SOVEREIGNTY AS RESPONSIBILITY AND DARFUR:
2003 TO THE PRESENT DAY
KATY SHOWMAN
Abstract
Variant responses to humanitarian emergencies in the 1990s led to the development of the
‘sovereignty as responsibility’ paper which induces a duty to intervene in sovereign countries
for the sake of protecting victims of atrocity crimes. Yet, using the empirical case study of
Darfur, this paper seeks to argue that it is not sovereignty itself that limits international
responses to atrocity crimes but diverse political calculations. Arising from the theoretical
inaccuracies behind the redefinition of sovereignty, the Darfur case exposes that national
interest concerns, lack of political will for action and a divided international community have
served to undermine the capacity of the international community to act in the interest of the
victims of the crisis. Thus, redefining sovereignty will not help to engage the international
community in effectively responding to mass atrocities in the future unless these political
constraints can be overcome.
Introduction
Taylor regards the concept of sovereignty as “central to the system of states”, while Jackson
contends that the notion “is a distinguishing feature of modern politics” (Taylor, 1995: 99;
Jackson, 1999: 1). Yet, in recent years, sovereignty has been faced with accusations of
inadequacy in the modern age, with Reeves questioning “…have we reached the point in
confronting atrocity crimes at which we put civilian lives ahead of expedient claims of
national sovereignty?” (2008: 84). The conflict in Darfur has been increasingly framed
within the context of such debates and provides an empirical basis upon which to test a new
conception of sovereignty which qualifies control over territory with responsibilities to the
population within. This paper argues that redefining sovereignty is not enough to encourage
effective responses to extreme human rights violations. The flaws of the sovereignty as
responsibility paper are grounded in its theoretical miscalculations which incorrectly assume
that adherence to sovereignty is the main barrier to humanitarian intervention. Instead, the
Darfur case demonstrates that effective involvement in humanitarian crises is constrained by
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the significant hurdles of lacking political will for action, national interest concerns and a
divided international community. Such factors cannot be overcome by simply redefining
sovereignty and ensured the limited response to the crisis in Darfur in political, military and
judicial terms.
0.1 Sovereignty as Responsibility
Inconsistencies in the application of sovereignty in response to the severe internal conflicts of
the post-Cold war era acted to fuel academic and legal debate surrounding the absolute nature
of the concept. One of the earliest academics to address this issue and therefore provide a
framework for future discussion came in the form of Deng et al’s 1996 articulation of
‘sovereignty as responsibility’.
Where sovereignty had represented the protection of
sovereign states from outside interference, the paper of sovereignty as responsibility qualifies
this guard against intervention with responsibilities on behalf of the sovereign government
for good governance.
In cases of evasion of these responsibilities, the international
community has an obligation to step in (Deng et al, 1996). Thus, like Hobbes expressed in
Leviathan, Deng et al’s paper defined popular sovereignty according to the state’s
responsibility to the ruled rather than control over them (Makinda, 2004). The International
Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) built further on the conclusions
reached by Deng et al. The basic principles of the commission’s final report, entitled
‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), echoed the contentions of Deng et al’s sovereignty as
responsibility. According to R2P,
State sovereignty implies responsibility… Where a population is suffering
serious harm… the principle of non-intervention yields to the international
responsibility to protect.
(ICISS, 2001: xi)
Yet while ratification of R2P by the UN General Assembly in 2005 was an important
development in international relations, Feinstein is sceptical, asserting that “these are
important words, but in the end only words” (2007:10). The failure of the international
community to effectively respond to the crisis in Darfur exposes this reality. It is therefore
necessary to scrutinise the theoretical and practical factors that have acted to constrain the
implementation of the sovereignty as responsibility paper in Darfur.
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0.2 Crisis in Darfur
Darfur, a western region of Sudan, is currently home to the largest humanitarian operation in
the world today (Oxfam, 2008). The trigger for this, the most recent crisis in Sudan’s long
history of civil wars, has been widely attributed to a series of rebel attacks on government
targets in April 2003. This insurgency was motivated in part by long-term marginalisation of
the remote region of Darfur by the government of Sudan situated in Khartoum (House of
Commons, 2005; Mepham and Ramsbotham, 2006). In seeking to crush the rebellion by the
two main rebel groups in the region, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and
the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the government employed conventional armed
forces and provided arms for proxy Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, granting them
impunity to commit atrocities (House of Commons, 2005; Grono, 2006). This response has
been directed primarily at civilians originating from the same tribes as the rebel groups and
has been widely criticised as brutal and disproportionate, with the UN International
Commission Inquiry on Darfur concluding that,
Government forces and militias conducted indiscriminate attacks, including
killing of civilians, torture, enforced disappearances, destruction of villages,
rape and other forms of sexual violence, pillaging and forced displacement,
throughout Darfur. These acts were conducted on a widespread and systematic
basis, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanity.
(UN, 2005: 3)
Furthermore, while virtually all of the six million citizens of Darfur are Muslim, the
population is subdivided between ‘African’ tribes and those of ‘Arab’ descent. Since the vast
majority of the victims of the situation in Darfur originate from the main ‘African’ tribes- the
Fur, Zaghawa and Masaaleit- the crisis has lent itself to accusations of ethnic cleansing by
the predominantly ‘Arab’ government and Janjaweed (Power, 2004). Today the situation in
Darfur is increasingly complex. Due to factions within the rebels there are now more than
six different rebel groups fighting government forces, Arab militias, and Chadian armed
groups. Additionally, despite the May 2006 signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement, the
conflict shows no sign of ending and February 2009 saw the worst fighting in the region for
over a year (Oxfam, 2008; de Waal, 2009).
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Confusion certainly exists over the labelling of the crisis in Darfur. The UN Security
Council, EU and a variety of NGOs have stated that the government of Sudan has been
complicit in ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
Colin Powell went further
describing events in Darfur as genocide, while at the opposite end of the spectrum, China has
labelled events there as “counterinsurgency” (Williams and Bellamy, 2005; Funk, 2009:
n.p.). Yet, whatever definition is used to detail the human tragedy that has unfolded since
2003, it is clear that the situation “is precisely the kind of case for which the responsibility to
protect was developed and it meets some of the key criteria for intervention identified by the
ICISS” (Mepham and Ramsbotham, 2006: 2). In instigating and complying with violence
against civilians, and in many cases by blocking humanitarian assistance, the government of
Sudan has dramatically failed to demonstrate responsibility for good governance (Daly,
2007; Save Darfur, 2008). Thus, in this light, Darfur represents a suitable test case to analyse
the sovereignty as responsibility paper.
As the Select Committee on International
Development summarise, “…if the responsibility to protect means anything, it ought to mean
something in Darfur” (House of Commons, 2005: 15).
0.3 Sovereignty as Responsibility and Darfur
My argument will proceed as follows. Chapter 1 assesses the theory behind the redefinition
of sovereignty and argues that the new paper of sovereignty as responsibility is based upon
flawed assumptions.
Such theoretical miscalculations ensure the limited impact the
redefinition will have upon empirical situations.
The practical factors constraining the application of sovereignty as responsibility in Darfur
are considered in Chapter 2. While the government of Sudan has flouted its responsibilities
to the people of Darfur, the international community has failed to assume such duties, despite
its commitment to R2P in the UN General Assembly. Such a failure is based upon the
translation of the theoretical limitations of sovereignty as responsibility to the empirical case
study, resulting in the incapacity of the paper to override the serious political dynamics of
lacking political will for action, national interest concerns and a divided international
community. Such factors, and not concerns over sovereignty, have ensured the inability of
the international community to implement sovereignty as responsibility in Darfur.
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The role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Darfur is analysed in Chapter 3.
Responsibility for justice can be interpreted as a variant brand of sovereignty as
responsibility. Yet, the ability to gain justice for the victims of the Darfur crisis has again
been undermined by the political constraints of insufficient political will for action and a
lacking international consensus regarding the benefits of international justice mechanisms,
both of which have bolstered Khartoum in the face of ICC prosecutions. Thus, redefining
sovereignty has done little to encourage the international community to react effectively to
the atrocities in Darfur since the revised concept ignores the importance of political concerns
in the calculations of national governments.
