Unga-Link UK Interactive

by Bruce Kent (reprinted from Islington Tribune of 25 March 2011) 

ONCE more a war has started with very little evidence that those in favour of it, or even some of those opposed to it, have understood the requirements of the United Nations Charter.   

The United Nations was set up in 1945 not to authorise wars but primarily “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”  Nowhere in the Charter is there any agreement that a vote in the Security Council is enough to legitimise a war or military attack.   In Article 42 there is a very serious precondition before, as a last resort, any military action may be authorised.  

The Security Council must consider (that is, come to a reasoned judgment) that peaceful means of resolving a conflict “would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate”.   There is no evidence whatever that, once David Cameron started to push for a no-fly zone over Libya, any consideration of peaceful means of conflict resolution was on the international agenda. 

•          Were all possible economic sanctions imposed and enforced?  •          Was massive electronic jamming put into operation?  •          Were all oil and gas sales cancelled?  •          Was non-governmental intervention of any kind attempted?  •          Muammar Gaddafi at one stage compared himself to the Queen.  Perhaps the Prince of Wales might have been asked to try a peacemaking visit.  Flattery can have advantages. 

Now we are again in a catastrophic mess.   The countries which, for decades, armed and supported Gaddafi and ignored his human rights violations are now his enemies.   It will not be long before there are numbers of civilian casualties.  Arab support for what is going on is fading, and the whole venture will be cast as another Western “Christian” imperialist adventure and will not end up by protecting the insurgents.   

It is too late to lament what might have been, but there are still opportunities.   To start with the UN General Assembly could make clear its view of the legality of the current Security Council resolution.   We could make an immediate approach to the International Court of Justice with a pre-agreement to abide by any adjudication.  Cynical or not, Gaddafi has made a ceasefire gesture.   The countries which have mounted the air strikes should unconditionally promise a ceasefire at least for a significant period of time during which UN-brokered negotiations could start and a peaceful settlement based on democratic principles might be considered.   

There is already a UN special representative in Tripoli.   It may yet be possible to negotiate a UN-authorised peacekeeping presence not made up of Western forces.   Such a force would have a peacekeeping not a peace enforcement mandate.   Those who oppose the Gaddafi regime certainly have to be protected in Libya and abroad.  There might be some British Muslim leaders willing to take part in peacekeeping visits of their own to Libya, with a mandate to explore all opportunities.  This is, thankfully, not a conflict in which the use of nuclear weapons might be contemplated.   For whatever reason, Colonel Gaddafi, who was once on the nuclear weapon trail, abandoned it some time ago.   

Perhaps that is a piece of political rationality on which we might build.  As a minimum, we have now in this country to eat a very large slice of humble pie.   Our problem is that we have been brought up in a culture which likes to believe that war ‘works’ and can be made to work.   It actually often – at massive cost – has exactly the opposite effect to the one intended.   The fact is that we are not omnipotent and that the best we can ever do is to try to find paths towards the peaceful resolution of conflict. 

Popping cruise missiles into other people backyards is not one of them.• Bruce Kent, a former parish priest at St Aloysius in Somers Town, is vice-president of the Movement for the Abolition of War 

At the same meeting, copies of another new publication to promote the implementation of commitments on Women, Peace and Security were available: SCR 1325 and Women’s Participation: Operational Guidelines for Conflict Resolution and Peace Processes.  Written primarily for people working in the field, its practical approach and concise sections make it a useful resource for activists as well.  As with the other big issues – Nuclear Disarmament and Trade Justice to name but two – there are deeply entrenched mindsets to be shifted.  This 48-page document can be downloaded from the website of The Initiative on Quiet Diplomacy/IQ^d (www.iqdiplomacy.org).

 a UN-Civil Society Initiative to harness the World Database on Protected Areas 

The new interactive website, http://protectedplanet.net, invites the participation of “citizen scientists” around the world.   

