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Harmonizing Sovereignty and Citizenry Protection:
Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?
Kapil Kak
State sovereignty and non-interference in its domestic affairs, and equally,a state’s bounden responsibility to preserve the right to life of its citizenry—twofundamental and globally established principles of the international system—
have in the post Cold War decades witnessed erosion. Because in many intrastate conflicts, powerful states, invariably from the West, have tended to exhibit
geopolitical impulses to cherry-pick employment of military force for national
interest-driven agendas, behind the façade of such interventions being
proclaimed ‘humanitarian’. The results in most cases have been mixed. The
related security vocabulary of preventive war, regime change and democracy
export has also come in for increasing questioning.
On the other hand, when societal breakdown, genocide and mass killings,
and gross human rights violations take place in a state, should these barbarities
be acceptable to its neighbors, regional players and the international communityfrom the standpoints of ethical imperatives, international law and conventions,and regional and international security? In such a bewildering sovereigntyintervention dilemma, would employment of military force in the cause of peaceand human rights be justifiable? As far back as 1904, US President Theodore
Roosevelt argued “that there are occasional crimes on so vast a scale and of such1

peculiar horror” that we (the US) should intervene by force of arms. A century
later, the United Nations General Assembly Declaration of 2005 was perhaps
emblematic of the globally perceived compulsion, in such instances, to vest theinternational community, with the Responsibility to Protect, the so-termed R2P(used hereafter). But this too has evoked mixed reactions in both the developed
as also the developing world, stirring up a great deal of debate.
The aforementioned developments also need to be examined in the context
of the on-going game changing geo-strategic shift of global power and influence

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from Europe-North Atlantic to Asia as this is important for a proper
understanding of the state of play in world affairs during the decades ahead. A
related development of import concerns the post Cold War trend of a move awayfrom state-centrism to comprehensive human security, arising from people’s
unfulfilled political and socio-economic aspirations. These twin-trends are
expected to not only make for a rising possibility of intra-state conflicts within
institutionally-weak and non-democratic states in Asia—large parts of which
are still developing—but also invest this continent with greater responsibilities
in global affairs. Thus unlike in the past when power lay in the hands of wealthy
nations, in the decades ahead, the world would witness relatively poorer
countries like China and India exercise greater responsibility in global peaceand security by virtue of their rise.
Past cases of interventions, the West Asian ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, leading toNATO intervention in Libya, and the ongoing unresolved humanitarian crisis in
Syria have brought out two key lessons: one, that such interventions should not
be perceived as a one-size-fits-all, because the hierarchy of national interests ofstates are situational; and two, Asia, as the global powerhouse of the future,would need to learn how that power has to be exercised not only to shape theinter-governmental, non-governmental, academic, think-tank and global/
regional civil society and media discourse, but also provide the much-needed
Asian perspectives on generation of policy responses for resolving such intrastate humanitarian crises in future. For expansion of power must bringcommensurate increase in responsibilities and commitments. Significantly, forthe first time in recent history, Asian military expenditures are forecast to
exceed that of Europe in 2012, a trend that could continue for decades, withmany tending to believe that NATO’s role in international security is set toprogressively attenuate.

Sovereignty: Absolute or Responsibility-Centric?
Tracing the evolutionary narrative, Vitoria (1492-1546), Grotius (1583-1645)
and Hobbes (1588-1679), from the Western world, provide thoughtful
philosophical-moral insights. For Vitoria, humankind constituted a universal
community, a great society governed by such natural laws as those of mutualHarmonizing Sovereignty and Citizenry Protection: Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?

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consideration and assistance. States also formed a society of their own by meansof agreed conventions, and interacted within it as equals.
Grotius stressed only on a society of states, largely based on nothing morethan “mutual consent” and governed by collectively agreed-upon rules andpractices which he called the law of nations. For Hobbes, there was neither auniversal human community nor a society of states. States were sovereign andself-sufficient moral communities…and bound only by such agreements as they
had voluntarily entered into and even these were “mere words” to be abided byonly when doing so suited the state’s interests. Hobbes’ views prevailed in2practice, giving rise to the statist view of international relations.

