Responsibility to Protect

Baroness Hodgson of Abinger Excerpts

Thursday 16th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)]

My Lords, I sincerely congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on introducing today’s debate. At this time of increasing world instability, growing extremism and shrinking spaces for civil society, the concept of responsibility to protect is perhaps more urgent and more important than ever before. This debate enables us to reflect on whether more can be done, particularly by the United Kingdom.

The rapid pace of globalisation means that we are all more heavily interconnected, and thus atrocities happening in other countries can ultimately threaten our own security. As we have heard, following the terrible events in Rwanda and Bosnia, in 2005 all member states of the United Nations at the World Summit agreed on their primary responsibility to protect populations from the atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

I declare an interest. In March, I was one of a small cross-party delegation that was taken by the United Nations Association to the United States to examine where responsibility to protect—or R2P, as it is known—had got to, and to consider what more could perhaps be done. As the noble Lord has already highlighted, the nature of conflict has changed. Today, it is no longer two armies fighting on battlefields; it is often asymmetric, fought in communities, often by non-state actors. Rape is used as a weapon of war, while ethnic cleansing and war crimes are commonplace and 90% of those killed today in conflicts are civilians. The number of people fleeing conflicts, both internally displaced people and refugees, has never been higher.

The rise of ISIL provides us with a glaring example of where conflict prevention mechanisms either failed or were altogether absent. ISIL’s dangerous and warped ideology has attracted people from all over the world, and we are now faced with a growing and complex web of terrorism and a barbaric caliphate in the Middle East. Visiting an IDP camp in northern Iraq in May, I heard shocking stories from women who had fled with their children from Mosul and Sinjar. The persecution taking place there, especially against the Yazidis, Christians and other minorities, is undoubtedly a form of genocide.

Prevention of conflict is so important. Picking up and acting on the early vibrations can prevent so much of the devastating suffering that atrocities create. Human rights violations are one indication of the early vibrations. Acting on these can be complicated but, when nothing is done, they all too easily turn into mass atrocities, as has been the case in Sudan and the Central African Republic. Protecting civilians and preventing atrocities does not necessarily require the use of military force. Atrocity prevention policies seek to avoid violence altogether. However, effective prevention requires the inclusion of a mechanism for rapid mobilisation, to try to stop conflict as soon as it starts. As with everything else, resourcing is key. Once regime change has occurred, finance and expertise need to be given to help countries build institutions to prevent a vacuum, which creates the chaos that we see in Iraq and Libya today.

The UK still has significant influence around the world through soft power, but do we do enough on R2P? Internationally, our Foreign Office and diplomatic corps are held in the highest esteem, and they focus on human rights and democracy. On poverty reduction, the UK also has an excellent record. We played a leading role in the formation of the new SDGs, with their policy of leaving no one behind, and we are the only country in the G8 to have delivered on the commitment of 0.7% of GNI for overseas aid and to have this enshrined in our law.

While conflict causes poverty, poverty also causes conflict. Aid also assists with long-term economic growth and stability, giving us the ability to listen to voices at grass roots. The UK was one of the first countries to have a national action plan for UN Security Council Resolution 1325, the groundbreaking resolution on peace and security, which recognises that conflict disproportionately impacts on women. I met some of our military in Iraq carrying out innovative work, training for the protection of civilians. Communication with women in civil society also assists them with intelligence-gathering. I also sit on the steering board of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, through which the UK has demonstrated outstanding international leadership. While I understand that finance is always an issue, surely using these levers, which are already in place, means there is more that the UK can do to promote R2P?

We have heard already about the United States Atrocities Prevention Board, which was set up by President Obama in 2012 to ensure that atrocity prevention remains a priority across the US Government. Perhaps we can learn from this; I ask the Minister whether consideration could be given to establishing a similar mechanism in the UK. UN implementation of R2P has at times been hampered by lack of co-ordination and communication between its agencies. The Human Rights up Front initiative has tried to address this fragmentation and to ensure that human rights always have importance in a coherent and systematic way.

However, even when UN peacekeeping missions are sent to countries, sometimes there have been reports of abuse. The majority of the UN peacekeeping troops come from developing countries and may not have been trained to the same high standards as the UK military. So, why do the UK and US not provide troops to the UN for peacekeeping activities? For a commitment such as R2P to be effective, it needs buy-in from all countries—is this really there? There seems to be a growing global trend for non-western countries to oppose western leadership, with the UN, and thus, perhaps, R2P, being seen as a product of the West.

To conclude, while the UK has always been an enthusiastic, vocal supporter of R2P, is it given the prominence in UK policy that perhaps it merits? As has been mentioned already, our cross-departmental Building Stability Overseas Strategy fails even to mention the terms “responsibility to protect” and “atrocity prevention”. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether there is a focal point in government on R2P and has funding been allocated? What is the policy on R2P, in the Ministry of Defence and what training do our military receive in this regard? Will there be provision for R2P in the upcoming strategic defence and security review? In the words of President Obama:

“Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States”.