An assessment of the theory of sovereignty as responsibility
The paper of sovereignty as responsibility has aroused both celebration and criticism. The
redefinition was described by a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as “timely
and needed”, while others have despaired that it echoes the “standard of civilisation” notion
(Robinson, cited by International Crisis Group, 2009: n.p.; Ayoob, 2002: 84). This chapter
will argue that the benefits of sovereignty as responsibility can be seen on a superficial level
when viewed from the perspective of the victims of atrocity crimes. Yet, the paper is
founded upon three defective assumptions. Firstly that sovereignty concerns form the primary
explanation for historical failures of the international community to respond effectively to
atrocities; secondly that a state’s national interests can be overridden; and finally that there
exists a cohesive international community that can implement the paper.
Thus, an
examination of the assumptions upon which sovereignty as responsibility is based serves to
undermine the theoretical foundations of the paper, and therefore the concept’s ability to
induce more effective solutions to humanitarian crises.
1.1 In defence of sovereignty as responsibility
An assessment of sovereignty as responsibility from the perspective of the individuals that it
is intended to protect points to a conclusion of theoretical accuracy, and it is in this light that
the merits of the paper are most apparent. The concept of sovereignty as practiced in the
modern era and enshrined in the UN Charter was conceived to guarantee international order
by controlling inter-state conflict. As Jackson asserts,
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Sovereign states are the leading actors of world politics. The script of world
politics was written mainly for them. Everybody else is a supporting actor.
(1999: 4-5)
However, proponents of sovereignty as responsibility contend that in the post-Cold War era,
this state-based conception of sovereignty is inadequate for maintaining international order
since internal conflicts have emerged as the primary source of human suffering (Deng et al,
1996). Revealingly, where approximately 35 million people were killed in armed conflict in
the twentieth century, 150-170 million people were killed by their own governments (Welsh,
2003). Thus, if global peace is a measure of the accumulative threat to human life, then the
greatest enemy exists within the domestic jurisdiction, which, in the eyes of defenders of
sovereignty, should be insurmountable. It is in this context that former UN Secretary General
Kofi Annan questions “if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on
sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica?” (Annan, 2000: 48).
Hence, in challenging the state-based conception of sovereignty and writing individuals into
the script of international relations, the sovereignty as responsibility paper seeks to benefit
those individuals suffering at the hands of a sovereign government (Chandler, 2004; Duffield,
1995).
1.2 Testing assumptions
However, while the motives are certainly noble behind a redefinition of sovereignty in favour
of the victims of atrocity crimes, a closer assessment exposes the theoretic naivety inherent in
sovereignty as responsibility. Firstly, the paper is based upon the flawed assumption that “the
narrow concept of sovereignty remains a major obstacle to assisting and protecting victims of
internal conflict” and thus a redefinition is necessary (Deng et al, 1996: 10). Haass argues
that the international response to the genocide in Rwanda “demonstrates the high price of
judging sovereignty to be supreme and thus doing nothing to prevent the slaughter of
innocents” (2007: v).
Feinstein and Slaughter present an equally strong attack against
traditional conceptions of sovereignty arguing that “over the course of the 1990s old rules
proved counter-productive at best, murderous at worst” (2004: 149-150). Yet, it is misplaced
to blame adherence to traditional conceptions of sovereignty for inadequate international
responses to humanitarian emergencies, thereby undermining the necessity of redefining the
concept. Chesterman presents this case bluntly, stating that “interventions did not take place
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because states do not want them to take place” (2003: 231). In considering whether to
intervene for the sake of humanitarian reasons, factors of political will and national interest
appear far more important than concerns for sovereignty. In the case of Rwanda, inaction by
the United States has largely been attributed to their lack of political will to intervene in
Africa in the aftermath of the calamity of their actions in Somalia (Ayoob, 2002). This view
is legitimised by the report of the United Nations Inquiry into Rwanda which blamed the
failure of the international community to stop the genocide on the “…persistent lack of
political will by member states to act, or to act with enough assertiveness” (UN, 1999: 26).
Revealingly, nowhere in either the UN report, or in the International Panel of Eminent
Personalities set up by the Organisation of African Unity to investigate the massacre, are
questions about sovereignty raised in relation to the lacking international response (UN,
1999; IPEP, 2000). Hence, historical failures of the international community to respond to
atrocity crimes are not primarily based on the damaging nature of adherence to absolute
versions of sovereignty, but rather on other factors including lack of political will.
Furthermore, where the international community has demonstrated the political will to act,
sovereignty has failed to constrain forceful interventions in domestic affairs, thereby raising
questions regarding the constricting powers of the concept and the need for its redefinition.
As early as 1992, the UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali testified that “the time of absolute
and exclusive sovereignty is dead” (1992: n.p.). Indeed, humanitarian interventions in Sudan
in 1989, Somalia and Bosnia in 1992 and in Haiti in 1993 represented a clear break with
versions of absolute sovereignty, while the intervention in Iraq in 1991 to protect Kurds in the
north of the country and Shi’a Muslims in the south constituted an even more radical
transformation within international relations (Deng et al, 1996; Chesterman, 2003; Liang,
1999). The intervention was approved without the consent of the sovereign government, a
clear violation of articles 2(1) and 2(7) of the UN Charter (Taylor, 1995). Thus Bellamy is
correct in his assertion that there is “little evidence to suggest that sovereignty concerns
inhibit states from saving strangers when they have the means and desire to do so” (2006:
34). Therefore the contention that adherence to traditional versions of sovereignty has served
to limit international responses to atrocities is flawed, thus undermining the effect that a
redefinition of the concept will have upon future reactions to human rights violations.
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A second defective assumption at the root of sovereignty as responsibility is that collective
interests based in human rights norms can override the national interest. In this way the
sovereignty as responsibility paper differs fundamentally from traditional conceptions of
sovereignty for two main reasons. Firstly in arguing that the “primary purpose of the state is
to protect the interests of the individual” rather than furthering the national interest (Deng et
al, 1996: 5; Meinecke, 1998). Secondly where such interests of the individual are failed by
the state, the so-called international community should exercise a collective interest and
intervene (ICISS, 2001). Thus, inherent in both arguments is disregard for the realist notion
of the state as a self-interested being. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair supported such a
conception in his defence of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, exclaiming that “national selfinterest and the interests of the broader community are no longer in conflict” (cited by
Mcelvoy, 2002: 20). Kofi Annan further expanded on such logic asserting that “in the
context of many of the challenges facing humanity today, the collective interest is the
national interest” (1999: n.p.). Yet, such exclamations of the demise of Realpolitik appear to
be premature. Despite Gordon Brown’s claims that “a nation's self interest today will be
found not in isolation but in cooperation to overcome shared challenges”, this is qualified by
the stronger assertion that,
…of course the first duty of Government - our abiding obligation - is and will
always be the safety of the British people, the protection of the British national
interest.
(Brown, 2007: n.p.)
Since the state remains the primary actor in the international order, and thus military and
political decisions are mainly taken at the national level, it is impossible to ignore national
interest concerns which may infringe upon the ability of a state to act in the collective interest
(Ayoob, 2002). For instance, many commentators believe that China’s veto blocking a
continued UN peacekeeping force in Macedonia in 1999 was motivated by a national interest
to reprimand Macedonia for establishing diplomatic links with Taiwan (Welsh, 2003).
Additionally, such a case is strengthened by observance of the different responses of the
international community to humanitarian emergencies over the course of the 1990s. While
the collective interest to protect victims of atrocities remained constant in these examples, the
reaction of the international community varied, therefore exposing the influence of factors
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other than the collective interest. Hence, in the absence of a genuine collective interest to
protect the victims of atrocity crimes, sovereignty as responsibility is fundamentally limited
in its ability to encourage effective and timely international action against human rights
violations.
Finally, the sovereignty as responsibility paper is fatally undermined with reference to its
assumption of the presence of a cohesive international community.
For sovereignty as
responsibility to be viable at even its most basic level, there must be acceptance within the
international community of the pursuit of liberal human rights as an unconditional good
(Sutch, 2002). Etzioni summarises such a premise stating that sovereignty as responsibility,
…opens the door to treating nations not as free agents, but as members of the
international community who are expected to adhere to that community’s
evolving norms regarding what is considered legitimate.
(Etzioni, 2006: 72)
Yet, despite acceptance of R2P within the General Assembly in 2005, it is clear that many
non-Western nations remain sceptical of the very idea of sovereignty as responsibility. This
conflict of opinion damages the viability of a concept so reliant on the presence of a unified
international society grounded in common values. Indeed, many in the developing world
view the paper of sovereignty as responsibility not as the embodiment of a liberal human
rights regime but instead as a Western plot to interfere in the affairs of weaker countries.