We need to recall that the concept of state sovereignty—the organizing
principle of the international system—goes back to two Compacts: the Peace of
Ausburg (1555) that empowered a ruler to decide upon his country’s religion andthe Treaty of Westphalia (1648) which permitted a ruler to govern as he or she
wished, free from interference by other states and rulers. Many centuries on,
sovereignty today continues to imply “internationally recognized independent
and, most importantly, effectively governed states… accountable for threats
3(that emerge) from their territory”.

But sovereignty was never absolute. During the Cold War, the UnitedStates and the Soviet Union violated this principle in many instances, evenwhen these took place within their tacitly agreed spheres of influence. In recent
decades, Kuwait and Iraq (1991), Somalia (1992-1995), Haiti (1994), Rwanda(1994), East Timor (1995), Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and
Libya (2011), to name a few, also witnessed transgressions of sovereignty.
As in world history, the contemporary international system too exhibits
sharp power asymmetries. Strong states—with their economic, military andtechnological critical mass—dominate and brook no challenge to theirsovereignty. In contrast, nearly half the developing world, comprises relatively
weaker post-colonial states, unable (or sometimes unwilling) to follow norms ofinternational law, which render them vulnerable to external interference. Thereis need to appreciate, as Jean Bricmont justifiably avers, “that the major event

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of the 20th Century was neither the rise and fall of fascism, nor the history ofcommunism, but decolonization… this process freed hundreds of millions of
4people from one of the most brutal forms of oppression”. That these decolonizedstates have over time adopted a range of political models and systems to suit
their specific conditions for socio-economic development is a reality modern
developed states, with their strong institutions of governance, need to recognize.
For did not these states follow similar templates at their equivalent stages ofgrowth and evolution?
A question that arises is why should the established sovereignty construct
be facing interrogation? Perhaps this is because ill-governed near-failed states,
notably in Asia and Africa, experience internal upheavals that emanate fromcivil wars, religious extremism, secessionist movements and international
terrorism that seriously impact the safety of innocent civilians and their right tolife. These occur because states and societies willfully disregard citizen
aspirations and ethical expectations. Some of these Asian states are nuclear
armed and under this ‘umbrella’ adopt international terrorism, including its
invidious trans-national variety, as state policy that poses an even greater
5

challenge to international and regional peace, and security [specifically Asia].

We also need to recognise that ‘Sovereignty as responsibility’ has
increasingly begun to conceptually serve as the basic threshold of acceptableinternational citizenship. Richard Falk makes an interesting point: “sovereignty
only confers a primary competence upon a nation, it is not, and never was, an
6exclusive competence”. The 2001 Report of the International Commission on
Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) (2001) that addressed Responsibility
to Protect also posited a set of conditional as opposed to absolute rights making
7

for sovereignty as the “minimum content of good international citizenship”. This
led to the World Summit Outcome Document in 2005 in which the Report of the
UN Secretary General’s 15-member High Level Panel on Challenges, Threats
and Change, released a year earlier, was a substantial input. Significantly, thePanel, with a good representation from the Asian region, categorically endorsed
the emerging norm…
that there is a collective responsibility to protect, exercisable by the UNSC

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authorizing military intervention as a last resort, in the event of genocide andother large scale killing, ethnic cleansing or serious violation of international
humanitarian law which sovereign governments have proved powerless or8

unwilling to prevent.

Francis M Deng, at one time Special Representative of UN Secretary
General on internally displaced persons, is said to have been the first to use thephrase ‘sovereignty as responsibility’, developing it into a doctrine stipulatingthat when states cannot provide protection for their populations, they must9

request and accept outside offers of aid”. But the question arises as to how
would a state take such an initiative when it indulges in mass atrocity crimes
against its own people? In such contingencies it becomes incumbent on theinternational community to intervene to save large-scale loss of lives among thetargeted citizenry.

