Facing up to our responsibilities
Given the Burmese regime's inflexibility so far, there may be a case under international law for forcing it to accept disaster relief
Gareth Evans

May 12, 2008

If the intransigence of the Burmese generals continues, we will have to face the question of whether in the name of humanity some international action should be taken against their will - like military air drops, or supplies being landed from ships - to get aid to the huge numbers who desperately need it, right now, in the inaccessible coastal area in particular.

Last Thursday, Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, argued, as others are now doing, that this is a proper case for coercive intervention under the "responsibility to protect" principle unanimously endorsed by 150 heads of state and government at the 2005 UN world summit. His proposal that the security council pass a resolution which "authorises the delivery and imposes this on the Burmese government" met with immediate rejection not only from China and Russia, who are always sensitive about intervention in internal affairs, but from many other quarters as well.

It generated concern from the UK and others, including senior UN officials, that such an "incendiary" approach would be wholly counterproductive in winning any still-possible cooperation from the generals. It also provoked the argument from humanitarian relief agencies - who know what they are talking about - that simply as a practical matter any effort to drop supplies without an effective supporting relief on the ground would be hopelessly inefficient, and maybe even dangerous, with the prospect of misuse of medical supplies.

These are strong arguments, and they weigh heavily in the policy balance. But as the days go by, with relief efforts impossibly hindered, only a trickle of the government's own aid getting through, and the prospect of an enormously greater death toll looming acutely within just a few more days, they are sounding less compelling, and at the very least, need revisiting.

My own initial concern, and it remains a serious one, with Kouchner's invocation of the "responsibility to protect" was that, while wholly understandable as a political rallying cry - and God knows the world needs them in these situations - it had the potential to dramatically undercut international support for another great cause, to which he among others is also passionately committed, that of ending mass atrocity crimes once and for all.

The point about "the responsibility to protect" as it was originally conceived, and eventually embraced at the world summit - as I well know, as one of the original architects of the doctrine, having co-chaired the international commission that gave birth to it - is that it is not about human security generally, or protecting people from the impact of natural disasters, or the ravages of HIV-Aids or anything of that kind.