The new colonialism

"Responsibility for protection" means conquest, subjugation and exploitation

To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image

The principle of "Responsibility to Protect" includes the commitment of the international community to provide protection to threatened populations. At first glance, it seems very moral. No human being will be able to watch or even accept the killing of other people. It is humane to give protection to other humans - and also to animals. Therefore, one must assume that this principle for unassailable motives is put up for debate.

However, closer examination of the principle, or R2P for short, raises questions that do not question the principle as such, but rather consider the problems that arise when implementing it as worthy of discussion. These problems or questions include the following:

First, which state or international body is adequately impartial to judge when the implementation of the R2P principle is justified? Even a brief overview of the candidates shows that only a few and mostly smaller states deserve the trust of the world community to act impartially and unselfishly in the international arena. However, these are not in a position to intervene effectively in international affairs.

Second, the attempt to embed the R2P principle in a normative framework, for example to limit its implementation solely to the protection of the four categories of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic cleansing, must fail. To conclude that certain actions assume the magnitude of these categories is not sufficient to speculate, but requires an independent investigation, which typically does not take place or can take place. Numerous examples in the past show how often atrocities were invented to justify interventions. To date, political entities such as the United Nations Security Council (UNO) have refused to rely on independent judgments, such as those of the International Court of Justice. The UN Security Council insists on defining the facts for themselves. But decisions of the UN Security Council are political and not empirical. The UN Security Council is also unsuitable for objectively identifying political processes because of its intrinsic character.

Missing signatures regarding the convention and the additional protocol

In addition, there are other reasons that suggest that the dissemination of this principle is not based on unassailable motives. First and foremost, it should be noted that the United States has not even signed the American Convention on Human Rights of 22 November 1969 (AMRK), which refers to the states of North and South America, and does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court , How can a state be tasked with protecting the human rights of foreign nationals who do not even guarantee the protection of the human rights of their own citizens?

While recognizing the rights and obligations arising from the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950 (ECHR), European countries recognize their own nationals. However, there are significant gaps in the implementation of these and other conventions. These are particularly blatant when it comes to foreign assignments of European countries in the field of human rights and question their credibility. For example, in Bankovic's case, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that European states are not forced to respect human rights outside their territories, for example in military operations. The civilian victims of bombing by European countries such as the former Yugoslavia or Afghanistan are therefore not entitled to be heard before the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg.

European jurisdictions are allowed by this jurisdiction to blatantly not only commit human rights abuses against peoples around the world, but to kill them without being held accountable. Many European countries have refused to sign the adoption of the Additional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). This Additional Protocol would give victims worldwide the opportunity to assert their social, economic and cultural human rights in the event of violations at the UN level. Citizens of the "third world" could hope for a more equitable implementation of their right to food, education, health and social benefits through such an additional protocol. The refusal to affirm this Additional Protocol is primarily based on powerful Western states. It is probably closely linked to the economic interests of Western corporations. This behavior shows that these states do not want to defend human rights, which may conflict with their interests and those of the rich elites cooperating with them.

Moreover, the R2P principle is also incompatible with the known hierarchy of human rights. The first level of human rights protection is the obligation of all states to under no circumstances violate certain human rights. This so-called negative obligation includes, for example, the prohibition of torture, the prohibition of genocide, the slave trade and extra-legal killing. These prohibitions are also referred to as ius cogens, that is, they are norms that permit neither deviations nor exceptions. The next level involves a long series of negative human rights which, although not attributed to ius cogens, may still be suspended only in exceptional circumstances; these include many civil and political rights such as the right to freedom of expression, the right to free movement and so on.

A third level involves the positive obligation of states to promote specific rights through concrete measures. These include most social, economic and cultural rights. States undertake to grant these rights as much as possible. These obligations are not absolute, because they require considerable expenditure from the States, which can not be borne by all. States need only make credible that they are honestly committed to promoting these rights. The obligation of States to guarantee their citizens security, such as police protection, is such a positive obligation, but it can only be fulfilled to a limited extent - depending on the financial capacity of a State.

The so-called negative human rights

Before the R2P principle can even be considered in the international arena, the international community should at least formally accept its duty not to violate the so-called negative human rights not only within but also beyond its borders. A proposal for international recognition of this duty was presented by the author, but has remained a dream until today. States that have not committed to consider the foreseeable consequences of their actions in relation to human rights in other countries and do not allow victims the right to compensation, can not be credibly charged with the protection of human rights in other countries or this protective function to attribute oneself to oneself.

In this context, the question arises of how humanity can prevent such terrible events as happened in Rwanda or in Kampuchea. A short answer might be that such events in a decentralized world order can not be completely prevented. Such events could only prevent a central world government with its own armed forces, that is, a world dictatorship. At the same time, such a world dictatorship would not only have the political and military resources, but would also have the motives for committing or approving genocides.

The UN Security Council has already given a foretaste of such behavior when it imposed economic sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s, killing 500,000 Iraqi children. Of course, this killing was not labeled "genocide" but was labeled as the unwanted consequence of economic sanctions. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has admitted that the children's dying was the price with which "we had to put up with it". In criminal law such murders are referred to as "conditional intent". One could therefore imagine that a world dictatorship for the "good of humanity" could destroy certain peoples directly or indirectly. Lawyers would already find "arguments," as history teaches.

But there are ways to reduce the risk of terrible events without affecting the sovereignty of nations. As a first step, the most powerful nations would have to be democratized; they should also make their foreign policy and their work in international bodies completely transparent to the peoples of the world. They should undertake, at all costs, to respect human rights in their domestic and foreign affairs and to do nothing likely to harm human rights, including in the social and economic spheres; they must commit to not exporting weapons and destroying their nuclear weapons; and last but not least, they should recognize their inhumane policies in the past - including the slave trade, exploitation of African and Asian mineral resources, tyrants' support, and their deadly economic policies. These measures would reduce the risk of genocide and thus clear the ground for imperialist adventures.