Multilateral Preemptive Intervention

Article 2 (4) of the U.N. Charter forbids the international threat or use of force unless authorized by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. Article 51 also expressly preserves “the inherent right of individual and collective self defense.” These seemingly contradictory provisions created the debate about whether the U.S. needed the support of the U.N. to defend itself against terrorism and bring about regime change in Iraq. The U.N. Charter simply does not work in the New World Disorder. It is slow to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. “It is important that international lawyers seek to catch up and ensure that the world’s legal framework is relevant to its security challenges,” said Robert Hill, Australia’s defense minister in 2002.

Every country has the duty to intervene in cases of extreme human rights violations. It is a duty that overrides and supercedes respect for national sovereignty. Failed abusive regimes are bad news for their citizens, country, region and the world as a whole. Millennium examples of what can and must be done are the Australian-led multinational intervention force that stopped the lawlessness in the Solomon Islands, and the U.N. deployment of troops to bring about law and order in Liberia. Oppressive failed states, monarchies and dictators who lack popular support and jeopardize regional or global security should be removed by the GSC. How much longer can the world look on at the death and despair in North Korea, Mozambique and its numerous neighbors?

EU troops should be sent to their former colonies in Africa to work with the Africa Union force. After all, it was the European colonizers who created the ethnic conflicts by drawing borders that forced different ethnic and religious groupings together – knowing full well that conflicts would erupt.

The Arab League’s example of bringing peace and an end to the civil war in Lebanon in 1989, should be replicated and copied in Africa and other regions with repeated or continuing conflicts.

The regimes in Congo, Liberia, Sudan and Zimbabwe cannot be allowed to perpetuate mass slaughter through self-imposed starvation or forced labor while the world community’s impotence magnifies annually. Ethnic minorities in these countries are subjected to humanitarian catastrophes that are merely acknowledged and allowed to self-perpetuate until millions die before a regime change takes place. Regimes that embark on national plunders at the expense and lives of their people must be removed by preemptive intervention.

Military interventions that turn into long-term occupations rarely succeed. To succeed, the intervening force must be well prepared. It must have people trained in military administration, language and cultural knowledge of the countries in which the force will work to restore order. During World War II, the U.S. established civil affairs schools that provided the necessary training, hence the success in Germany and Japan.