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hg870411 发表于网络国法 ★★继续发
The United Nations and international Security
ADAM ROBERTS
In recent years, there has been a remarkable growth in demands for the services of the United Nations (UN) in the field of international security. The 1991 authorized action in Iraq was quickly followed in 1992 by a fivefold increase in the numbers of troops deployed in UN peace-keeping activities and by an increase in the types of roles they perform. At long last, the United Nations seemed to offer the prospect of moving decisively away from the anarchic reliance on force, largely on a unilateral basis, by individual sovereign states. The United Nations has, and will probably continue to have, a far more central role in security issues than it did during the Cold War.
However, the United Nations' multifaceted role in the security field faces a huge array of problems. Almost every difficulty connected with the preparation, deployment, and use of force has re-emerged in a UN context and does not appear to be any easier to address. Excessive demands have been placed on the United Nations, which has been asked to pour the oil of peace-keeping on the troubled waters of a huge number of conflicts, to develop its role in preventing breaches of the peace, and to play a central part in defeating aggression and tackling the after-effects of war. Arms control, too, is embroiled in controversy, with various states-Iraq and North Korea being the clearest examples-challenging what they see as a discriminatory non-proliferation regime. Above all, the increasing role of the United Nations in international security raises two central questions: First, is there a real coherence in the vast array of security activities undertaken by the United Nations? Second, is there a danger that the elemental force of ethnic conflict could defeat the United Nations' efforts?...
This article advances the following propositions about the United Nations"
post-Cold War role in the field of international security:
1. The United Nations has become seriously overloaded with security issues, for good and enduring reasons. The extent to which it can transfer these responsibilities to regional organizations is debatable.
2. Most conflicts in the contemporary world involve an element of civil war or inter-ethnic struggle. They are different in character from those conflicts, essentially interstate, that the United Nations was established to tackle.
Excerpted from Adam Roberts, "The United Nations and International Security," Survival: The HSS Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Summer 1993), pp. 3-30.
3. There is only limited agreement among the major powers about the basis of international security and only a limited shared interest in ensuring that international norms are effectively implemented.
4. The structure of the Security Council, including the system of five veto- wielding permanent members, is in danger of losing its legitimacy. Although a formal change of membership or powers will be very hard to achieve, changes in the Council's procedures and practices may be both desirable and possible.
5. There are some advantages in the practice whereby enforcement has taken
the form of authorized military action by groups of states, rather than coming under direct UN command as a literal reading of the UN Charter would suggest
6. Although the United Nations' role is increasing, basic questions about collective security remain. There is no prospect of a general system of collective security supplanting existing strategic arrangements.
These propositions ... are in no way intended as criticism of the increased emphasis given to the United Nations and its role in the foreign policies of many states. Rather, they constitute a plea for the sober assessment of both the merits and defects of an increased role, as well as for constructive thinking about some of the difficult issues it poses, and a caution against the hasty abandonment of some still-valuable aspects of traditional approaches to international relations.
THE OVERLOAD PROBLEM
… Reasons for such a heavy demand to deal with wars, civil strife, and other crises are numerous and persuasive. Whatever difficulties the United Nations may face in the coming years, these reasons will not suddenly disappear. Three stand out, First, the impressive record of the United Nations in the years 1987-92 has raised expectations. The United Nations has contributed to the settlement of numerous regional conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War, the South African presence in Namibia, the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, and the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia. It provided a framework for the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait. Second, given a choice, states contemplating the use of force beyond their borders often prefer to do it in a multilateral, especially UN, context. A multilateral approach helps neutralize domestic political opposition, increases the opportunity that operations have limited and legitimate goals, and reduces the risk of large-scale force being used by adversaries or rival powers. Third, the United Nations has some notable advantages over regional organizations in tackling security problems: It is universal; it has a reputation, even if it is now under threat, for impartiality; and it has a more clear set of arrangements for making decisions on security issues than do most regional organizations, including even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Recognizing that the United Nations is seriously overloaded, much thought has been given to the question of cooperation with regional security organizations.
