Sidelined in Kosovo?

THE UNITED NATIONS' DEMISE HAS BEEN EXAGGERATED

Break It, Don't Fake It

By Thomas M. Franck

Michael J. Glennon has announced the end of the U.N. peacekeeping system ("The New Internationalism," May/June 1999). He cautions us not to mourn the "death of the restrictive old rules on peacekeeping and peacemaking," however, since they have "fallen out of synch with modern notions of justice."

Glennon sees the United Nations' antiquated rules as responsible for the fact that most bloody conflicts in recent history have been simply ignored as "domestic matters" that lie beyond the system's jurisdiction. He asks that we now celebrate "America's new willingness to do what it thinks right -- international law notwithstanding."

These musings might have seemed plausible several months ago, when NATO was just gearing up to bomb Yugoslavia over its treatment of the Kosovars. NATO action was more attractive then, especially since the Security Council was paralyzed by Chinese and Russian support for Yugoslavia. But even then, Glennon's description of the United Nations' problem was wrong and his remedial prescriptions destabilizing.

The U.N. system is not hobbled by "old rules" that restrict forceful responses to situations of "domestic" violence or that preclude action in new situations of internal civil conflict. It is a mistake to cite Article 2(7) of the U.N. Charter as a ban on intervention "in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state," for this restraint does not apply when the Security Council decides to impose "enforcement measures" under Chapter VII of the charter. Thus Glennon is wrong to argue that the rules bar action to halt intrastate violence: they simply require that the intervention first be approved by the Security Council.

WHERE THERE'S A WILL . . .

Indeed, the council has authorized forceful tactics in numerous civil wars and against various regimes that oppress their own citizens: in Bosnia, Somalia, Rhodesia, South Africa, Haiti, and Iraq. And in December 1998, the Security Council used a Chapter VII resolution to demand that the Taliban end its oppression of women in Afghanistan, opening the door to future collective enforcement should they refuse.

Although it is true that the United Nations' responses to these and other domestic conflicts have ranged from the decisive to the ineffectual, in no case were the "old rules" of engagement the problem.

By blaming the "old" charter system for the failures -- without noticing successes like Namibia and Mozambique -- Glennon diverts attention from consideration of the United Nations' real but limited capabilities. He fails to recognize that the most decisive factor in containing civil conflict has proven to be the degree of American support for and participation in U.N.-authorized prophylactic measures. When American support is steadfast, U.N. efforts tend to achieve their objective, as in El Salvador. When it is weak, as in Somalia and Rwanda, the world body fails. These outcomes have little to do with the "old rules" or basic flaws in the system.

But what about the veto? Isn't NATO's use of force in Kosovo, without Security Council authorization, evidence of the United Nations' practical failure? Does not the shift in focus from a global (U.N.) to a regional (NATO) solution highlight the way Russia and China have managed to keep the world body from taking just and necessary measures?

To believe that is to misunderstand the role of the veto in the U.N. system. Russia and China, in opposing military action to support Kosovar autonomy, reflected their own insecurity over Chechnya and Tibet. The veto is metaphoric ritual like the lifting of a skunk's tail. It signals, Proceed with care. It therefore serves as a valuable aid to rational risk assessment. That we deplore its use in the circumstances of the Kosovo debacle does not mean either that the veto has lost its usefulness or that it has become an insuperable bar to action. After all, the veto can be avoided -- as during the Suez crisis of 1956 and the Congo crisis of 1961, when focus shifted from the veto-bound Security Council to the General Assembly. In the case of Kosovo the West acted through NATO. In each instance, actions were taken -- despite the veto -- because it was judged worth the risk. Conversely, it is assuredly not fear of the Chinese veto that prevents more forceful Western action on behalf of Tibet.

Glennon, in sum, is wrong to blame the "old rules." They work as well, or as badly, as states want or allow them to.

UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Bad analysis produces worse prescription. Glennon would have us scrap the current rules of the game, do the right thing, and then write new ones. "If power is used to do justice," he argues, "law will follow."

But follow where? Back to a future in which rival blocs fix things in their neighborhood: NATO in the Balkans, the former Soviet states in the Baltic region, the Arab League on the West Bank, ECOMOG (the peacekeeping arm of the Economic Community of West African States) in western Africa? Is it really time to reinvent multiple versions of the Concert of Europe?

Glennon's unpalatable "system-up" approach to remedying the United Nations' undoubted problems obscures the real issue posed by Kosovo. What does a nation like the United States -- one with the power and the will to ameliorate a human catastrophe -- do when, to act, it must violate general rules of the game? India faced that choice before invading East Pakistan to stop the slaughter of Bengalis in 1971. People stranded on mountains or in lifeboats face a comparable personal choice when, to save many, they contemplate cannibalizing one of their number. NATO's action in Kosovo is not the first time illegal steps have been taken to prevent something palpably worse.