Ayoob summarises such a critique, testifying that the sovereignty as responsibility paper “has
the potential to divide the world into zones of civilised and uncivilised states and legitimise
predatory actions by the former against the latter” (Ayoob, 2002: 85). This line of attack is
not only found in academic literature, with representatives for China apprehensive in the face
of a redefinition of sovereignty, asserting that “it is clear that certain Western powers have
played with noble principles to serve their own hegemonic interests” (ICISS Regional
Roundtables and National Consultations, 2001: 392). Thus it is difficult to refer to the
international community in the singular since instead of agreement on the benefits of
sovereignty as responsibility, international society instead represents divergent beliefs that
can be classified on a value continuum. While proponents of sovereignty as responsibility
stand at the progressive extremity in arguing that sovereignty denies justice to countless
individuals, many developing states can instead be found at the conservative end, focusing on
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the necessity of absolute sovereignty in upholding the legitimacy of individual states
(Jackson, 1999).
For advocates of the conservative interpretation of sovereignty, the war in Iraq- and its
misleading justifications rooted in humanitarianism- acted as confirmation of the exploitation
of human rights rhetoric as a cover for Western imperialist goals (Bellamy, 2006). This has
further undermined movements towards the cohesive international community necessary for
the viability of sovereignty as responsibility.
Blair invoked ‘noble principles’ and the
language of sovereignty as responsibility in defending his motives for war, testifying that,
The opportunity is to show that we can meet the menace to our world today
together, collectively and as a united international community… the Iraqi people
need Saddam removed as a way of ending their suffering.
(Blair, 2003: n.p.)
Yet, such humanitarian claims were perceived, particularly in the developing world, as
masking ulterior, hegemonic ambitions. Hugo Chavez described Blair as a “pawn of
imperialism” and the director of Human Rights Watch exclaimed that “the Iraq war was not
mainly about saving the Iraqi people from mass slaughter, and … no such slaughter was then
ongoing or imminent” (Chavez cited by Campbell, 2006: 26; Roth, 2005: 144). Hence, the
war fuelled criticism of any ploy intended to make it easier to intervene in the affairs of a
sovereign state for humanitarian purposes, and deepened the significant cleavages within
international society regarding the value of humanitarian intervention (Williams and
Bellamy, 2005). As Evans argues, the Iraq War “almost choked at birth what many were
hoping was an emerging new norm justifying intervention on the basis of the principle of
‘responsibility to protect’” (2004: 63). Thus, in the absence of comprehensive international
agreement on the merits of the sovereignty as responsibility paper itself, it remains difficult to
comprehend that the notion will have an impact upon reactions to atrocity crimes.
Furthermore, aside from scepticism regarding the concept itself, the so-called international
community remains in conflict regarding what constitutes a violation of human rights,
thereby further undermining the viability of sovereignty as responsibility. Undoubtedly,
there has been movement towards the universality of human rights in the post-Cold War
period. Member states of the UN are party to a plethora of international agreements which tie
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them to an acceptance of such rights including the International Bill of Rights, Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Henkin, 1993; Deng et
al, 1996). Additionally,
debate regarding the right of humanitarian intervention has not
simply been generated in organisations dominated by Western nations, thereby suggesting
international consensus on such issues.
Of particular note was the transition of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to the African Union (AU) coinciding with a
fundamental change in policy from the traditional non-intervention principle to a concept of
non-indifference in circumstances of war and genocide (Mepham and Ramsbotham, 2006).
Such a development led Evans and Sahnoun to conclude that,
…[there] has been the increasing impact in recent decades of human rights norms,
bringing a shift from a culture of sovereign impunity to one of national and
international accountability.
(2002: 102)
Yet, legal agreement on the norm of human rights is not the same as consensus on what
represents a violation of such rules. The intervention in Kosovo, and particularly Russia’s
tabled UN resolution demanding a cessation of such actions, is a prime example of this
(Williams and Bellamy, 2005). More recently, the Security Council failed to adopt sanctions
against the leadership of Zimbabwe in response to an “illegitimate election” due to the vetoes
of Libya, South Africa, Vietnam and more importantly, permanent members Russia and
China (R2P Engaging Civil Society, 2008: n.p.; UN Security Council, 2008). Thus, it is
difficult to conceive that “humanitarian protection is emerging as a guiding principle for the
international community” if no consensus can be reached on who needs protection (Feinstein
and Slaughter, 2004: 149). Therefore, despite movement towards the universality of human
rights, in the absence of international consensus regarding what constitutes a violation of such
liberties, sovereignty as responsibility becomes worthless.
1.3 Conclusion
When viewed from the perspective of the threat to human life posed by sovereign
governments, the aims of the sovereignty as responsibility paper can be defended as noble.
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Yet, this redefinition of sovereignty is based upon flawed assumptions, thereby arousing
questions about whether sovereignty as responsibility can be anything more than mere
aspiration.
The case for the necessity to redefine sovereignty is fatally damaged with
reference to the findings that historically, sovereignty has not been the primary factor
preventing more effective intervention in humanitarian emergencies. Similarly, advocates of
sovereignty as responsibility further underestimate the importance of national interest in
arguing that it can be reconciled with the collective interest in today’s interdependent world.
Finally, the paper is deficient since it is based upon the erroneous conception of the
international community as a cohesive body grounded in common values.
Therefore,
considering the flawed nature of the paper, it is difficult to contemplate that such a
redefinition will help to improve the reaction of the international community to humanitarian
crises in the future. The situation in Darfur and the “woefully inadequate international
response to it” unfortunately seems to prove such a hypopaper (Mepham and Ramsbotham,
2006: 1). It is therefore important to assess whether such theoretical constraints bear the
primary responsibility for this or if additional practical factors form the main explanation for
the lacking implementation of sovereignty as responsibility in Darfur.
Practical application of sovereignty as responsibility in Darfur
A summary of the response to the situation in Darfur exposes significant political constraints
on the ability of the international community to assume its responsibilities to the victims of
the crisis.
These stem from the theoretical miscalculations behind the redefinition of
sovereignty discovered in Chapter 1, and include a lack of political will for action, national
interest concerns and a divided international community. Additionally, the Darfur case
exposes a further practical restriction on the application of sovereignty as responsibility in
that the paper is oversimplified and therefore has limited answers for the complex situation in
Sudan today.
2.1 The case of Darfur: Sovereignty as Responsibility?
Grono implies the suitability of the Darfur case to the sovereignty as responsibility
framework arguing that,
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Khartoum has the primary responsibility to protect its own citizens against
atrocities. But it has wilfully and fragrantly flouted this responsibility. It has
been the prime mover behind the campaign of ethnic cleansing…
(2006: 624-625)
Indeed, despite the claims of the Sudanese representative on the UN Security Council that
“my Government tried to address the rebellion [in 2003] through serious national dialogue” it
is clear that Khartoum responded to the insurgency not by political means but by launching a
violent operation against the indigenous African tribes of Darfur (UN Security Council, 2004;
UN, 2005). Castillo testifies of the government’s complicity in the crisis asserting that in
most attacks against civilians, the Janjaweed- armed by the government- only inflicted their
brutality upon villages after the national air force had launched primitive free falling cluster
bombs which “were unsuited for military targets, and had the only purpose of causing high
destruction among civilians” (2007: 174). One eyewitness describes such an attack on the
village of Bardi in 2003, recounting that,
First they [the government] dropped bombs from a plane, then the soldiers
[Janjaweed] came… They killed 200 in a few hours, including many children.
Then they raped the girls who were left.
(Jleape cited by Wilson, 2006: 11)
This formula for brutality is now estimated to have destroyed 2000 villages, killed
approximately 300,000 people and displaced a further 2.7 million from their homes since
2003 (Flint and de Waal, 2008; Economist, 2009a).
Civilians that fled from their villages to camps for the internally displaced continue to be at
risk from further violence.
According to the UN International Commission Inquiry on
Darfur,
…displaced civilians living under Government control in these areas [North
and West Darfur] remain virtual prisoners—confined to camps and
settlements… at constant risk of further attacks, rape and looting of their
remaining possessions.
(UN, 2005: 56)
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Farrow and Reeves confirm these findings, describing a recent attack in the Kalma camp
which is home to 90,000 displaced Darfurians.