Protection of Citizenry
In conflicts within a state, during its endeavors to control the situation andrestore peace, it is enjoined upon to respect international human rights laws andtreaty obligations regardless of its political model. As elucidated in the foregoing,
this is the essence of sovereignty as responsibility. It would be useful to recall
that UN’s early years’ Resolution 96 (I) of December 11, 1946—while addressing
the worst form of humanitarian crisis—affirmed that genocide was a crime
under international law. The 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document (Para
140) reaffirmed this to declare: “we fully support the mission of the Special
Advisor of the Secretary General on the Prevention of Genocide”.
Relationally, we find that even the established concept of national security
has today acquired a widely-accepted human-centricity dimension, more so in
Asia’s developing states. We observe that while the “state has for centuries been
the sole referent of security, today, the individual and family and civil society,have joined it in a matrix in which human security is perceived to becoming a
10co-equal of national security.” Consequently, in cases of widespread sufferingand casualties among a state’s citizenry and massive violation of human rights
or international law, the universality of response of the international community

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must not be allowed to be diluted. Because the right to hold individuals
responsible and accountable, and the thrust towards international
humanitarianism constitute a part of what has been termed ‘cosmopolitan
ideology’. In fact the concepts of ‘human security’, ‘comprehensive security’ and‘cooperative security’ also resonated first in the Asia Pacific region.
Simultaneously, “the spatial reach of the international community [throughavailability of advanced technology and the overpowering reach of the national
and international media] is leading towards the construction of an international
11

moral solidarity against infringement of individual rights”. The phenomenal
increase in public use of social and individual media for real time on-line
exchanges further exacerbates this trend. But technology could be a doubleedged weapon. Like in many facets of human life, the march of technology tends
to leave behind the laws and institutions to regulate the processes and outcomes
technology makes possible. This constitutes a continual challenge forhumankind.
Viewed pragmatically, it is evident that any international impulses basedon the moral imperative must recognize that political power is still concentrated
at the level of the sovereign state which in turn could be vulnerable to theconsequences of the vital national interests of more powerful states. We havewitnessed this in the continuing catastrophic civil war in Syria that has led toover 25,000 deaths in the uprising. Chinmaya R Gharekhan has rightly averredthat “four separate but simultaneous wars are being fought in Syria: civil war;
two proxy wars, one of which is against Iran [the other involving Russia-China
against the US]; a regional war involving practically every country in the area;
and a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shias.”12

Why has R2P not been a

success in the Syrian case? Perhaps the West’s liberal-humanitarian impulses of
R2P have been trumped by geopolitics, electoral considerations, euro-zone crisis
and, more importantly, the conviction that an intervention in Syria has
extremely limited prospects of success. Clearly, the “civil war is headed for along stalemate: the regime cannot crush the opposition and the rebels cannot
topple the regime.”
A gamut of scholarship shows that the prevalent international environment

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is characterized by responses of states to global and regional developments being
steered by national-interest driven, issue-based and function-specificconsiderations. Even in such a milieu there is immense scope for cooperation, in
responding to big-ticket global challenges posed by international terrorism,
nuclear non-proliferation, energy security and the adverse impact ofenvironmental change. But there is perhaps an even greater requirement fordeveloped states to adopt a far more cooperative approach, greater sensitivity
and acute understanding towards developing states which face internal
conflicts—many of these states would invariably be non-democratic. Perhaps
preventive diplomacy in such cases may prove to be a useful instrument.
One need hardly underscore that the much-acclaimed export of democracy
is non sequitur, because democracy is best worked through practice. Perhaps
provision of assistance to states that are inclined to take the democratic route tonation- and state-building could constitute an indirect long-term means ofprotecting citizenry, because democracy impels citizenry to look inwards andinhibits temptations to generate negative outflows. This would also serve to
move states in a direction in which temptations to pursue more democratic
foreign policies would be difficult to resist.
In considering the human rights-intervention dyad, it needs to beunderscored that allowing human rights to serve as a rationale for militaryintervention could open the floodgates to many conflicts. A greater sense ofhistory, and a more innovative and constructive approach on the part of thedeveloped world towards ordinary human rights violations is perhaps
warranted. These do take place in states, with underdeveloped institutions ofgovernance, where nation-building is still work-in-progress and which the state
can be expected to set right in due course. The example of the Kingdom of
Bhutan is instructive in this regard. For years the state reportedly suppressed
the majority Nepalese population without a demur from the international
community, inclusive of India. Enlightened leadership, passage of time andinstitutional safe-guards cured the ills affecting the body-politic. Today there isno suppression: Bhutan has moved on! Many other instances could be cited inthis regard.

