Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
Main Page: Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Labour - Life peer)
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
To move that this House takes note of the “Responsibility to Protect” and the application of this international norm by the United Kingdom and the United Nations.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)
My Lords, first, I draw attention to my relevant entries in the Lords register and thank the House for this opportunity to raise the important issue of the responsibility to protect and its application by both the United Kingdom and United Nations. This is an opportunity to look backwards, but also forwards. I also look forward to hearing the valedictory speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein.
This is a timely debate. Last Friday, I had, with many others, the honour of attending a commemorative service in St Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, 20 years on from the genocide in Srebrenica in the Balkans. Speaking at the ceremony were representatives of the Mothers of Srebrenica. Their pain 20 years on was raw; their anger remains deep; and they know—today, we know—that we in the international community let them and their families down. We had said “Never again” after 1945, but too often in the decades that followed, because of a false analysis of state sovereignty, the international community let down people threatened by, and who were ultimately victims of, genocide and mass atrocities.
In Srebrenica in July 1995, the United Nations stood aside, supported by members of the Security Council, including the United Kingdom, and allowed 8,372 people, men and boys, to be slaughtered by the Bosnian Serbs. Their relatives, particularly the women and children who were moved aside on that day, live with that memory every day. Despite the numerous requests for support, the international community was not there to help protect them. That was only one year after the genocide in Rwanda, where the United Nations had similarly let down so many people—in that case, hundreds of thousands—who became victims of genocide.
Kofi Annan, who was in the United Nations at the time, used his new position as Secretary-General of the United Nations to try to address the issue following his appointment in 1997. To his eternal credit, he cleverly, diplomatically, intelligently but very decisively pushed the international community into action. He asked the key question:
“Who is responsible for protecting people from gross violations of human rights?”
He specifically and importantly clarified that the UN charter agreed in 1945, which of course had state sovereignty at its heart,
“was never meant as a licence for governments to trample on human rights and human dignity. Sovereignty implies responsibility, not just power.”
In 2001, partly at the instigation of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Canadian Foreign Minister established the International Commission on Intervention in State Sovereignty. Its report, Responsibility to Protect, published in December 2001, provided the basis for an international discussion on what could and should be agreed. The report rightly identified the internationally recognised atrocity crimes—genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity—as requiring special attention in any new framework that could be agreed in the years to come.
The advocacy of the responsibility to protect tried to shift the focus from protecting the rights of states to protecting the rights of people. Appropriately, it recognised that the nature of conflict had changed from interstate conflict, particularly during the Cold War decades, to civil conflicts—internal conflicts within states. We know that in the period since, that development has continued. In many instances—not just in Rwanda and the Balkans—the United Nations has been unable to protect the local population from crimes committed against them, either by their own Governments or their fellow citizens.
However, the world summit in 2005 agreed unanimously—every single member state agreed—that the responsibility to protect was to become an international norm. It stated clearly—and I think cleverly, as well as being based on strong principles—that there were three pillars or stages to the responsibility to protect. The first was the primacy of the state in protecting its own people. The second was the responsibility of the international community to support states in protecting their own people. The third, crucially, was that the international community had a responsibility and yes, a moral duty to intervene—in many different ways, but in all ways possible to protect those citizens should their states fail in that responsibility.
That was agreed by the international community in 2005, and very soon first quoted in the United Nations Security Council resolution in 2006 with reference to the emerging situation in the Sudan. Responsibility to protect was referenced in Security Council Resolution 1674 and again in Resolution 1706, which provided a basis for action there that at least protected those who had not yet become victims of the emerging violence in that part of northern Africa.
It was in 2011 that, in the words of Ban Ki-moon, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations,
“responsibility to protect came of age; the principle was tested”,
particularly in Libya, but also in Côte d’Ivoire, South Sudan, Yemen and Syria where, either explicitly or implicitly the United Nations used the principles of responsibility to protect to justify action to protect civilians, with mixed results. As Ban Ki-moon said:
“The results were uneven, but … tens of thousands of lives were saved. We gave hope to people long oppressed”.
However, the events of 2011 justify us now in 2015, and the events since 2011, in particular, justify us in reviewing the progress of responsibility to protect and assessing what is not yet being applied consistently or effectively. I want to address a number of points today concerning the application of the principle by both the United Nations and the United Kingdom. I mentioned the Lords register earlier, and I want to thank the United Nations Association of the United Kingdom—UNA-UK—for sponsoring a visit by me and others to the United Nations and to the United States Government in Washington in March where we were able to explore the current application of this principle by both the United Nations and the USA.
It seems to me that the United Nations still has a deep commitment to the responsibility to protect norm and its application. As recently as last year, the joint offices of genocide prevention and responsibility to protect produced a publication entitled Framework of Analysis for Atrocity Crimes. It highlights to all UN agencies, departments and in-country offices ways in which they should be identifying the potential for atrocity prevention and how the United Nations can then respond to help prevent atrocities taking place. The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of driving this United Nations momentum and Peter Wilson, Deputy Permanent Representative, UK Mission to the UN, New York, said last September in a review discussion:
“The international community has a growing role to play in helping states fulfil their primary ‘responsibility to protect’ their own populations from mass atrocities”.
That is particularly true this year, as we look at the sustainable development goals being agreed in September.
I want to raise a number of points relating to the United Nations, on which the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, may wish to respond on behalf of the Government. First, what are we doing in the United Nations Security Council to ensure that that framework for analysis is being driven through the departments and agencies of the UN and implemented consistently and effectively?