At 6 a.m….,[the camp] was surrounded by Sudanese government forces… By
9 a.m., the worst of the brutal assault was over. The vehicles rolled out leaving
scores dead and over 100 wounded. Most were women and children.
(2008: A9)
While the Sudanese government has described such accounts as "irrelevant, unfortunate and
unconfirmed", the sheer number of victim testimonies collected by leading NGOs, journalists
and the UN, clearly expose a human crisis in which the government bears significant
responsibility for the loss of innocent life (Mohamed cited by BBC, 2007: n.p.). As Dellaire
contends, the events that have unfolded in Darfur represent “Rwanda in slow motion”
(Dellaire, cited by Hari, 2005: 31).
Additionally, the government has further betrayed the civilians of Darfur by interfering with
the delivery of essential humanitarian assistance. These tactics include confiscating food aid
and confronting relief workers with an excess of false bureaucratic entanglements for the
purpose of delay (Daly, 2007). As Kristof argues, “Now Mr. Bashir [the President of Sudan]
is preparing to kill people en masse, not with machetes but by withholding the aid that keeps
them alive” (2009a: 11). As recently as March 4, 2009, thirteen humanitarian agencies were
expelled from Darfur by the government.
Such actions, which under international law
qualify as crimes against humanity, have often proved to be fatal considering the 4.7 million
Darfurians reliant on aid to survive (Rice, 2009). Therefore, it is evident that the government
of Sudan has not “effectively discharged its responsibilities for good governance”, and thus
under sovereignty as responsibility, it would be legitimate for the international community to
disregard absolute versions of sovereignty and assume a responsibility to react and protect
civilians in the area (Deng et al, 1996: 1; Williams and Bellamy, 2005).
Yet, the response of the international community to the crisis in Darfur is defined not by a
responsibility to protect oppressed civilians from the actions of their government, but instead
by a series of weak actions and loyalty to the sovereignty of the political elite in Khartoum.
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Initially, the international community surrendered its responsibilities for the people of Darfur
to the AU, an organisation described by Terrie as boasting “all the political weaknesses of the
UN but without its access to resources” (2006: 29). Despite the deployment of the African
Mission in Sudan (AMIS) in 2004, the humanitarian situation continued to deteriorate,
primarily due to the mission’s deficient mandate and inadequate resources (Daly, 2007).
While the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs testified that in Darfur
“there is one overriding problem that needs to be resolved- that of armed militias [the
Janjaweed]”, AMIS’s mandate did not involve disarming the Janjaweed or even providing
protection for innocent victims of violence (Scott cited by Reeves, 2005: n.p.; Baldo, 2006).
Instead the force was furnished with Chapter VI status- in which peacekeepers are not
allowed to use force- with the sole purpose of monitoring the implementation of the
N’Djamena Ceasefire Agreement (Power, 2004; Grono, 2006). As such, Reeves argues that,
The pretence (sic) that the AU- without a mandate for civilian protection…- is
capable of providing security in Darfur represents an increasingly deadly
complicity in ongoing genocidal destruction.
(2005: n.p.)
The failings of AMIS have been exposed repeatedly by horrific stories that have emerged
from the conflict. Hari reported in 2005 that,
…a refugee camp supposedly guarded by AU troops was entered by
Janjaweed militiamen who butchered 37 people without a single shot being
fired against them. It was Darfur's mini-Srebrenica, a moment that exposed
the futility of the world's interventions so far.
(2005: 31)
Similarly, in 2006 a Masalit woman testified that "When girls are raped in the neighbourhood
of the camp, the AU's only action is to bring the girl back to the camp” (Amnesty
International USA, 2006: n.p.). Even the acting AMIS force commander admitted, “We’re
unable to protect people… we [have] become targets” (Kamanzi cited by Nordland, 2007:
n.p). To be sure, such failings are not informed by lack of effort of the soldiers themselves
but the fatal limitations of their constrictive mandate and small size of 7000 troops, which
translated to one soldier for every twenty-eight square miles (Polgreen, 2006). It is therefore
evident that the role of AMIS does not represent the implementation of sovereignty as
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responsibility for those civilians at risk in Darfur. Instead the mission simply succeeded in
providing “a convenient façade behind which Western powers could wash their hands of
committing their own soldiers to Darfur” (Williams and Bellamy, 2005: 35).
The response of the wider international community fares little better under the scrutiny of the
sovereignty as responsibility framework, much to the detriment of the victims of the crisis in
Darfur. As Kristof argues,
The fact that Sudan’s state-sponsored slaughter of civilians goes on, year after
year, in and out of Darfur, is a monument to the fecklessness of the
international community.
(2009b: 27)
The Security Council has undertaken no less than six opportunities to disarm the Janjaweed.
Yet on all occasions the Council placed responsibility to do so with Khartoum despite
widespread reports that it was the government itself that had “mobilised, armed and directed”
the Arab militias (Grono, 2006; de Waal, 2004: 20).
It is therefore unsurprising that
observance of the resolutions has been limited and that the Janjaweed continue to inflict
brutality on innocent civilians almost five years after the first resolution was passed calling
for their disarmament (Belloni, 2007). In this light, Amnesty International testifies that
Resolution 1556 [July 2004], which called on the Sudanese government to disarm the
Janjaweed, represented, “the abandonment of the people of Darfur” and therefore certainly
does not represent the responsibility of the international community for such citizens
(Aaronavitch, 2004: 25). This situation has been compounded further by the failure of the
UN to monitor implementation of any resolutions passed, “let alone take action against
Khartoum for failing to act” (de Waal, 2007: 1041). Revealingly, Ali Karti, the Sudanese
state minister for foreign affairs, boasted in 2009 that Khartoum has managed to ignore all
Security Council resolutions with few consequences asserting that “they amounted to nothing
but ink on paper” (Karti cited by Sudan Tribune, 2009: n.p.). Resolution 1591 [March 2005]
is a prime example of this. The resolution imposed an arms embargo on all parties to the
conflict (Reeves, 2007a). Yet, the 2007 report of the UN High-Level Mission on the situation
of human rights in Darfur confirmed Khartoum’s continued violation of the resolution
reporting that,
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…the provision of arms by the Government to the Janjaweed and other
militias… [is] one of the most significant factors in fostering tensions and
violence between tribal groups and communities.
(UN Human Rights Council, 2007: 18)
The government of Sudan has faced no repercussions for this obvious disregard of Security
Council authority, clearly exposing the unwillingness of the international community to take
serious action to fully address the crisis.
Even in replacing the ineffective AU force, the international community failed to adhere to
the aspirations of sovereignty as responsibility. In 2006, the UN insisted that a peacekeeping
force of 20,000 was imperative to secure civilian protection in Darfur (Terrie, 2006). Yet
instead of assuming responsibility for implementing such a policy in the interest of Darfurian
citizens, the Security Council ensured deployment of the force was contingent on
Khartoum’s approval, with Kofi Annan stating bluntly that “without the consent of the
Sudanese government, we are not going to be able to put in the troops” (Annan, 2006: n.p.).
As such, the UN was cuckolded by President al-Bashir’s inevitable swift rejection of
Resolution 1706 [August 2006] which invited his consent to a UN peacekeeping mission. It
took a further eight months of deliberation- during which countless individuals died- for the
Security Council to finally obtain the consent of the government for a hybrid UN-AU force
(de Waal, 2007). Thus, it is clear that the government of Sudan, and not the international
community, has framed the debate regarding the protection of Darfurian civilians. This is the
exact antipaper to the sovereignty as responsibility paper and a strategy that has ensured
extended suffering for civilians. It therefore remains imperative to assess why the paper of
sovereignty as responsibility has not been executed in Darfur.
2.2 Lacking political will
The international community failed to assume its responsibilities to the people of Darfur not
because of concerns over sovereignty, but because of their larger interest in securing a peace
agreement in Southern Sudan.
While the crisis in Darfur escalated, the international
community was already engaged in negotiations with the Sudanese government to end their
long-running hostilities with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in the south of the
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country (de Waal, 2007). However, despite strong protestations about human rights abuses in
Darfur, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s September 2004 declaration that
“genocide has been committed in Darfur and that the Government of Sudan and the Jingaweit
bear responsibility”, the international community continued to negotiate with Khartoum “as if
nothing unusual were happening elsewhere in Sudan” (Powell, 2004: n.p.; Power, 2004: n.p.).