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Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?
If the internal crisis in a state assumes grave proportions and the scale andmagnitude of human suffering and casualties are well above the threshold of
acceptable tolerance, the legitimacy of international humanitarian intervention
would be undeniable. But many questions arise: what are the implications interms of international law? Who determines that R2P has been disregarded?
Who has the right to intervene and rebuild? What is the role of the UNSC? The
devil, as is often said, lies in the detail.
It may perhaps be useful to provide at the outset a broadly-accepted
definition of what constitutes a humanitarian intervention:
Coercive action by states, involving the application of military force inanother state without the consent of its government, with or without theauthorization of the UNSC, for the purpose of preventing widespread sufferingand casualties among its citizenry, and putting an end to gross and massive
violation of human rights or international humanitarian law.
As stated earlier, Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter prohibits violation of astate’s sovereignty and interference in its internal affairs, prompting many inAsia, notably India and China, to argue that the emergence of humanitarian
intervention poses a severe challenge to the principle of sovereignty, and is thus
illegal. The only exception is an extant crisis within a state that threatensinternational peace and security when the UNSC can authorize employment offorce under Chapter VII. But, crucially, it cannot authorize military action
purely on account of human rights violations, upheaval due to secessionist
movements and civil war and the like.
While customary law upholds the protection of the individual by the statein safety, security and well being, we also observe that the principle ofhumanitarian intervention emanated from the Western thought of individual
rights, and access to basic needs of life like food and shelter. But, as has beenstated, the contrarian trend of delivering “relief supplies, and establishing a ruleof law to safeguard the rights of people victimized by conflict, can itself become aHarmonizing Sovereignty and Citizenry Protection: Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?

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magnet for increased violence and [even] greater victimization of the local
13

population, or even a source of violence contributing to such victimization”.

A linked question of import here is that interventions have historically been
the preserve of major global players. Power asymmetries in the contemporary
system also make for the reality that ‘weak’ states—despite their sovereign
rights—may have no alternative but submit to the power of the strong
represented by military force and their will to employ it. The world witnessed
the US-NATO combine undertake a (militarily brilliant and successful) 78-day
air campaign against Serbia (1999), and later prosecute the war in Iraq (2003).
Both were geo-strategically driven—the Serbian case being a counter-Russian
action while the Iraq intervention was on account of the West’s obsession withthe ‘smell of oil’. And both campaigns were undertaken without UNSC sanction,and in violation of the UN Charter. The former was termed a ‘humanitarian
action’ even as George Bush described the Iraq War as being an act of “selfdefence”. These two campaigns along with the earlier woefully inadequate
international response to the genocide in Rwanda in April-July 1994 that killed
7, 50,000 to 1 million people, went on to create damaging divisions within theinternational community about the conditions under which force could be
employed for humanitarian objectives. But on one issue there seems no doubt: it
was the genocide in Rwanda that stirred the conscience of humankind and gave
rise to what came to be known as R2P.
Few great powers exhibit consistency in their policies on intervention asthese are invariably shaped by national interest and domestic policies. It would
be useful to recall how the West and the majority of UN members opposed
India’s humanitarian intervention in East Pakistan in 1971 (that may havesubsequently acquired geo-strategic traction), but supported the genocidal
Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (which reportedly killed 3 million people),against Vietnam’s military action for regime change there in 1978. The case ofSouth Africa provides yet another example: the West protected the apartheid
regime there against any intervention well into the 1980’s, while India, in
14

contrast, actively pursued a policy of intervention.

