Collective Security, Militarism or Humanitarianism: Decoding Interventionism in Africa
(11 – 12 April 2019, School of Law, Wolaita Sodo University, Ethiopia)
Since the early 1990s, the new international activism to use force for the purpose of preventing wide spread human suffering led to a significant change in international political decision making, legal thinking and practice. Thus, we have observed some unexpected developments in forcible military interventions (such as in northern Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, East Timor, Bosnia, Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and Syria), or the failure to intervene in complex humanitarian emergencies (such as in Rwanda or Congo). Considering that the principle of non-intervention is continued to be accepted as the fundamental rule of international law, a question often arise whether there exist a right of humanitarian intervention. International law scholars, however, point to the increasing trend in interventionism in internal conflicts through international and regional bodies. More importantly, next year, the international community will be celebrating the 15th Anniversary of the unanimous endorsement of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) by world leaders at the 2005 UN World Summit. This trend suggests the crystallisation of an international legal rule that systematic violation of human rights and large-scale humanitarian crisis may give rise to forcible interventions by other states or international organisations. Indeed, one can point to the evolving institutional status of ‘humanitarian intervention’ as the legitimate reason (alongside self-defense and collective security) for use of force in certain circumstances. Yet it remains highly controversial mainly because of the questions – who shall authorise such interventions and when? For what purpose and whose interest? And by what means? In other words, one of the vexed questions that still ensues in scholarly debate – can humanitarian intervention ever be legal? This debate emanates from deep tensions that exist between humanitarianism and sovereignty, on the one hand, and disagreements about how international legal language should be interpreted, on the other. However, the emerging consensus (specifically in the Western hemisphere and Africa) that military intervention is an important tool for states and international (as well as regional) organisations to demand international law compliance has exacerbated ambiguities in the inherent ideas of sovereign inviolability and territorial integrity. Thus, for some, humanitarianism has become a cover to justify military incursions and therefore, it should be outlawed. For others, dynamic shifts in state practice suggest, and in fact, cosmopolitan ideal of human rights and war against terrorism justify interventions on humanitarian grounds.
Since the 1960s, Africa has frequently been a theatre of violent and protracted conflicts that caused insurmountable human sufferings. Hence, external interventions in political and economic spheres remain common and frequent – a profound legacy left behind by the erstwhile colonial powers. As such, Africa occupies an important position in contemporary discourse on interventionism. Tanzania’s intervention in Uganda, Ethiopia in Somalia, America in Haiti, France in Rwanda (although controversially much later) and Cote d’Ivoire, UN and Nigeria led ECOMOG in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and NATO in Libya are telling examples. Given the complex nature of conflicts in Africa, specifically the ‘new wars’ involving states, non-state actors and sub-national groups, the reasons behind such interventions are not always clear, or at least are not static but rather dynamic. Irrespective of the reasons, the West played the role of a last arbiter in many African countries. While Asian and Latin American countries have expressed serious reservations and vehemently opposed interventionism in internal sovereign matters, countries on the African continent (specifically south of the Sahara) have expressed willingness and welcomed greater international and regional interventions. In fact, many African countries lament that they are neglected by the UN and major powers because African states lack strategic and economic significance. Thus, the failure of the West to prevent genocide in Rwanda and reluctance to get involved in Congo, Somalia, Darfur or South Sudan have revealed the perverse ‘double standard’ embedded in contemporary practice of interventionism. Consequently, a ‘culture of suspicion’ persists towards humanitarianism which, in many occasions, has been used by the major powers as a cover to further their geo-political and economic interests. However, considering China’s growing economic influence on the continent and its ambition to become a major counter-power, it remains to be seen whether western interventionism becomes more acute or what shift occurs in current practice.
The conference aims to bring researchers, scholars and practitioners together in an academic space to decode contemporary practice of humanitarian interventionism through critical reflection and new insights. Contributors are free to choose their own topic. However, as a guide, one can consider following themes:
1. Critical and fresh insights on old debates – sovereignty vs. interventionism, liberal legalism or moral necessity, realism vs. textualism;
2. Legality and legitimacy of the use of force;
3. Military intervention and the crime of aggression;
4. Critical reflection on the ‘responsibility to protect’;
5. The shift from ‘right’ to ‘the responsibility to protect’ and its significance in Africa, specifically in light of the Constitutive Act of the AU and Kampala Convention;
6. Poiesis and praxis of interventionism in Africa: country specific case study;
7. Revaluating the role of ECOMOG and the AU;
8. The law and politics of intervention in Africa;
9. TWAIL and other critical approaches towards humanitarian intervention;
10. Militant humanitarianism or moral imperialism;
11. Decolonising and demoralising humanitarianism;
12. New theoretical considerations to decode interventionism.
We invite researchers, scholars and practitioners to submit abstracts of not more than 300 words by 14th March 2019. We specifically encourage scholars based at African universities and those who share an interest in Africa to submit abstracts. The organisers also invite expressions of interest to deliver keynote address at the conference
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