Thus, the international community favoured an inconsistent strategy in which the Sudanese
government was condemned for atrocities in Darfur, yet considered a partner for peace in the
South (Lake and Prendergast, 2004). Powell even went as far as contending that Darfur
should not be included in the talks since “we don’t want to put so much on the Sudanese
government that cause internal problems that might make the situation worse”, thereby
clearly exposing the reluctance of Western leaders to act on their rhetoric for fear of
destabilising the peace negotiations (Powell cited by Williams and Bellamy, 2005: 38). Yet,
the interpretation of the situation as a choice between the victims of civil war in the South, or
those suffering from atrocities in Darfur, was flawed. There was already de facto peace in the
South and thus it is unlikely that acting on Darfur, either by inserting it into the peace process
or through other means, would have led to further instability in southern Sudan (Kapila,
2006). Instead, the dedication of the international community to the North-South peace
process- and not to early intervention in Darfur which could have moderated the escalation of
the conflict- simply emboldened the Sudanese government and allowed it to redeploy its
stretched military from the South in order to oppress the people of Darfur (House of
Commons, 2005; Kapila, 2006). As a House of Commons report argues,
If Darfur had not been sidelined, there is no doubt that events would have turned
out differently…prioritising the CPA [Comprehensive Peace Agreement] ran
counter to the needs of the people of Darfur for protection, security and
humanitarian assistance.
(2005: 37-8)
Indeed, by the time the CPA was signed between the government and the SPLA in January
2005, conservative estimates calculate that in Darfur 120,000 people had already died,
hundreds of innocent civilians had fled attacks to neighbouring Chad and a further million
people had been internally displaced in Sudan (CRED, 2005; Power, 2004). Thus, the
political will of the international community to conclude the North-South peace talks, and not
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address the rapidly unfolding crisis in Darfur, acted to increase the suffering of Darfurians
and condemn the implementation of sovereignty as responsibility to the very bottom of
Western leader’s agendas. As Flint argues “the North-South peace agreement… was built, in
part, on the dead bodies of Darfurians” (2006: n.p.).
The legacy of Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan further drained European and
American political will for action. While the crisis in Darfur escalated under the inadequate
watch of AMIS, the UK and US were heavily committed in Iraq and most European nations
had troops committed in Afghanistan. Consequently, there remained few countries willing to
pledge the troops that were necessary to contain the violence in Darfur, thereby significantly
limiting the political choices available in order to enact sovereignty as responsibility
(Holslag, 2008; Tepperman, 2008). America in particular was already struggling to recruit
enough soldiers to confront its war effort in Iraq and thus despite being “generous with
words, and more than ready to condemn human rights violations in very strong terms”, was
unwilling to direct forces away from Iraq to Darfur (Totten, 2006; Flint and de Waal, 2008:
182). Furthermore, aside from merely a question about troop numbers, the war in Iraq
created an ‘Iraq syndrome’ similar to the ‘Vietnam syndrome’ of the past whereby the US
were reluctant to once again lead the world in an intervention which may have ended in chaos
and a further demise in domestic public opinion (Washington Post, 2004; Weisfeld, 2009).
As Tepperman comments,
There was a time when the United States might have stepped in- America
launched multiple humanitarian interventions in the 1990s- but its ardour for
such missions seems to have been extinguished by Iraq.
(2008: 23)
This lacking political will for action is not only exposed by the willingness to devolve to the
AU to provide protection in Darfur but also by the US State Department announcement in
September 2004 that genocide was occurring in Darfur but that such a finding would have no
impact on US policy (Washington Post, 2004: n.p.; de Waal, 2007).
Not only is this
declaration in direct conflict with the aspirations of sovereignty as responsibility, but it also
undermines George W. Bush’s famous words of ‘Not on my watch’, scribbled in the margins
of a 2001 briefing note detailing American failings in Rwanda (Feinstein, 2007). Hence, the
North-South peace process and the aftermath of Iraq informed the West’s lacking political
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will to robustly intervene in Darfur. As Daly comments, “in this agenda, Darfur was ‘other
business’ seldom reached” (2007: 297-298).
2.3 National interest concerns
Compounding further the lacking political will for action, national interest concerns form a
major part of the explanation for the international community refusing to assume its
responsibilities to the people of Darfur. Human Rights First single out China in particular for
placing “its economic development and energy needs over its human rights responsibilities”,
and it is clear that the country has spectacularly obstructed the international response to the
Darfur crisis (Human Rights First, 2008a: n.p.). In 2006 Sudan was China’s forth largest oil
source and the China National Petroleum Corporation is the main shareholder in Sudan’s
National Oil Company (Engdahl, 2007; Holslag, 2008).
As a result of this reciprocal
relationship, Chinese representatives on the Security Council have sought to protect their
economic interests by avoiding antagonism of the Sudanese government. For instance, China
threatened to veto Security Council resolution 1556- the first serious response to the crisisunless all references to sanctions against Khartoum were removed, thereby releasing the
Sudanese government from any form of cost associated with lacking implementation of the
resolution. Similarly, China in partnership with Russia succeeded in reducing the list of
seventeen names of individuals proposed for sanctions down to four in April 2006 and
refused to let resolution 1706, calling for a UN peacekeeping force, pass without inserting the
requirement of Khartoum’s consent, leading to the failure to implement the resolution
(Holslag, 2008).
Furthermore, aside from the detrimental effects that China’s consistent weakening of Security
Council resolutions has had upon the situation, the country bears a far more direct role in the
continuation of the crisis by part-funding the violence. As Sterling states, “Genocide is
expensive. The Sudanese government relies heavily on foreign investment to fund its military
and the janjaweed militias” (cited by Kristof, 2007: n.p.).
Accordingly, the Sudanese
government has been financially propped up by Chinese economic investments, leading
Weisfeld to argue that “China has literally funded the genocide in Darfur” (Weisfeld, 2009:
n.p.). Not only is China Sudan’s largest oil customer but President Hu Jintao has granted
millions of dollars to the country in aid as well as forgiving part of Sudan’s due debts, with
the Chinese Foreign Minister specifically confirming that “our assistance is free of any
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political pressure” (Daly, 2007; Holslag, 2008; Zhaoxing cited by Reeves, 2007b: n.p.). Even
more damaging perhaps is China’s provision of cheap military equipment to Khartoum.
Between 2004 and 2006, China supplied approximately ninety percent of arms sales to
Sudan, in direct defiance of Resolution 1591 [2005] prohibiting weapons transfers to Darfur
(Human Rights First, 2008a). Thus, it is evident that due to their economic interests in
Sudan, China has acted as a severe constraint on the implementation of sovereignty as
responsibility in Darfur.
As an editorial in the Washington Post comments, “Sudan's
government feels it can ignore Western revulsion at genocide because it has no need of
Western money” (Washington Post, 2006: A30).
Yet, Steele offers an alternative viewpoint of China’s role in the crisis maintaining that China
has helped pass the Security Council resolution to set up the hybrid UN-AU force, has
contributed engineers to the force and thus, “what more can it [China] realistically do?”
(Steele, 2008: n.p). Such a position is bolstered by the view that China’s stance on Darfur
has evolved since it first blocked sanctions in 2004 to the extent that the country appointed a
Special Envoy to Darfur who contributed significantly to persuading the Sudanese
government to eventually consent to the hybrid force (Holslag, 2008).
However, such
arguments are misguided and ignore the fact that, in direct contrast to Steele’s view, China
could have done so much more. As Human Rights First report,
As China pushed Khartoum on the peacekeeping force last year, it signed a
$1.2 billion deal to build rail links between Khartoum and Port Sudan, forgave
$80 million in Sudanese debt and turned over a $12.9 million loan for the
presidential palace…All those steps hardly reflect a China pressuring its ally.
(Human Rights First, 2008b: iv)
Furthermore, the Chinese government continues to oppose an arms embargo in the region and
was instrumental in weakening the mandate of the UN-AU peacekeepers it helped to
establish, “thus paralyzing the ‘hybrid’ UN/AU force in any number of readily imaginable
circumstances” (Reeves, 2007a: n.p.).
Therefore, it is evident that Chinese economic
interests in Sudan have significantly limited the ability of the international community to
respond to the Darfur crisis in the interests of the civilian population.