One of America’s greatest policy errors in contemporary history was the124

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creation, financing, equipping and training of the extremist- religious, medievaloriented and narcotics-warlord dominated Taliban force in Afghanistan andPakistan, in collaboration with the latter, during early 1980’s to defeat theSoviets. Following a triumphant success that marked the beginning of theSoviet Union’s implosion in 1991, the US abandoned Afghanistan to be ravaged
internally by the same Taliban, committing the grossest human rights
violations. The US has tried to militarily prevail over ‘its own creation’ for over a
decade since 9/11 but without any success.
Unsurprisingly, it is evident that a sense of caution and restraint has
emerged in Washington and other Western capitals with regard to interventions
which could be termed geo-political wolf in sheep’s clothing. The US dilemma
could be ascribed to two reasons: for one, the misadventures in Afghanistan and
Iraq that have imposed costs in human and material terms; and for another, theperceived overwhelming need to limit its already-diminishing role and conserve
energy. It is noteworthy that Washington was deeply divided in defining its
response to the Libyan crisis of 2011 apprehending another quagmire in the
Muslim world. That is why the so-described Obama Doctrine on interventions is
said to insist on preconditions such as UN support, sufficient moral and national
security justification and the readiness of others to share the burden ofinterventions. Strong reservations were, and are, openly expressed in the North
American and European debates over the use of force to secure humanitarian
objectives in general and Libya, as also the current Syrian imbroglio, in
15

particular.

As for India, like other major players in the Asia-Pacific region, intervention
or non-intervention is not a high principle of foreign policy. India has over timedemonstrated a general diffidence on the question of intervention related tointernal affairs of other states. In the absence of a measure of consistency, India
has appeared ambivalent: opposed some interventions or acquiesced in others.
Its response has invariably been a function of the specific situation, nature ofinternal crisis in the state, national-interest driven realpolitik and domestic
opinion.
16

India intervened in East Pakistan (1971) on humanitarian considerations ,Harmonizing Sovereignty and Citizenry Protection: Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?

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Sri Lanka (1987-90) to help bring about internal peace, and Maldives (1988) toassist in restoring to power a legitimate government, confronting a graveinternal crisis. The conclusion one can draw is that India’s policy matrices onintervention are drawn from the impulses of its strategic culture that favours
constructive engagement based on a consensual approach to management ofcrises. Some Indian commentators have described Indian strategic culture as
combining the three streams of Nehruvianism (oriented towards understanding
17

and cooperative security), neo-liberalism and hyper-realism.

One issue on which India has taken a consistent stand is that R2P is theforemost responsibility of every state. A statement at the UN on July 24,2009 by
Ambassador Hardeep Puri, India’s Permanent Representative, [which generally
represents the consensus of India’s think tank and academic community],
provides a highly realistic policy insight:
Willingness to take Chapter VII measures can only be on a case- by- casebasis and in cooperation with a specific proviso that such action should only betaken when peaceful means are inadequate and national authorities manifestly
fail in discharging their duty…..we do not live in an ideal world and therefore
need to be cognizant that creation of new norms should at the same timecompletely safeguard against their misuse. In this context, responsibility toprotect should in no way provide a pretext for humanitarian intervention or
unilateral action…..even a cursory examination of reasons for non-action by theUN, specially the Security Council, reveals that in respect of the tragic events
that were witnessed by the entire world, non-action was not due to lack of
warning, resources or the barrier of state sovereignty, but because of strategic,
political or economic considerations of those on whom the present internationalarchitecture had placed the onus to act. The key aspect therefore is to address theissue of willingness to act, in which context a necessary ingredient is real reformof the decision making bodies in the UN like the Security Council in its
18permanent membership [emphasis added].

