Transcript Enhancing POC through R2P Early Warning Systems and Preventive Action RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT AND THE PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN ARMED CONFLICTS: Academic-Practitioner International Workshop, Sydney, 17/18

Enhancing POC through R2P
Early Warning Systems and
Preventive Action
RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT AND THE
PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS IN ARMED CONFLICTS:
Academic-Practitioner International Workshop,
Sydney, 17/18 November 2010
Andrew Garwood-Gowers, QUT
Outline
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Introduction
Relationship between R2P and POC
R2P’s potential to enhance POC:
- fact-finding/monitoring missions
- “preventive deployment” of peacekeeping
operations (PKOs)
R2P early warning systems (EWS):
- recent institutional developments
- POC’s potential to contribute to information
gathering for EWS
Concluding comments
Introduction – context and limits
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Context: action under the 2nd pillar
i.e. international assistance with government consent
(not 3rd pillar non-consensual military intervention)
Focus on “direct/operational” preventive measures
in the face of an imminent crisis (not the broader
concept of “conflict prevention” including “structural
prevention”)
Argument: by mobilising political will for earlier
action R2P can enhance the scope of POC
Relationship between R2P and POC
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Overlap between the 2 concepts but each is wider
and narrower than the other in some respects
R2P limited to 4 mass atrocity crimes
Temporal aspect: more explicit focus on prevention
in R2P than in POC
Peace operations with POC mandate are reactive
(i.e. deployed after conflict has occurred) – no EWS
POC is increasingly recognised as applicable
outside traditional “armed conflict” contexts
Enhancing POC through R2P
R2P’s 2nd pillar could mobilise international
assistance at an earlier stage of an imminent crisis
 2 possible vehicles for advancing POC agenda:
(1) Non-coercive action e.g. fact-finding/monitoring
missions (Article 34 UN Charter)
(2) Coercive action e.g. preventive deployment
(before full-scale conflict) to stabilize and/or
deter violence
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Non-coercive measures
Article 34 Charter gives Security Council power to
“investigate any dispute”
 May deploy fact-finding or human rights monitoring
missions to identify risks of impending crisis
 Provide information to EWS and mobilise support
for more robust international assistance
 An international presence which may help to deescalate a volatile situation
e.g. UNHCHR field mission in Nepal (est. May 2005)
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Preventive military deployment
Longstanding UN recommendations for “preventive”
peacekeeping: An Agenda for Peace (1992)
 But only 1 UN “preventive deployment”: Macedonia
(UNPREDEP) (March 1995-Feb 1999)
 R2P = political impetus for preventive deployment of
peacekeeping operations with a robust POC mandate
 But are UN forces adequately trained/resourced to
protect civilians against possible mass atrocity crimes?
 Specialised rapid response forces at regional/subregional level
e.g. AU’s African Standby Force (ASF); EU capability
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EWS: recent developments
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World Summit 2005 commitment to establish an EWS
identifying triggers/indicators of R2P crimes
EWS = a necessary (but not always sufficient) condition for
generating political will for effective preventive action
July 2010 proposals on EWS (UN Doc A/64/864):
- expanding Analysis Framework on genocide to other
mass atrocity crimes
- joint office of OSAPG and Special Adviser on R2P
- procedure for presenting policy options to the UN SG
Regional/sub-regional level: African Union (CEWS)
Asia-Pacific region: plans for ASEAN EWS
EWS: information from POC actors
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PKO and fact-finding missions as a “tool” for
gathering information for EWS on R2P crimes
Require specialised training to identify risk factors
which could indicate possibility of mass atrocity
crimes – some resistance to this training
R2P sceptics (e.g. Pakistan) have noted the risk and
adverse consequences of “false alarms”
UN recognition of dangers of approaching UN SecGen too often on R2P situations
Concluding comments
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R2P potential to expand the scope of POC by
catalysing earlier, preventive action
Effective EWS necessary for identifying potential
crises and mobilising political will
POC actors “on the ground”could contribute to
information gathering for EWS in R2P architecture
R2P and POC as mutually reinforcing concepts?