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However, while the actions of China have had a devastating impact upon the ability to protect
the victims of Darfur, it would be wrong to suggest that their commercial interests bear the
sole responsibility for the inability of the international community to act in the collective
interest. Instead, the Darfur case exposes the clash within the Washington psyche between
aspirations of human security and the reality of Realpolitik, which emerged as the victor. In
the wake of 9/11, the American response to Darfur was muted by its self-interested actions in
the ‘War on Terrorism’ (Chandler, 2004). George Bush declared in 2001 that, “every nation,
in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the
terrorists” (Bush cited by Duffield, 2005: 11). Yet, in splitting the world into this simple
dichotomy, Washington succeeded in ushering in an agenda in which concerns for human
security would be overridden if states that violated human rights signed up to Bush’s selfinterested agenda. As Lobe articulates,
Virtually overnight, a country's performance on human rights…has been
kicked down at least one step on the ladder of US policy priorities to make
way for the new anti-terrorist agenda.
(2001: n.p.)
This has been demonstrated in Washington’s dealings with the Sudanese government. While
before 9/11 the US government condemned Sudan in strong terms for its actions in the South,
the cooperation of Khartoum with the CIA post-2001 effectively secured its place as a
strategic interest to Washington.
According to the 2006 State Department report on
terrorism,
The Sudanese government was a strong partner in the War on Terror and
aggressively pursued terrorist operations directly involving threats to U.S.
interests and personnel in Sudan.
(U.S. Department of State, 2007: n.p.)
As such, Washington has been reluctant to sacrifice this relationship by antagonising the
Sudanese government for the sake of Darfurian civilians (Williams and Bellamy, 2005). For
instance, even after Colin Powell described events in Darfur as genocide in 2004, a year later
the government flew the Sudanese chief of intelligence, Salah Gosh, to America on a private
plane for an intelligence meeting with the CIA despite being “one of the architects of the
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Darfur atrocities” (Clark and Prendergast, 2006, Grono, 2006: 628).
Similarly, Bush
succeeded in undermining Congressional measures to encourage divestment from Sudan by
reserving the right to overrule the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act [2008]
(Robinson, 2008). Such actions do not reflect the pursuit of human security but instead the
prioritisation of “the security of ‘homeland’ populations and infrastructures” (Duffield, 2005:
16). Thus, despite US rhetoric in favour of action in Darfur, it is apparent that “the war on
terror might trump human rights concerns” (Belloni, 2007: 339). Hence, weak resolutions in
the Security Council against the government of Sudan can be explained as a function of
members’ acting in the national, and not collective, interest, thereby severely constraining the
ability to execute sovereignty as responsibility.
2.4 Divided international community
Predictably, the government of Sudan does not contend that it has violated the human rights
of its citizens in Darfur and equally, neither does a large part of the Sudanese population, as
demonstrated by the thousands of government supporters that took to the streets in March
2009 chanting “we love you President Bashir” (BBC, 2009: n.p.). Yet, more harmful to the
application of sovereignty as responsibility is that Khartoum’s position has been bolstered by
the actions of China, as has already been noted, and the League of Arab Nations (Daly,
2007). Despite the Arab world ratifying R2P at the UN General Assembly, and their hard
work in responding to ethnic cleansing in Bosnia in the 1990s, on the Darfur issue the Arab
League has consistently supported the government of Sudan and denied its responsibilities for
war crimes, thus limiting the pressure on Khartoum to resolve the crisis (Castillo, 2007;
Terrie, 2006).
For instance, at the UN General Assembly in September 2006, the
representative of Qatar called on the international community to support “fraternal Sudan”
and during Algeria’s time on the Security Council, it even opposed the establishment of the
UN International Commission of Inquiry into the situation in Darfur (Hasbani, 2007).
This
is particularly damaging to the application of sovereignty as responsibility in light of Grono’s
assertion that “Khartoum, despite its blustering, has a history of responding to international
pressure- but only if it is unified and sustained” (2006: 630).
Yet, if there had been sufficient political will in the West, it is likely that the opposition of the
Arab League to action could have been overcome. With the exception of the Australian-led
intervention in East Timor, all of the humanitarian interventions of the 1990s were led by
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coalitions from the Western world. For instance, the US led the international community to
intervene in Somalia and Haiti, and NATO provided the impetus for a further two actions in
Bosnia and Kosovo (Coicaud, 2007). Thus, it is comprehensible that political will allowing,
a Western coalition could again have provided the momentum for action on the ground in
Darfur without the support of the Arab world. Furthermore, the ICC has succeeded in
presenting al-Bashir with an arrest warrant despite widespread opposition from Arab states
including the statement by the Gulf Cooperation Council which “expressed solidarity with
Sudan and rejected the ‘unbalanced’ position of the ICC prosecutor” (Sudan Tribune, 2008).
Thus, lacking consensus within the international community regarding the crimes committed
by the Khartoum regime is not insurmountable, though the support of the League of Arab
Nations would have made it easier to implement sovereignty as responsibility.
2.5 Complexity of situation
The flawed theoretical assumptions upon which sovereignty as responsibility is based have
translated into practical limitations in applying the paper to the crisis in Darfur. However, a
further constraint that has been left relatively unexplored, especially within activist literature,
is that “Darfur has become a chaotic free-for-all with many warring pieces…”, thereby
suggesting the unsuitability of the sovereignty as responsibility framework which places the
primary focus on the nation state for the suffering of innocent civilians (Gettleman, 2007: 5).
In Darfur, the two main rebel groups- whose 2003 attacks on government targets triggered
the brutal response from Khartoum- have become increasingly fragmented and violent, and
therefore must also bear some responsibility for civilian torment. As such, the events of
Darfur can no longer be framed as a simple dichotomy between the ‘evil’ persecuting
government and the ‘good’ Darfurian citizens for whom intervention is necessary to save
(Flint and de Waal, 2008). This is evident from the indictment of three rebel commanders by
the ICC prosecutor for instigating “one of the bloodiest [attacks] against peacekeepers since
the conflict erupted in 2003”, killing twelve in 2007 (Boustany, 2008: A17). Similarly, in
2006 the head of AMIS blamed increasing violence not on Khartoum but on the main rebel
movement saying it had “targeted both government forces and civilians in attacks that
resulted in reprisals by Janjaweed militia” (Kingibe cited by BBC, 2006: n.p.). In this light,
de Waal articulates the crisis not as ethnic cleansing or crimes against humanity but as “a
war- a horrible war, but first and foremost, it is a war” (2008: n.p.).
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Yet, it is incorrect to absolve Khartoum of its responsibility in the conflict simply on the back
of increased rebel violence. The government and its militias remain committed to a policy of
violence against civilians, with recent estimates exposing that the Sudanese government
together with the Janjaweed were responsible for 79% of the civilian deaths from direct
violence reported between January and September 2008 (de Waal, 2008; Save Darfur, 2008;
Genocide Intervention Network, 2009). Similarly, the government has persisted in blocking
humanitarian assistance and therefore continues to flout its responsibilities to the people of
Darfur. Thus, while the sovereignty as responsibility framework can be interpreted as being
overly simplistic and one-dimensional, it is not entirely redundant to the situation in Darfur.
Furthermore, had the international community overcome its lacking political will and geopolitical concerns sooner, the responsibility framework would have been more appropriate.
As Lefkow testifies, “there was definitely a lost opportunity for a robust intervention in 2004,
when the situation was clearer in terms of the number and nature of the armed groups”
(Lefkow cited by Gettleman, 2007: 5). Thus, lacking political will and geo-political concerns
remain the major factors for the lacking implementation of sovereignty as responsibility in
Darfur.
2.6 Conclusion
The theoretical assessment in Chapter 1 established that historically, sovereignty has not
been the overriding factor in preventing intervention in humanitarian crises and the Darfur
case provides further empirical evidence that this inference is correct. As the Responsibility
to Protect-Engaging Civil Society project outlines,
…world leaders with the power to stop the atrocities [in Darfur] continue to
deliberate and execute weak plans of action, due to conflicting political interests
or a lack of political will.
(R2P Engaging Civil Society, n.d.)
In accordance with the conclusions in Chapter 1, deficient political will and national interest
concerns within the international community form the primary explanations for the lacking
implementation of sovereignty as responsibility in Darfur. Lack of political will ensured the
initial response of the international community to the atrocities committed by the government
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was largely muted due to the over-reliance on the inept AU force. Such lack of resolve was
informed by concentration on the North-South peace process and the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. This situation was compounded by national interest concerns. In protecting its
economic interests, China had a major role in indirectly funding the violence and blocking
robust resolutions in the Security Council which served to seriously delay the response of the
international community to the crisis.