In the case of other major and regional players as well, their national
interests trump all other considerations. We witnessed how in the 2011 vote on
UNSC Resolution 1973 authorizing employment of force in Libya, Germany

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broke ranks with the West and joined India, China, Russia and Brazil to express
reservation against an intervention and abstained from it. While the military
success in Libya did serve to reignite the ‘humanitarian’ impulse for theinternational community to fight for values against barbarianism, it did nottranslate into an intervention in the ongoing internal upheaval in Syria due togeopolitical and cost-benefit considerations.
If the Arab Spring-type internal disorder occurs elsewhere and R2P is notor cannot be exercised, how should the international community respond? Even
more important is the question as to how the R2P can be implemented? The
2005 World Summit Outcome Document, Articles 138, re-endorses theestablished responsibility of a sovereign state to protect its population from four
specific crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic
cleansing. Article 139 endows the international community with the
responsibility to take collective action when national authorities of a state19

manifestly fail to protect its population from these crimes.

The UN Secretary General’s Report on Implementing the R2P—based on
an agreement between member states—rests on three equally important but
non-sequential pillars. Pillar One is an endorsement of the aforementioned
Article 138 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document. Pillar Two calls on
the international community (acting through the UN system and partnerorganizations) to help states to build the capacities to fulfill these
responsibilities. Pillar Three specifies if the state in question fails to protect its
population from the four crimes spelt out, the international community has the
responsibility to take timely and decisive action through diplomatic andhumanitarian means, and if that fails, other more forceful means in a mannerconsistent with Chapters, VI (pacific means), VII (enforcement measures) and20

VIII (regional arrangements) of the UN Charter.

The concept of creation of rapidly-deployable standing capacity comprisinga tri-service military force at the regional level for short-notice deployment both
inside and beyond the region may be an idea worth pursuing. Such a force could
have a dual-task charter to also address humanitarian assistance and disaster
relief missions, and be in accord with Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. Such aHarmonizing Sovereignty and Citizenry Protection: Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?

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need for timely first responder missions in humanitarian crises hardly merits
emphasis as extended deployment timelines could lead to far larger casualties.
It would thus be observed that instances of humanitarian interventions, inthe years ahead, would witness a marked decline due to a variety of reasons notleast due to a trend of caution and restraint in the West and general diffidence
on the part of India, China and other major players in Asia to support and adopt
this course. But should interventions be perceived as necessary, in rare cases,
their outcomes would be a function of locale, gravity of humanitarian crisis,
postures of global and regional players and—most importantly—probability ofsuccess.

Role of the United Nations
The primary function of the UN, as stipulated in Article 1 of its Charter, is“to maintain international peace and security”. Envisaging greater reliance on
preventive diplomacy to address pacific settlement of disputes under Chapter
VI, resort to force was to be regularised in the form of UNSC operating under
Chapter VII. We saw how the UN failed to prevent and halt the humanitariancrisis in Rwanda during 1994 and in Darfur in recent years. In East Timor(1999), “the UN-sanctioned intervention force came only after the worst ofviolence was over and World Bank and IMF loans to Indonesia were21

withdrawn”. The UN also remained ineffective during the invasion of Iraq
(2003). Thus, the elaborate provisions of Chapters VI and VII have produced
mixed results in over six and a half decades. Peace-keeping has been an
invention of the UN, and is often perceived to be undertaken under what is
termed Chapter six and half, and in multifarious ways, reflects its place between
preventive diplomacy or conflict prevention and employment of force. Whenmajor powers undertake interventions, they invariably follow these up with theinduction of peace-keeping forces, under the aegis of the UN, to provide theiractions a measure of legitimacy. Past cases of Kosovo and Sierra Leone serve as
instances. But the UNSC still appears to prefer to do so in the peace-keeping
mode, as its past practices in Liberia and the early stages of the conflicts in
Somalia and the former Yugoslavia indicated.