The initiative was launched in Nagoya, Japan, on 19 October 2010.  The chief partners are the UN Environment Programme/UNEP (a UN agency) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/IUCN (an NGO).  The project is monitored from Cambridge by UNEP in collaboration with a UK charity, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre/WCMC. The IUCN brings together governments, NGOs, UN agencies, companies and local communities to develop and implement policy and best practices.  Their Programme on Protected Areas administers the World Commission on Protected Areas/ WCPA, the world’s premier network of expertise in the field. 

 Protectedplanet.net works with Wikipedia, Google and the social networking sites to enable individuals and local groups to upload photographs and information about protected areas near them.  At present Protected Areas number 150,000.  They include the most famous ones, like Yellowstone National Park in the USA and the Serengeti in Tanzania, as well as many thousand “hidden gems” which attract very few visitors. 

The names and acronyms are given for reference; the thing to remember is that a huge global effort to protect and maintain earth’s biodiversity is well-established and looking for support. 

Gerry Judah’s The Crusader, at Imperial War Museum North - an image of the devastating impact of modern urban warfare.  The sculptor says it explores the violence of conflict against a perceived righteousness of purpose.

In church documents and the UN Charter, the proportionate and well-considered use of armed force is considered legitimate as a last resort and in self-defence.  Article 51 of the Charter qualifies the latter by saying “until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security.”   

At the UN General Assembly’s Millennium Review Summit in 2005, member states agreed to a circumscribed “Responsibility to Protect” (see paragraph 118 of the August 2005 text).  Where national governments perpetrate or allow the mass murder of innocent citizens, the international community  through the United Nations is obliged to take all possible diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to put things right.  Where these fail, the UN Security Council recognises “a shared responsibility to take collective action in a timely and decisive manner”. 

NATO’s current bombing campaign in Libya, on the authority of Security Council Resolution 1973 (17 March 2011) is the current test case, welcomed by some and not others as seen in previous postings on this site.  The resolution passed with 5 abstentions (including China and Russia who withheld their vetoes) and no opposition.  It demanded an immediate ceasefire, authorised a no-fly zone over Libya and the use of all means necessary short of foreign occupation to protect civilians.   

Over a month on, how does the action taken look in the light of Just War principles? 

• Just Cause: considering all current cases of governments cruelly and violently oppressing citizens who dare to oppose them, was it right to take armed action against Libya’s?  Perhaps.
• Competent Authority: no question there – the UN Security Council.
• Comparative Justice: do the rights and values involved justify killing?  Does attempting to protect rights to life, civil liberties and the rule of law guaranteed under UN conventions justify killing? Perhaps.
• Right Intention: did those voting for Resolution 1973 believe they would thereby protect civilians, specifically those apparently about to be massacred by Gaddafi’s forces in Misurata?  Probably yes.
• Last Resort: could action have been taken before the point of extreme crisis to shift the course of events?  Probably.  And at the point of crisis?  Probably not.
• Probability of Success: this principle is meant to prevent the resort to force or hopeless resistance when the outcome of either will in all probability be disproportionate or futile.  At this stage, does NATO’s commitment to “protect civilians” by extensive bombardment seem to be succeeding?  Hardly.  After some weeks of the advantage passing from one side to the other, it now pretty clearly favours Gaddafi – unless the terms of the resolution are increasingly re-interpreted.  And is the resistance of the almost wholly untrained and scarcely armed people still referred to as “rebels” other than hopeless?  I don’t think so.
• Proportionality: this surely is the fundamental one.  Is the huge cost in lives, damage to property and military expenditure justified by the good we can expect as an outcome?  Surely not.  Do the people of Misurata prefer starvation under siege to the massacre Gaddafi threatened?  What do you think? 

At the outset, I had painful doubts about the wisdom of the military action.  Now I feel sure it was wrong.  And I now doubt the relevance of the old Just War principles to 21^st century armed conflict, but I’ll save comment on that for another day.