Political an litical and d huma humanit nitarian pe rian perspectiv rspectives on es on the the prote protection o on of civ civilians lians James Darcy Prepared for the HPG Geneva Roundtable on Protection, 22 January 2007 Su Summary mmary: Given the increasing prominence of civilian protection in political as well as in humanitarian discourse, and the debate over the implications of the new Responsibility to Protect doctrine, it is essential for humanitarians to relate their discussion of protection to this wider policy debate. Likewise, it is essential to engage on this issue with political-military planners at policy and field levels, while maintaining the distinctiveness of humanitarian action. A focus on the issue of civilian security and its determinants would help in engaging effectively on protection at both levels. Just as importantly, it would serve to give more coherence to current humanitarian and human rights approaches to protection. While the protection agenda extends beyond a concern with physical security, such an approach would assist in establishing a common core agenda based on international humanitarian law (IHL) principles. The core protection agenda in situations of armed conflict might be described in terms of defined threats of violence, coercion and denial of basic subsistence – including access to relief. An approach focused on reducing known risk factors (threats, vulnerabilities) in a given context would help to highlight alternative policy and programme options. Understanding civilians’ own responses to violence and facilitating their avoidance of risk – through safe flight options or otherwise – is one essential component of this. More generally, it may be helpful to think in terms of establishing a protection regime in the context in question, while recognising the limits of third party action (military, humanitarian or other) and stressing the primary role and responsibility of the state and warring parties. Convergent or Convergent or divergen vergent agendas t agendas? The protection of civilians in situations of violent conflict has risen up the international agenda, in political, humanitarian and human rights spheres. But are we all talking about the same thing? There remains high degree of uncertainty not just about how to protect civilians, but quite what the protection agenda consists of: protection of whom or what, against what kinds of threat, by whom? The answer to these questions depends on the sphere of policy in which they are addressed. The protection agenda appears slightly different depending on whether it is seen from a human rights or a humanitarian perspective; and often very different again when seen from a political or foreign policy perspective. Evidence from Darfur and elsewhere suggests that confusion over the scope and meaning of protection and over related priority agendas bedevils current protection efforts almost as much as does the problem of how to achieve it. Politics Politics, pr , protection and otection and th the use e use of of force force Political discourse about protection intensified in the wake of post-Cold War interventions and some conspicuous failures to protect civilian populations (Rwanda, Bosnia etc). Bhoutros Ghali’s Agenda for Peace (1992) had laid the policy bedrock for a more interventionist UN approach, and by the late 1990s a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention based on just war principles was forged by the US and UK in particular to justify interventions to protect with force in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor etc. The 2001 ICISS report proposed a reformulation of this doctrine in the form of the Responsibility to Protect, stressing the sovereign responsibility of the state to protect those within its borders, and the responsibility of the international community to intervene in the event of a catastrophic failure of protection by the state. Events subsequent to the 9/11 attacks and the ‘global war on terror’ saw intervention with force (in Afghanistan, Iraq) justified on hybrid grounds that included state security and counter-terrorism as well as ‘protection’; though in practice these resulted in very high (if indeterminate) levels of civilian casualties. To the extent that these interventions were rationalised as protective, they appeared to rest on a broader concept of political protection – through the deposing of abusive regimes, creation of newly accountable political structures and reconstruction of national law enforcement and security mechanisms.
In the UN, the protection of civilians has been the subject of annual reports by the Secretary General since 1999, has become firmly established on the UNSC agenda and has increasingly featured as an explicit component of peace-keeping mandates. The RtoP doctrine finally became ‘mainstream’ through its adoption in the World Summit declaration in late 2005, and the new SG has stated it as his top priority. But the discussion around the application of the RtoP doctrine has tended to focus on the use of force and ‘hard’ rather than ‘soft’ power options for intervention, and to under-play the sovereign responsibility dimension of the doctrine. It is remarkable that asylum policy does not feature in discussions of RtoP, since asylum and temporary refuge have proved by far the most important mechanism for providing international protection to civilians threatened with violence. Trends in domestic, foreign and security policy have led to increasingly restrictive asylum practice and a general move towards ‘containment’. But providing protection in situ raises major problems of sovereignty, will and capacity to protect, as the Darfur case shows. This presents an urgent challenge: the need to develop more effective and politically viable models of political-military protection that combine asylum or temporary refuge with ‘internal’ protective measures, including the creation of protected areas, ‘no fly’ and demilitarised zones. Deployment of ground forces may be essential to this, though we are still some way from having adequate mandates, doctrine, rules of engagement and training for international forces undertaking this role. Clearly, we should not underestimate the difficulty of doing so in the context of a live conflict, particularly where the targeting of civilians itself forms part of the strategy or even the war aims of the belligerents. This puts a particular premium on the effective use of diplomatic and soft power options, and ultimately requires the expenditure of political capital in the name of protecting people before economic or geopolitical interests. Humanitarian Humanitarian and hum and human n righ ghts a approac oaches to p es to protection otection The emphasis in RtoP discussions on the use of force sits rather uneasily with the humanitarian emphasis (in IHL) on protection as restraint in the use of force. Yet there remains a crucial overlap of agendas here. For the most part, humanitarians do not have the means actively to protect, though they may have the means to enhance civilian security by reducing vulnerability and exposure to violence. They rightly urge warring parties to respect the IHL principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality in the use of force. But most also recognise the requirement for force to be deployed on occasion in order to protect civilians. Here, the interface and relationship between humanitarian and military actors and agendas needs to be better defined. The understanding that humanitarians and civil society actors have of relevant social, economic, micro-political and cultural factors – and of the perceptions of the affected communities themselves – can and should be used to inform political and (where necessary) appropriate military action. Protected access for relief assistance is only one component of this. The domain of humanitarian action, governed by principles of impartiality and neutrality, may be distinct and limited in scope – but it nevertheless demands a dialogue with military actors, belligerent or otherwise, about factors that have a bearing on the security of civilian populations. While the civilian protection agenda is not necessarily framed as a rights protection agenda – IHL, for example, is not so much a rights-based code as a duty-based one – there is substantial overlap between humanitarian and human rights concerns with the protection of civilians. That said, the humanitarian and human rights protection agendas may differ both in the priorities they set and the means by which they are pursued. This shows particularly in the relative emphasis attached in rights approaches to the exposing and denunciation of abuse, and with the process of justice; as against the generally more low-profile, pragmatic and locally-engaged humanitarian approach. That distinction is too crude, of course. But the difference of agendas shows, for example, in the different attitudes to the issue of displacement: seen from one angle, an abuse to be condemned, a denial of freedom of movement; seen from another angle, a rational response to the threat of violence and one that should be facilitated. It may be both, of course, but the difference of emphasis is telling.
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