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There is, however, a contra-perspective on the UN’s low success rate in the
resolution of disputes, and perceptional reservations on its willingness andability to take an objective position. Shorn of the strategic and geo-politicalinterests of major powers, these serve as a major disincentive for states that
seek pacific settlement of disputes. A related question of import is that in intrastate conflicts also, the UN’s track record has been disappointing, perhaps
because the US and the Soviet Union intervened in quite a few of them directly,
Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, to name a few. Given thatpeople’s aspirations in Asia, Africa and Latin America, are rising far out of
proportion to the states’ ability to deliver public goods and effective governance,
intra-state turbulence is unlikely to get attenuated. The adverse consequencesof globalisation, exacerbation of inequalities and growing marginalisation of thedisadvantaged and the associated social tensions—central to the mission of theUN—pose a threat to global peace and security. This trend persists even as
efforts to whittle away the socio-economic mandate of the UN continue apace.
Perhaps revitalising the UN to help it assist in meeting these challenges isjustified in the context of the extant paradigm of comprehensive security.
In UN peace operations, more effective conflict prevention strategies,
improved wherewithal for peace-keeping, including the troops capabilities todefend themselves along with robust rules of engagement, would prevent
failures, as in Rwanda and Srebrenica, from taking place. The Panel on Peace
Operations, in its report released on August 23, 2000, had recommended wideranging measures for peace-keeping reform, most of which have been
implemented. But this is said to be work in progress, as any major changes in
the peace-keeping role of the UN would need acceptance by the member statesfrom the political, financial and operational angles.
Looking at restructuring of the UN in consonance with evolving challenges,
UNSC reform is an idea whose time has come. Its composition reflects thepolitical realities of 1945, being oblivious of the ongoing and prospective gamechanging global power shift, and the legitimacy of its decisions. Doubtless, India,
Japan, Germany, South Africa, Brazil and others would have to be included
among the veto-wielding permanent members. Even when this is achieved, and
UNSC permanent veto-wielding membership increases from five to say ten,Harmonizing Sovereignty and Citizenry Protection: Is Humanitarian Intervention the Silver Bullet?

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Europe, with 9 per cent of the world’s population would have four
representatives (France, Germany, Russia and the UK). In contrast, Asia, with
60 per cent of the world’s population, sharply enhancing economic-technologicalmilitary capabilities and greater likelihood of conflicts, may have no more than
three seats (China, Japan and India). In terms of the current and future power
trajectory, Asia must have a commensurate say. This would not only ensure amore representative and holistic consideration of key issues and consequencesfor UNSC decision-making, but also reflect a conception of humanitarian
intervention that is more universal, non-Western-centric and farthest removed
from what is termed the colonial logic of the ‘white man’s burden.

Concluding Words
A state’s sovereignty and non-interference in its internal affairs endure as
two cardinal principles of the international system. But today, the concept ofsovereignty as a responsibility has acquired certain traction. For should peopleinternally confront genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and ethnic
cleansing, the 2005 UNGA Declaration morally empowers the international
community with the R2P, through employment of force, though it has no legal
sanction, because under the UN Charter only the Security Council can sanction
employment of force. It is noteworthy that the established concept of national
security has acquired a far greater human-centricity, a trend that is moremanifest in the developing states of Asia.
Mega trends in the international system include: game-changing powershift to Asia leading it to shoulder greater responsibilities; states’ policy
responses being generally non-ideological, issue-based and function-specific;
need for far greater cooperation between states to resolve global and regional
challenges; and, higher probability of intra-state conflicts ironically facing
caution, restraint and diffidence in both the West and Asian countries towards
interventions.
When interventions are inevitable, the national interests of major andregional powers would tend to trump all other considerations. Thus, creation of
new norms of R2P should not lead to misuse and provide a pretext for unilateral

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actions. For the UNSC to serve as an effective instrument of mandating andmonitoring interventions, it needs to be more representative of developing power
equations in the world for which purpose its reform is long overdue.
The UN Secretary General’s three-pillar approach on implementation of theR2P could serve as a pragmatic template. Perhaps the creation of a standing
rapidly-deployable tri-service military capacity at the regional level, despite thedifficulties it would pose could be considered. In sum, for interventions perceived
by the international community as necessary, their outcomes would be afunction of locale, gravity of the humanitarian crisis, geopolitical interests andpostures of global and regional players and most of all probability of success.