… The idea that the United Nations and regional institutions could share responsibility for security seems to be emerging, albeit hesitantly, in Europe. The proliferation of European bodies with responsibilities in the security field is notorious: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), NATO, the European Community (EC), the Western European Union (WEU), and the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) all play roles of varying importance Despite such developments, enlarging the international security role of regional organizations is easier said than done. These organizations have a bewildering variety of purposes and memberships, and they often have great difficulty in reaching decisions and in taking action. Many regional bodies are seen as too partial to one side. Moreover, it is often far from self-evident which regional body should have the principal role in addressing a given problem. The United Nations has often encouraged regional bodies to handle crises only to find that important aspects of the problems remained within its own domain.
THE CHNAGING CHARACTER OF CONFLICT
Many of the conflicts in the contemporary world have a very different character from those that the United Nations was designed to address. Above all, those who framed the UN Charter had in mind the problem of international war, waged by well-organized states. This reflected the view, still common today, that aggression and international war constitute the supreme problem of international relations.
Although the problem of interstate war has by no means disappeared, for many, civil war whether internationalized or not--has always represented the deadlier threat. Some of the twentieth century's principal political philosophies have under-
estimated the significance of ethnicity, however defined, as a powerful political force and source of conflict; this is now changing through the pressure of events
In the overwhelming majority of UN Security Council operations today, there is a strong element of civil war and communal conflict. For the United Nations, involvement in such a conflict is hardly new, as the long-standing and continuing problems of Palestine/Israel and Cyprus bear witness. The collapse of large multi-
national states and empires almost always causes severe dislocations, including the
emergence or re-emergence of ethnic, religious, regional, and other animosities.
The absence of fully legitimate political systems, traditions, regimes, and state
frontiers all increase the likelihood that a narrowly ethnic definition of "nations"
prevails. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that, for the most part, the geographical distribution of populations is so messy that the harmonious realization of national self-determination is impossible. Conflict-ridden parts of the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union are merely the two most conspicuous contemporary examples of imperial collapse leading to inter-ethnic war. In both cases, the taboo against changing old "colonial" frontiers has been undermined much more quickly and seriously than occurred in post-colonial states in Africa and elsewhere in the decades following European decolonization It is by no
means impossible that internal conflicts could drag the United Nations down; its inability to prevent a resumption of war in Angola following the September 1992 elections is an ominous indicator of this type of hazard.
Internal conflicts, especially those with a communal or ethnic dimension, pre-sent special risks for international engagement, whether in the form of mediation, peace-keeping, or forceful military intervention. First, internal conflicts tend to be "nasty, brutish, and long," and they leave communities with deep and enduring mutual suspicions based on traumatic experiences and continuing proximity. Intervention requires a willingness to stay what may be a very long course. Second, internal conflicts are typically conducted under the leadership of non-governmental or semi-governmental entities, which may see great advantages in the degree of recognition involved in negotiating with UN representatives and yet be unwilling or unable to carry out the terms of agreements. Third, internal conflicts typically involve the use of force directed against the civilian populations, thus becoming especially bitter and posing difficult problems related to the protection of dispersed and vulnerable civilians. Fourth, internal conflicts are often conducted with small weapons: rifles, knives and the arsonist's match. It is very difficult to control the use of such weaponry by bombing, arms embargoes, or formal methods of arms control. Finally, in cases such as these, there is frequently no territorial status quo ante to which to return. Cease-fires and other agreements are vulnerable to the charge that they legitimize the use of force and that they create impossibly complicated "leopard-spot" territorial arrangements, based on ethnic territorial units that are small and separated and, thus, difficult to defend
Communal and ethnic conflicts raise awkward issues about the criteria used in recognizing political entities as states and in favoring their admission to the United Nations. When the United Nations admits member-states, it is in fact conferring a particularly important form of recognition, and it is also implicitly underwriting the inviolability of their frontiers. Yet, the United Nations does not appear to be taking sufficient account of traditional criteria for recognition, which include careful consideration of whether a state really exists and coheres as a political and social entity. Many European states also forgot these traditional criteria in some of their recent acts of recognition, many of which did not involve setting up diplomatic missions. If the results of recognition are risky security commitments to purported states that never really attained internal cohesion, public support for UN action may be weakened.
Such conflicts also raise issues about the appropriateness of certain principles
derived from interstate relations, including the principle that changing frontiers by force can never be accepted. This principle, which is very important in contemporary international relations, has been frequently reiterated by the international
community in connection with the Yugoslav crisis. A successful armed grab for territory on largely ethnic grounds would indeed set a deeply worrying precedent. Yet, it must be asked whether it is wise to express this legal principle so forcefully in circumstances in which existing "frontiers" have no physical existence, in which they lack both logic and legitimacy, in which there are such deep-seated ethnic problems, and in which almost any imaginable outcome will involve recognition of the consequences of frontier violations.