Perhaps much more importantly, are we engaged in the important discussion that has been sparked off by the French to look at the use of the veto in cases of mass atrocities? The French have floated the idea that perhaps there should be at least a voluntary restriction on the use of the veto when cases of mass atrocities are up for discussion in the Security Council. As recently as last week, Russia refused to endorse a resolution condemning the Srebrenica genocide. Given the way that the veto has been used over the years—not just by Russia—will the United Kingdom support that debate and look at how the use of the veto could, at least on a voluntary basis in advance of UN reform, be dealt with in the future?
Are we prepared to argue strongly inside the United Nations for a higher priority to be given to state-building capacity following the agreement of the sustainable development goals in September? Can we do more to build strong, independent institutions that protect people inside their own countries? Where we identify that mass atrocities may be about to happen, will the United Nations and the regional organisations that were mentioned in the original World Summit resolution be able to intervene to protect local populations?
Are we learning the lessons of the follow-through? The Brazilians and others have raised the issue of responsibility while protecting. In Libya, for example, there was an intervention that, at the time, protected the population from the threat from Colonel Gaddafi to exterminate those who opposed his regime in his last days in power. But where was the follow-through? Can we ensure that there is a follow-through responsibility, while protecting and afterwards, to protect the local population and then build a successful state that protects their rights in the longer term, not just in that immediate period of action ?
I turn to the United Kingdom and, perhaps in this context, to the European Union. Recently, I met a group of boys from Hampton School who have, since the 20th anniversary last year of the Rwandan genocide, been conducting a project on how the education system and their generation could remember the Rwandan genocide and the lessons from it, and not allow that to be forgotten. I am happy to share their very interesting and well-presented report with the Government. Before I deal with the bigger strategic, diplomatic and development issues, there is an issue around how we in this country ensure that the younger generation understands these lessons as well as we do—I am struck by the fact that anybody who leaves school today was born after the Srebrenica genocide. Perhaps the Government may wish to address that.
In the United Kingdom, the Building Stability Overseas Strategy, which did not mention responsibility to protect as a norm back in 2011, should perhaps reflect this important principle more in both its theory and its application. The new Conflict, Stability and Security Fund should specifically target atrocity prevention as one of the issues it was established to tackle with its £1 billion in our long-term security interests. The civilian stability group from the UK, which is deployed to these conflict and post-conflict situations by the United Kingdom Government, should also have a particular remit to help in atrocity prevention and in the aftermath, ensuring that states are able to build solid, independent institutions that protect populations in the future.
We in the United Kingdom might also want to look at advocating within the European Union for a similar structure to that which now exists in the United States of America, where, under Samantha Power, the Obama Administration have created the Atrocities Prevention Board, which brings together knowledge and expertise from across government to identify the potential for atrocities and then take action to try to prevent them. It seems to me that that model could perhaps be copied in the European Union, even if it is not necessarily appropriate for the United Kingdom alone.
Finally, the United Kingdom should find some way of embodying that UN framework for analysis and identifying possible atrocities in our own development, diplomacy and defence policies and strategies. I look forward to the debate that is about to take place and I welcome this opportunity, timely as it is, 20 years on from the genocide in Srebrenica. The United Kingdom did not play a particularly happy role at that time with regard to our international responsibilities. We have learnt a lot since then. We have led this debate in many ways over the past decade and more, and been very supportive of Kofi Annan. All United Kingdom Governments have played a key role in trying to ensure greater consistency and investment in development. I hope this debate allows us to do that even more effectively in the future.
Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, for his response on behalf of the Government and for the way in which he has tried to deal with almost every point raised in two hours of debate. I think noble Lords who spoke in the debate will be very grateful for that, will study his answers with interest and, I am sure, will discuss many of them on other occasions. I congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, on his valedictory speech in your Lordships’ House. I will for ever be proud of the fact that he chose this debate in which to make that speech and I wish him very well. Others have congratulated him on his past achievements and I wish him well for what I am sure are achievements and contributions to come in his family life, personal life and perhaps in his public life too. I thank the noble Viscount very much for his contribution.
I have enjoyed very much all the contributions from noble Lords to this debate. I hope others will forgive me if I mention the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, who joined me in New York and Washington in March and I thought spoke very passionately about issues close to her heart, particularly on the very important topics of sexual violence and conflict, as well as the importance of diplomacy and investment in many of those aspects of conflict prevention. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, brings enormous experience to these debates as well as great passion and clarity, particularly in this case because of his role on the high-level panel that helped inform the development of RtoP a decade ago. I thought his contribution, particularly on the Russian veto last week, was very welcome.
My noble friend Lord Judd highlighted the interdependence of the world today, which was particularly appropriate in this debate. It seems that in every individual instance there is the potential for us to criticise the application, or otherwise, of the responsibility to protect doctrine or norm. It does not take away from the fact that the three pillars, the three principles, of the doctrine or the norm, are right for our age. They have redefined state sovereignty in cases where mass atrocities are threatened and they give us an opportunity, if we exercise them properly, to avoid some of those atrocities in the future. We have a particular opportunity this year, with the new sustainable development goals to be agreed at the United Nations, to take forward investment in the second pillar and principle and building state capacity to help preserve and enhance opportunities for peace.
There have been many wise words from Kofi Annan over the years on this particular topic. One quote from him has always stuck in my mind and I will finish on this point. He published a document in March 2000 that looked at the role of the United Nations in the 21st century. He said:
“The fact that we cannot protect people everywhere is no reason for doing nothing when we can”.
If we will ourselves to pursue that as a principle and an objective, then at least we will do more than has been done in the past.