End Notes
1. Joseph S Nye, “When and Why”, The Times of India (Mint Edition), May 15, 2012, p.8.
2. Bhikhu Parekh, “Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention” International Political Science Review,
January 1997, Sage Publications, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1601448 Accessed on June 7, 2011.
3. Amichai Magen, “Towards Responsible Sovereignty,” BESA Perspective Paper No.142, May 29,
2011 http:// www.sn 106.mail.live.com/Print Messages.aspx?cpids=c2643799-8a9d-11eo. Accessedon June 6, 2012.
4. Jean Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War (Delhi: Aakar
Books, 2007) p.12.
5. Kapil Kak, “Humanitarian Intervention: Geopolitics in Sheep’s Clothing”, Defence andDiplomacy, Vol.1, No.1, 2011 (October), p.29.
6. Quoted in Smita Yadav, “Sovereignty in the International System”, World Affairs, Vol.6, No4,
Oct-Dec 2002, p.98.
7. The Responsibility to Protect, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty (Ottawa: International Development Research Corporation, 2001) p.8.
8. For a realistic exposition on R2P, see Satish Nambiar “The Emerging Principle of the
Responsibility to Protect: An Asian Perspective”, Strategic Analysis, Volume 35, No.6, November
2011, pp.956-957.
9. Jennifer M Welsh, “A Normative Case for Pluralism: Reassessing Vincent’s Views on
Humanitarian Intervention”, International Affairs 87:5 (2011) p.1198.
10. Kapil Kak, ed., Comprehensive Security for an Emerging India (New Delhi: KW Publishers,2010) p.362.
11. Robert Jackson ed., Sovereignty at the Millennium (New York: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), p.29
cited in Atul Bharadwaj, “International Criminal Court and the Question of Sovereignty”,
Strategic Analysis, Vol.27, No.1, Jan-Mar 2003, p.15.
12. Chinmaya R Gharekhan, “World Affairs/Syria: Raging Conflict”, Frontline, September 21, 2012,
pp.54-58.

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13. N 6, p.98.
14. For an analytical survey on approaches to intervention of major powers, as also India, see C Raja
Mohan, “India, Libya and the Principle of Non- Intervention”, ISAS Insights, No.22 (Singapore:
NUS, April 13, 2011).
15. Ibid, p.6.
16. Kapil Kak, “India’s Grand Strategy for the 1971 War”, CLAWS Journal, Summer 2012, pp.88101.
17. For a comprehensive exposition on India’s strategic culture, see Kanti Bajpai, “Indian Strategic
Culture” in Michael R Chambers, ed., South Asia in 2020: Future Strategic Balances andAlliances (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2003),
pp.245-303. Also see, Shivshankar Menon, “K Subrahmanyam and India’s Strategic Culture” in
Air Power, Vol.7 No.1, January-March, 2012. pp.1-11.
18. N 8, pp.956-7. For the long-overdue reform of the UNSC, see Kapil Kak, “Humanitarian
Intervention and the Changing Role of the UN”, Elizabeth Sidriopoulos, ed., A Continent Apart:
Kosovo, Africa and Humanitarian Intervention (Johannesburg: SAIIA, 2001), pp.110-114.
19. N 9, p.1201.
20. See Report of the Secretary General on Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, A/63/677,
January 12, 2009.
21. Aidan Hehrir, Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo: Iraq, Darfur and the Record of Global
Civil Society (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), p.55.