However, the other permanent members of the
Security Council must share some of the blame for not implementing sovereignty as
responsibility since they did not punish China’s stance due to their own geo-political
concerns, including America’s self-interested security agenda in the war on terror.
Additional more limited constraints on the application of the paper arise from the lacking
consensus within the international community, particularly the support of the League of Arab
Nations that has helped relieve pressure from the Sudanese government, and the complexity
of the situation on the ground. Thus, the lacking international response to the crisis in Darfur
has exposed the significant practical constraints that face the effective application of the
sovereignty as responsibility paper. However, the involvement of the ICC in seeking justice
for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Darfur has been lauded as an alternative
implementation of the sovereignty as responsibility paper. It is therefore important to assess
whether the ICC can revive the redefinition of sovereignty from the depths of mere
aspirational rhetoric into a viable concept in modern international relations.
The International Criminal Court and Darfur
The international community has eluded its responsibility to protect the people of Darfur, due
to a combination of theoretical and practical constraints upon the application of the
sovereignty as responsibility paper. Yet, as Ban Ki-Moon argues “almost invariably, we
discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand” (Ki-Moon, 2007: n.p.).
Alternatively, the redefinition of sovereignty can be broadened to confer responsibilities for
justice upon nation states. While some critics contend that the ICC prosecution in Darfur will
exacerbate violence in the region and is therefore not in the interest of the victims of the
crisis, such arguments are flawed. Instead, the scope of the ICC to execute responsibility for
justice for the atrocities in Darfur has been fatally undermined by the recurring practical
constraints of lacking political will and a deficient consensus within the international
community.
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3.1 The ICC: A blow to peace and security in Darfur?
The principles inherent in the International Criminal Court [ICC] can be interpreted to
embody the sovereignty as responsibility paper for two main reasons. Firstly, the Rome
Treaty establishing the ICC mirrors the language of sovereignty as responsibility in
articulating that the international court has a duty to breach sovereignty and take on the
responsibility for prosecuting those guilty of committing atrocity crimes when a sovereign
nation proves unwilling or unable to do so (Castillo, 2007; Prendergast and Rogoff, 2008).
Secondly, and more controversially, proponents of international justice have argued that the
ICC mandate, like sovereignty as responsibility, is framed in the interests of the victims of
atrocity crimes. This derives from arguments that ending impunity for violations of human
rights can bring peace, thus justifying a breach of sovereignty (Prendergast, 2009). Under the
first element, the Darfur case does appear to fulfil sovereignty as responsibility for justice.
Khartoum has failed to bring to justice any people responsible for the atrocities of Darfur and
as such the 2005 referral by the Security Council of the situation to the ICC is fulfilment of
the Rome Treaty. As Human Rights Watch argues “the ICC represents the best hope for
justice for the victims of Darfur” (Human Rights Watch, 2009b: n.p.). Furthermore, the case
represents the first time the ICC has exercised jurisdiction over a government that
emphatically rejects its authority- a clear violation of Sudanese sovereignty (Castillo, 2007).
Yet, the second factor, that international justice can bring peace, remains more controversial
and largely a hypothetical debate due to the recent timeframe of events. In seeking to assess
sovereignty as responsibility for justice in Darfur, it is therefore important to consider
whether the ICC intervention is in fact in the interest of the victims of the Darfur crisis, and
thus in line with the redefinition of sovereignty.
Kofi Annan contends that the ICC represents “…a gift of hope to future generations, and a
giant step forward in the march towards universal human rights and the rule of law” (1998:
n.p.). However, critics such as de Waal and Flint have argued that the ICC investigation has
in fact directly led to a worsening of the security and humanitarian situation in Darfur and
represents “a blow to peace in Sudan” (Economist, 2009a: n.p.). Such an interpretation
thereby damages the case that breaching sovereignty is necessary in order to uphold human
rights standards through justice mechanisms. To be sure, there are examples of increased
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violence in Darfur in the wake of ICC action. For instance, following the request for arrest
warrants against three rebel commanders in November 2008, the UN-AU peacekeeping force
has already come under attack from local rebels, thereby threatening the protection of the
civilians the force is mandated to watch over (Economist, 2009b). Similarly, the expulsion of
thirteen aid agencies in reaction to the 4th March 2009 issue of an arrest warrant for President
al-Bashir has been interpreted as demonstrating the danger to human lives that the ICC
investigation has courted. Flint and de Waal place the blame for this most recent suffering of
Darfurians directly with the ICC, arguing that “it was the ICC prosecutor who set the match
to the dry tinder that is Sudan” (2009: n.p.). However, this argument is misplaced. As
Human Rights Watch recognise,
…it is the Sudanese government, not the International Criminal Court, that is
creating catastrophic consequences for the people of Darfur by ousting
humanitarian assistance.
(Human Rights Watch, 2009a: n.p.)
To blame the ICC for such actions absolves the Sudanese government of their responsibility
for what is, under international law, a crime against humanity and adds to the culture of
impunity that has allowed the crisis in Darfur to continue for six years (Human Rights Watch,
2009b). In arguing against international justice mechanisms, de Waal instead proposes that
seeking peace is the most viable option for solving the Darfur crisis, yet the signing of the
Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006 also led to increased violence in the region (de Waal, 2009).
Thus, it is not the process for seeking accountability for atrocity crimes that should itself be
blamed for violence, but the perpetrator, and the ICC represents a vital tool for this. Hence,
since the ICC cannot be held directly responsible for increasing instability in the region,
breaching sovereignty can be considered acceptable in order to provide justice in a situation
where the state has proved unwilling to do so.
A further argument that seeks to undermine the proposition that the ICC has a duty to
intervene in Darfur centres on the supposed mutually exclusive nature of peace and justice.
As Flint and de Waal argue, “the overzealous pursuit of Omar al-Bashir could ruin years of
diplomatic progress. The human cost will be massive” (2009: n.p.). Castillo builds on this
contention questioning how the UN can be a neutral implementer of the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement in the South while charging one of the parties with crimes against humanity
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(2007). Yet, at the time of issuing the arrest warrant for al-Bashir, there were in fact no peace
talks underway for Darfur and those that have taken place in the past have been continually
undermined by the relentless insolence of the Sudanese government. As Loyd contends,
If the UN is taken as rather a joke by Sudan it has only itself to blame. Sudan
has flouted just about every UN resolution on Darfur with total impunity.
(2009: 26)
Furthermore, Khartoum’s record for implementing key provisions of the CPA is no better,
thus undermining the argument that the ICC indictment puts the implementation of the peace
deal at risk (Flintoft and Grono, 2009). Hence, since the capacity for finding peace through
the UN Security Council and other diplomatic means has proven to be inadequate, it seems
unlikely that due to the ICC the “Sudanese people are already paying a high price for the
abandonment of the diplomatic approach” as argued by Flint and de Waal (2009). Thus,
justice does not necessarily come at the expense of peace.
Furthermore, the ICC may in fact prove to be an effective tool for reaching a solution to the
crisis and therefore in the long term provide the best option for the protection of Darfurians.
As Prendergast and Rogoff argue, “the real missing responsibility to protect ingredient in
Darfur has been accountability” (2008: 4). While it is too soon to judge whether the ICC
investigation can help to advance peace in Darfur, international justice does boast powerful
tools that could encourage peace. These include the ability to delegitimise brutal regimes,
retribution for victims and providing a carrot and stick mechanism to impose costs for
committing atrocity crimes and obstructing peace mechanisms. In this instance, where the
‘stick’ is prosecution for crimes, the ‘carrot’ is the possibility of a twelve month deferral of
ICC proceedings granted by the UN Security Council in response to positive attempts by the
Sudanese government to make efforts towards peace and the cessation of obstructing
humanitarian assistance (Flintoft and Grono, 2009). In a situation where only three officials
have ever been sanctioned by the UN for their role in the conflict that has now lasted longer
than World War II, and considering Khartoum’s record for obstructing the implementation of
Security Council resolutions without punishment, such accountability has the capacity to be a
potent means for the advancement of peace (Prendergast and Rogoff, 2008). Hence, the ICC
investigation into Sudan can be considered to be in the interest of the victims of Darfur, and
POLIS Student Journal Vol.1 (1)
thus under sovereignty as responsibility the ICC should have a duty to intervene and provide
justice for the crimes committed.
