Abstract
In the previous chapters I have made two related arguments about the evolving balance between human rights and state sovereignty. From a normative perspective I have argued that sovereignty includes an obligation to uphold basic human rights, popular sovereignty and self-determination. In practice, the international community has taken a wide variety of actions, however ambiguous, which indicate a shift in the balance between sovereignty and human rights. Yet, there is still a great disjunction between humanitarian needs worldwide and the international institutional capacity and the will to deal with these needs.
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Notes
Erskine Childers, ‘UN Mechanisms and Capacities for Intervention’, in Elizabeth G. Ferris, ed., The Challenge to Intervene: A New Role for the United Nations? (Uppsala: Life and Peace Institute, 1992): p. 51 (italics in original).
See Erika Schlager, ‘Conflict Resolution in the CSCE’, Occasional Paper 5:OP:4, Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, (March 1993): pp. 14–5; Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, ‘The Challenges of Change — Helsinki Summit Declaration’, [Online], (July 1992), Available: http://www.gopher.nato.int/ Other International Organizations/CSCE/Backgrounds/Follow-up & Summit Documents/1992 Helsinki — The Challenges of Changes. On the role of the HCNM, see also: Rachel Brett, ‘Human Rights and the OSCE’, Human Rights Quarterly, 18 (3 1996): pp. 668 - 93
Jane Wright, ‘The OSCE and the Protection of Minority Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly, 18 (1 1996): pp. 190–205.
Max van der Stoel, ‘Preventing Conflict and Building Peace: A Challenge for the CSCE’, NATO Review, 42 (August 1994): pp. 10–11.
Jane Perlez, ‘No Unity on Balkans at Europe Summit’, New York Times, (7 December 1994): p. 8
S. Neil MacFarlane and Larry Minear, Humanitarian Action and Politics: The Case of Nagorno-Karabakh, Occasional Paper No. 25, Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, 1997.
For an in-depth discussion of the Cambodian peace accords and subsequent developments see: Steven B. Ratner, ‘Cambodia’, in Lori Eisler Damrosch, ed., Enforcing Restraint: Collective Intervention in Internal Conflicts, (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993): pp. 241–73
and Steven R. Ratner, ‘The Cambodia Settlement Agreements’, The American Journal of International Law, 87 (January 1993): pp. 1–41.
Gerald B. Heiman and Steven R. Ratner, ‘Saving Failed States’, Foreign Policy, 89 (Winter 1992–93): p. 6.
Jarat Chopra, ‘Peace-Maintenance: The Last Stage of Development’, Global Society, 11 (2 1997): p. 185.
Jarat Chopra, ‘The space of peace-maintenance’, Political Geography, 15 (3/4 1996): p. 339.
United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World’s Refugees: The Challenge of Protection, (New York: Penguin Books, 1993): pp. 134–5 (hereafter referred to as UNHCR).
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR’s Operational Experience with Internally Displaced Persons, (1994): pp. 21–4.
James C. Hathaway, ‘Reconceiving Refugee Law as Human Rights Protection’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 4 (2 1991): pp. 113–31.
Francis M. Deng, ‘Protecting the Internally Displaced: A Challenge for the United Nations’, a Study by the Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, United Nations, 1993, p. 3. See also Francis M. Deng, Protecting the Dispossessed: A Challenge for the International Community, (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1993).
James O. C. Jonah, ‘Humanitarian Intervention’, in Thomas G. Weiss and Larry Minear, eds, Humanitarianism Across Borders: Sustaining Civilians in Times of War, (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 1993): p. 70.
Ibid., p. 162. Thomas Weiss proposes a different structure. While fighting was going on, UN humanitarian agencies such as UNHCR and UNICEF would not be present. Rather, a new entity, whose members have specific training and expertise, would be created to operate in conflict situations to deliver humanitarian aid. This Humanitarian Protection Force ‘would comprise a core of soldiers and civilians in possession of expertise and body army’. It would report to the Security Council, rather than the Secretary-General, thus partially insulating the Secretary-General from some of the polical issues involved in such situations, freeing him to deal with parties to a conflict in a neutral manner. Thomas G. Weiss, ‘Overcoming the Somalia Syndrome-“Operation Rekindle Hope?”’ Global Governance, (May-August 1995): pp. 181–3.
UNHAC would be the replacement for the Emergency Relief Coordinator established by General Assembly Resolution 46–182, which was supported by DHA. Recently, others have also proposed consolidation of UN humanitarian assistance activities. See John Borton, Emery Brusset and Alistair Hallam, ‘Humanitarian Aid and Effects’, Study 3 of the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience, in the Journal of Humanitarian Assistance [Online], (March 1996), Available: http://131.111.106.147/policy/pb022.htm.
Leon Gordenker and Thomas G. Weiss, ‘Humanitarian Emergencies and Military Help: Some Conceptual Observations’, in Thomas G. Weiss, ed., Humanitarian Emergencies and Military Help in Africa, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990): pp. 14–16.
See also Thomas G. Weiss, ‘A Research Note about Military-Civilian Humanitarianism: More Questions than Answers’, Disasters, 21 (2 1997): pp. 95–117. Weiss makes a distinction between logistics (relief delivery) and security (protection).
International Peace Academy, Peacekeeper’s Handbook, (New York: Pergammon Press, 1984): p. 236.
It is because of the tension between the military and humanitarian aspects that Alan James argues that, to the extent possible, humanitarian activities should be administratively separate from military activities. Alan James, ‘Humanitarian Aid and Peacekeeping Operations’, in Eric A. Belgrad and Nitza Nachmias, eds, The Politics of International Humanitarian Aid Operations, (Westport, CT: Praeger: 1997).
On recent proposals to enlarge the Security Council, see Bruce Russett, Barry O’Neill, and James Sutterlin, ‘Breaking the Security Council Restructuring Logjam’, Global Governance, 2 (January-April 1996): pp. 65–80.
Thomas G. Weiss, David P. Forsythe, and Roger A. Coate, The United Nations and Changing World Politics, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994): p. 84, 92.
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© 1998 Kurt Mills
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Mills, K. (1998). The Institutional Foundations of the New Sovereignty. In: Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230373556_6
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