number of ways beyond the discussion in the Research Essays collected here. But those essays were very much the quarry from which the Report was mined. They should also be seen as supplementing, and adding a great deal of detail (for example in its descriptions of past interventions, both before and after 1990) to a Report which was deliberately limited in length to increase its chances of being read. The Commission very much hopes that the Research Essays will in turn prove to be, for policy makers and commentators of the future, a mine of detailed and useful information and analysis.

Access to high quality written research was a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the Commission to produce its report. Dealing with subject matter of this kind, involving such sensitive and volatile policy issues, and with many different views evident in different parts of the world, it was absolutely crucial for the Commission to hear directly from those actually or potentially affected by interventions, or in a position to undertake them, or with strong and well-considered views on the issues in question. So, as an integral part of our work, we conducted a series of lengthy roundtable discussions in Beijing, Cairo, Geneva, London, Maputo, New Delhi, New York, Ottawa, Paris, St Petersburg, Santiago and Washington. The meetings involved representatives from governments and intergovernmental organizations, from nongovernmental organizations and civil society, and from universities, research institutes and think-tanks – in all, over 200 people. These roundtable meetings proved to be a wonderfully rich source of information, ideas and diverse political perspectives, and an excellent real world environment in which the Commission could test its own ideas as they evolved. Summary accounts of each of the roundtable meetings, together with lists of those who participated in them, are also included in Part III of this volume.

As much as we might hope otherwise, nothing is more likely than that the international community will sooner or later again be confronted by events all too reminiscent of the agonies of the last decade in the Great Lakes, the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia, Sierra Leone, East Timor and elsewhere. Reacting to these situations in the ad hoc, and often ineffective or counter-productive, way we have in the past is not good enough for interdependent global neighbours in the twenty-first century. We have to do better.

The material gathered and described in this volume has played an important part in the deliberations of the Commission, and we warmly thank all those involved in writing, collecting or contributing to it. If the Report that has grown out of this material can help bring about a more systematic, balanced and less ideological debate of the main issues by the international community – and even more if it comes to provide an accepted framework for dealing with these matters, as they arise in the future, in concrete and positive ways – then our work will have been ground-breaking indeed.

Gareth Evans
Mohamed Sahnoun
Co-Chairs
15 August 2001

 

Table of Contents

Co-Chairs’ Foreword (PDF, 2 pgs, 40 kbs)

Acknowledgements (PDF, 3 pgs, 60 kbs)

Researchers’ Preface (PDF, 2 pgs, 40 kbs)

List of Acronyms (PDF, 2 pgs, 28 kbs)

List of Tables And Figures (PDF, 1 pg, 24 kbs)

Part I Research Essays

Section A. Elements Of The Debate (PDF, 2 pgs, 52 kbs)

1. State Sovereignty (PDF, 9 pgs, 72 kbs)
2. Intervention (PDF, 12 pgs, 92 kbs)
3. Prevention (PDF, 20 pgs, 120 kbs)

Section B. Past Humanitarian Interventions (PDF, 2 pgs, 52 kbs)

4. Interventions Before 1990 (PDF, 29 pgs, 152 kbs)
5. Interventions After the Cold War (PDF, 50 pgs, 1.1 Mb)

Section C. Morality, Law, Operations, And Politics

6. Rights and Responsibilities (PDF, 26 pgs, 140 kbs)
7. Legitimacy and Authority (PDF, 21 pgs, 124 kbs)
8. Conduct and Capacity (PDF, 30 pgs, 168 kbs)
9. Domestic and International Will (PDF, 16 pgs, 108 kbs)

Part II Bibliography (PDF, 2 pgs, 52 kbs)

1. Humanitarian Intervention (PDF, 8 pgs, 76 kbs)
2. Sovereignty and Intervention (PDF, 8 pgs, 72 kbs)
3. Conflict Prevention (PDF, 6 pgs, 64 kbs)
4. Ethical Aspects (PDF, 7 pgs, 68 kbs)
5. Legal Aspects (PDF, 14 pgs, 96 kbs)
6. Interest and Will (PDF, 5 pgs, 60 kbs)
7. National and Regional Perspectives (PDF, 13 pgs, 96 kbs)
8. Nonmilitary Interventions (PDF, 11 pgs, 84 kbs)
9. Operational Aspects of Military Interventions (PDF, 7 pgs, 72 kbs)
10. Military Interventions and Humanitarian Action (PDF, 8 pgs, 72 kbs)
11. Post-Conflict Challenges (PDF, 5 pgs, 60 kbs)
12. Country Cases (PDF, 12 pgs, 92 kbs)

Part III Background (PDF, 1 pg, 48 kbs)

1. About the Commission (PDF, 4 pgs, 44 kbs)
2. About the Commissioners (PDF, 3 pgs, 52 kbs)
3. Regional Roundtables and National Consultations (PDF, 50 pgs, 204 kbs)

Index (PDF, 12 pgs, 80 kbs)