LIMITED HARMONY AMONG THE MAJOR POWERS
…It is undeniable, and very welcome, that there is more agreement among states about international security issues now than there was during the Cold War. How-ever, there remain fundamental differences of both interest and perception. These may not be enough to prevent the Security Council from reaching decisions on key issues, but they can frustrate efforts to turn decisions into actions in fast-changing situations
Differences of interest amongst states are complemented by differences in perceptions about the fundamental nature of world politics. Depending largely on their different historical experiences, some states view colonial domination and imperialism as the most serious problems in international relations; others see civil war as the most dangerous threat to international security; yet others view aggressive conquest and international war as the central problems.
Such serious differences of perception and interest are, of course, reflected in the proceedings of the UN Security Council. One should not necessarily expect relations among major powers to be good, and there may be perfectly valid reasons why countries perceive major security problems differently. [For example,] China's world-view, although undergoing important changes, retains distinctive elements-
including a fear of foreign subversion, a strong belief in state sovereignty, and some identification with developing states-which could set it against other Security Council members.
THE PROBLEMATIC STRUCTURE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL
…If the United Nations is indeed to have an enlarged role in security affairs, its system of decision-making must be seen to be legitimate.
The powers of the Security Council are, in theory, very extensive: 'The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter." In practice, the Security Council cannot impose its will on the membership in the way this statement implies and, despite the absence of any system of formal constitutional challenge, there is no sign of the emergence of a doctrine even hinting at the infallibility of UN Security Council pronouncements. However, these limitations on the power of the Security Council do not mean that states, having successfully retained considerable sovereign powers in security matters, see the existing arrangements as satisfactory.
The criticisms of the composition of the Security Council involve several elements: doubt about preserving unaltered, half a century later, the special position of those countries that were allies in the Second World War; concern that three of those powers-France, Britain, and the United States--make most of the agenda-setting decisions in running the Security Council; irritation, especially on the part of Germany and Japan, about "taxation without representation," and frustration that the views of the non-permanent members of the Security Council, and indeed of the great majority of the 181-strong General Assembly, count for little. These criticisms could become much more serious if events take such a turn that they coincide with a perception that the Security Council has made serious misjudgments on central issues……
In the history of the United Nations, much more has been achieved by changes in practice, rather than Charter revision. More thought will have to be given to how the Security Council might develop its procedures and practices: for example, by strengthening the selection of non-permanent members to reflect their contributions to the United Nations" work and developing more regular Security Council consultation with major states and interested parties. Such changes, although difficult to implement, might go at least some way towards meeting the strong concerns of certain states about being left out of decisions that affect them vitally.
The issue of organizing enforcement actions is central to almost every discussion of the United Nations" future role. It brings out the conflict between "Charter fundamentalists," who would like such actions to be organized precisely in accord with the UN Charter, and those with a "common law" approach, who believe the most important guide is UN practice.
Three times in the UN era, major military action authorized by the United Nations has been under US, not UN, command: in Korea in 1950-53, Iraq in 1990-91, and Somalia in 1992-93. These episodes suggest the emergence of a sys-tem in which the United Nations authorizes military actions, which are then placed under the control of a state or group of states. There are important advantages to such an arrangement. First, it reflects the reality that not all. states feel equally involved in every enforcement action. Moreover, military actions require extremely close coordination between intelligence-gathering and operations, a smoothly functioning decision-making machine, and forces with some experience of working together to perform dangerous and complex tasks. These things are more likely to be achieved through existing national armed forces, alliances, and military relationships, than they are within the structure of a UN command. As habits of cooperation between armed forces develop, and as the United Nations itself grows, the scope for action under direct UN command may increase, but this will inevitably be a slow process
Experience seems to show that mobilizing for collective security only works when one power takes the lead. However, as a result of the effort, that same power may be reluctant to continue assuming the entire burden of collective security. After the Korean War, the United States tried to set up regional alliances to reduce its direct military obligation. After the 1991 Gulf War, the United States was manifestly reluctant to get entangled in Iraq and to underwrite all security arrangements in the area The issue of UN versus authorized national command arises in non-enforcement connections as well. As UN-controlled peace-keeping forces become involved in more complex missions, in which neat distinctions between peace-keeping and enforcement are eroded, the adequacy of the United Nations"
existing machinery for controlling complex operations in distant countries is increasingly called into question
PROSPECTS FOR COLLECTIVE SECURITY
Is it possible to say that out of the rubble of the Cold War a system of collective security is emerging?... The term "collective security" normally refers to a system in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all and agrees to join in a collective response to aggression. In this sense, it is distinct from collective defense or alliance systems, in which groups of states ally with each other, principally against possible external threats.
