Pugwash Report: Study Group on Intervention, Sovereignty, and International
Security
by Jeffrey Boutwell (Secretary, US Pugwash)
In the space of just a few months, from March to September 1999, the global
community witnessed major interventions in defense of human rights
self-determination in Kosovo and East Timor. Although carried out by different
coalitions of forces acting under quite different mandates, these two
interventions signaled what could well be an increased emphasis on humanitarian
intervention by the international community at the seeming expense of the
principles of state sovereignty and noninterference in a country's domestic
affairs.
In December 1999 in Venice, Italy, the Pugwash Conferences held the
first in what will be a series of meetings of the Pugwash Study Group on
Intervention, Sovereignty, and International Security. This new endeavor stems
in part from the lively discussions generated during a Pugwash workshop in
Spain in July 1999 on the interrelated issues of NATO's intervention in Kosovo,
the West's relations with Russia, and the prospect of future military
interventions by the international community (for a report on the workshop in
Spain, see the
November 1999 Pugwash Newsletter or the project report on the Pugwash
website at http://www.pugwash.org/reports/rc/rc4.htm
). Given the complexity of the issues discussed in Spain, George Rathjens
(secretary general of Pugwash) was convinced of the need for more in-depth
analysis by Pugwash of the important and continuing tensions on issues relating
to intervention and sovereignty. In particular, it was thought that Pugwash
could draw upon its international network of policy specialists and scientists
to convene a series of meetings with the aim of bridging, where possible, the
very real differences that exist among nations and regions regarding
international intervention to deal with cases of widespread humanitarian abuse
and failed states.
To help plan the work of the study group, Rathjens and the US Pugwash Committee
convened a meeting at the House of the Academy in October 1999. Participants at
this meeting included Carl Kaysen, chair of the Academy's Committee on
International Security Studies (CISS); Robert McNamara (former president, World
Bank, and former US secretary of defense); Peter Galbraith (former US
ambassador to Bosnia); Gen. William Nash (former commander of US forces in
Bosnia); Owen Harries (National Interest); Paul Doty (Harvard University); and
Steven Miller, cochair of US Pugwash. The group discussed the pros and cons of
seeing the Kosovo intervention as a precedent for future military interventions
by the international community, and the need especially for a group like
Pugwash to seek common ground among sharply divergent international attitudes
on the legitimacy and feasibility of humanitarian interventions.
Pugwash then convened the first meeting of the international Study Group on
Intervention, Sovereignty, and International Security. A total of 23
participants from eleven countries took part in the two-and-a-half-day
workshop, which was held at the Istituto Ciliota in Venice from December 9 to
11, 1999. Taking part in the meeting were Mr. Kaysen, Mr. Galbraith, and CISS
vice chair Robert Legvold. Other participants included Nobel laureate John
Polanyi (Canada), Air Commodore Jasjit Singh (India), Gen. Hugh Beach (United
Kingdom), Georgi Arbatov (Russia), Col. Hua Liuhu (China), and Claude
Bruderlein (United Nations).
At this initial meeting, the study group focused specifically on
what could be called "first-order issues'' regarding intervention (e.g.,
concepts of international law, the UN Charter, the international politics of
intervention, and various types of intervention). Subsequent workshops will
focus more on the operational issues of intervention and the need for more
effective post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction strategies. A report
on the Venice workshop is posted on the Pugwash website and will be published
in the June
2000 issue of the Pugwash Newsletter
.
It was also decided that a number of the essays prepared for the
workshop would be published as Pugwash Occasional Papers.
The first issue, published in February 2000
, included essays by Gwyn Prins, Alain Pellet, and Hugh Beach; the second,
scheduled for April 2000, will contain pieces by Claude Bruderlein, Timothy
Garden, and Taylor Seyboldt. In launching this new publication series (also
available on the Pugwash website), Pugwash aims to circulate innovative
analysis and policy prescriptions, on such controversial issues as intervention
and sovereignty, to as wide an audience as possible of policy makers, media,
nongovernmental organizations, and members of the research community.
The next meeting of the Pugwash Study Group on Intervention,
Sovereignty, and International Security is scheduled for
September 2000 in Como, Italy
.
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