3.2 Practical constraints
Yet, while the ICC intervention has the potential to aid the victims of Darfur in gaining
justice and encouraging peace, its capacity to do so has been fatally undermined by the
actions of the international community which have yet again proved to be a significant
practical constraint on the implementation of this variant brand of sovereignty as
responsibility. The lacking political will for any decisive action on Darfur in the Security
Council, as demonstrated in Chapter 2, has acted to undermine the ICC from the start of its
investigation. Security Council resolution 1593 [March 2005], which referred the Darfur
crisis to the ICC, set the precedent for this lacking cooperation. Since the ICC does not enjoy
any formal enforcement mechanisms, the success of the international justice body relies on
the cooperation of international actors, which is only guaranteed among the 108 signatories of
the Rome Treaty (Donovan, 2009). However, resolution 1593 explicitly states that only the
government of Sudan and others party to the conflict are internationally obligated to
cooperate with the court (Condorelli and Ciampi, 2005). Thus, resolution 1593 paved the
way for the deficient cooperation among non-ICC members that has served to shatter the
credibility of the court, leading to the continuation of al-Bashir’s defiance of international
action and consequently the sustained suffering of Darfurians. This has been most obvious in
the aftermath of the March 2009 issue of an arrest warrant for al-Bashir which the President
has violated spectacularly by visiting five countries, all non-signatories of the Rome Treaty,
and all of which have refused to arrest him (Loyd, 2009). The Arab League went further than
simple non-cooperation by reiterating their “solidarity with Sudan and our rejection of the
measure of the… International Criminal Court against his Excellency” (Charter, 2009: 35,
emphasis added). This is particularly damaging in light of Flintoft and Grono’s recognition
that for ICC investigations to have a positive impact “it is absolutely essential that the threat
of prosecution is of sufficient credibility to influence the calculations of the warring parties”
(2009:18). Thus, the contradiction in referring the situation to the ICC but including a clause
that has seriously wounded the credibility of the court and limited its capacity is “nothing but
one sign of the overall scant coherency of Resolution 1593” and a further demonstration of
POLIS Student Journal Vol.1 (1)
the international community’s lacking political will to effectively deal with the Darfur crisis
in the interest of its victims (Condorelli and Ciampi, 2005: 593).
Furthermore, the pursuit for justice by the ICC has split the international community more so
than other forms of political intervention including Security Council resolutions or even the
deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur. While the AU led the initial response to the Darfur
crisis, the President of the AU described the ICC investigation in Darfur as “a new world
terror” (Gaddafi cited by Charter, 2009: 35). Such lacking consensus regarding the purpose
of international justice has served to limit the impact the ICC investigation has had upon the
calculations of al-Bashir. The UN General Assembly in September 2008 was used by many
African and Arab leaders to denounce the request for an arrest warrant and the Economist
reports that African leaders have seemed “to show more solidarity with perpetrators than with
victims” (Gurd, 2009; Goldstone, 2009; Economist, 2009a: n.p.). Even the UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon has undermined the ICC by firstly refusing to put compliance with the
court on the agenda of the Sudan summit he organised in 2007 and secondly by appearing in
the same room as the indicted al-Bashir only days after the request for his arrest (Bone,
2009). Considering the observation by the Economist that “the more countries that back the
court, the less likely Mr Bashir is to continue his defiance or take revenge on Darfuris”, the
continued support for al-Bashir has served to significantly insulate the impact the ICC has
had on the regime in Khartoum and thus the situation as a whole (2009a: n.p.). In this light,
the expulsion of aid agencies can be interpreted not as the fault of the ICC but instead the
responsibility of those countries providing continued support for al-Bashir and thus removing
any costs associated with his actions. Hence, the lacking consensus within the international
community for international justice has served to raid the ICC of its strong and well-equipped
toolbox for peace and justice, including its ability to delegitimise regimes, provide retributive
justice and the vital ‘stick’ that has so-far been missing in dealings with Khartoum.
3.3 Conclusion
While the international community has failed to deliver effective political or military
solutions to the Darfur crisis, the involvement of the ICC represented a real opportunity to
deliver not only justice for the victims of Darfur but inject the missing element of
accountability into international dealings with both Khartoum and the rebel groups. Such
POLIS Student Journal Vol.1 (1)
involvement can be considered in the interests of Darfurian victims and thus theoretically a
variant of sovereignty as responsibility, since arguments that the ICC has led to increased
violence and threatened peace agreements are flawed. Furthermore, international justice has
the capacity to encourage peace in the region. Thus, it can be judged that since the Sudanese
government has not provided justice for the crimes committed in Darfur, and the ICC itself
will not make the situation in Darfur worse, the international justice body has a duty to
intervene. Yet, in practice, while the ICC has breached Sudanese sovereignty and issued
indictments against members of the government and rebel groups, it appears that such
accomplishments are in vain. The actions of much of the African and Arab world, and even
the UN Secretary General, have served to undermine the capacity for enforcement and
credibility of the ICC and thus rendered its efforts to provide responsibility for justice and
peace obsolete. As the Economist argues “the thirst for internationally backed justice seems
unquenchable” (2009b: n.p.).
Conclusion
The Darfur situation has exposed that calculations for responding to atrocity crimes are not
based on a simple choice between protecting victims or sovereignty. Such an assessment is
oversimplified and ignores the reality: that nation states operate within a complex and
inherently political environment in which national interest and political will must be married
with at least partial consensus for action in order for civilian lives to be prioritised.
Therefore, changing the definition of sovereignty is likely to prove inadequate in compelling
states to react effectively to any extreme human rights abuses in the future.
The flaws in the sovereignty as responsibility paper are grounded in the theoretical
miscalculations upon which it is based. Primarily, the inconsistent international reactions to
humanitarian abuses throughout the 1990s acted to demonstrate that it is not respect for
sovereignty itself that constricts nation states in responding in the interests of victims, but
rather other more immediate political concerns such as national interest. This was certainly
reflected in Darfur where the commercial interests of China, the North-South peace deal and
the aftermath of Iraq all acted to drain the international community of any political will to
react effectively to the situation. Such political concerns translated into weak Security
Council resolutions which emboldened Khartoum and the initial leadership of the AU on the
POLIS Student Journal Vol.1 (1)
ground, both of which were to the detriment of the victims of atrocity crimes for which the
Sudanese government were responsible.
Furthermore, the paper of sovereignty as
responsibility presumes that “human dignity is conceived of not as a utopian vision, but in its
minimum content, as a political demand” (Deng et al, 1996: xiii).
However, such an
assumption is equally flawed as demonstrated by the divisions within the Security Council
regarding interventions in Kosovo, and more recently Zimbabwe. In judicial terms these
splits in international society proved fatal. The non-cooperation with the ICC of much of the
African and Arab world- and not the sovereignty of Sudan which was relatively easy to
overcome- served to seriously undermine the capacity of the international justice body to
enact its responsibilities for justice and to positively influence peace. Thus, it is clear that
sovereignty concerns itself were not a major factor in the failure of the international
community to assume its responsibilities to the victims of the crisis in Darfur, but rather
national interest concerns, a divided international community, and the complexity of the
situation deriving from six years of continued conflict.
It is thus apparent that sovereignty as responsibility, while based on noble aspirations, is
inadequate in compelling the international community to react to atrocity crimes since it fails
to address the politics prevalent in international relations. Accordingly, since it is improbable
that the international reaction to extreme violations of human rights will significantly alter in
the future, research into the prevention of such crises may be beneficial. While this paper has
not addressed responsibilities for prevention due to limitations of space, such an area presents
an interesting field of future research that may benefit discussions of genocide.
The ICISS argues that “the issue of intervention for human protection purposes has been seen
as one of the most controversial and difficult of all international relations questions” (2001:
vii). Yet, the focus of such a debate is misplaced since the right to intervene itself should not
be the centre of discussions but rather the ability of the international community to conquer
the political barriers to potential interventions. The right of intervention, which sovereignty
as responsibility seeks to establish, should therefore be seen as the secondary step in a wider
debate regarding responses to atrocity crimes. Hence, sovereignty as responsibility will only
become relevant once the first question concerning political obstructions to action is resolved.
For the sake of the victims of atrocities currently occurring not only in Darfur but in Burma,
Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and for the sake of the victims of
POLIS Student Journal Vol.1 (1)
atrocities that will no doubt occur in the future, it is imperative that a solution is found that is
able to overcome self-interested international political calculations in favour of the protection
of human life. Redefining sovereignty is not the answer.
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