"Collective security" proposals have been in circulation since the beginning of the modern states system and were indeed aired at the negotiations that led to the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. The attractive theory of collective security, when tested against some basic questions, often reveals some fundamental flaws.
Whose collective security? There is always a risk that a collective security sys- tem will be seen as protecting only certain countries or interests or as privileging certain principles at the expense of others. Some countries may, for whatever reason, feel excluded from its benefits or threatened by it. The anxieties expressed by some countries in the developing world regarding the concept of the "New World order," while they have not yet crystallized into definite opposition to any specific UN action, are evidence of concern on this point.
Can there be consistent responses to security problems? Although the UN system is the first truly global international system and although it involves the subscription of virtually all countries in the world to a common set of principles, it is not yet evident that the same principles and practices could or should be applied consistently to different problems, countries, and regions. Difficulties can arise both from the consistent application of principles to situations that are fundamentally different and from the inconsistent application of principles. It is also not yet apparent that collective security can operate as effectively for East Timor as for Kuwait. The widespread perception that Israel has successfully defied UN Security Council resolutions while other states have not, although arguably facile in certain respects, illustrates the explosiveness of emerging accusations of " double standards" at the United Nations. The political price of apparent inconsistency could be high.
Against which types of threat is a system of collective security intended to operate? There is no agreement that collective security should apply equally to the following: massive aggression and annexation; cross-border incursions; environ- mental despoliation; acts of terrorism; human rights violations within a state; communal and ethnic conflict; and the collapse of state structures under assault from internal opposition. In 1990-91, many people argued that it was the particularly flagrant nature of the Iraqi invasion, occupation, and annexation of Kuwait that justified the coalition's response; even then, the international military response was far from unanimous. The fact that this argument was so widely used underlines the point that in cases in which aggression is not so blatant, it might be much harder to secure an international military response; a state caught up in such a conflict might have to look after its own interests. Since 1991, inspired partly by the establishment of "safe havens" in northern Iraq and partly by a trend of opinion, admittedly far from universal, in favor of democracy, there has been some increased advocacy, not least in France and the United States, of a right of intervention in states even in the absence of a formal invitation. This remains a deeply contentious issue and serves as a useful reminder that the ends towards which collective security efforts might be directed are not fixed.
How collective does enforcement have to be? Is complete unanimity impossible to attain, especially in the case of military action? Is there still space for some states to be neutral? In practice, there has never been, on the global level, a truly "collective" case (let alone system) of collective security. In the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, the key UN Security Council resolution avoided the call for all states to take military action. Instead, it merely authorized "member-states co-operating with the Government of Kuwait" to use "all necessary means" to implement relevant UN resolutions. This implied that it was still legitimate for a state to have a status of neutrality or non-belligerency in this conflict. It marked an interesting and realistic interpretation of some optimistic provisions in Chapter VII of the UN
Charter.
How can a system of collective security actively deter a particular threat to a particular country ? In the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, there was much discussion as to possible means by which, in the future, invasions could be deterred before disaster struck Following a unanimous Security Council decision of 11 December 1992, the idea was implemented by the United Nations for the first time in Macedonia. Ironically, a state that until April 1993 remained a non-member was thus receiving protection from a state, Yugoslavia, that was still, for most practical purposes, a UN member. Despite remarkable progress, the idea of "preventive deployment" is fraught with difficulty. There is the risk that large numbers of states would request it, that it would be insufficient to discourage aggression, and that it might be used by a government as an alternative to providing for its own defense. It should not, however, be taken for granted that military deployments are absolutely essential. There may also be some residual deterrent value in the lessons of Korea (1950--53) and Kuwait (1990-91); twice, under UN auspices, the United States has led coalitions that have gone to the defense of invaded states to which the United States was not bound by formal alliance commitments and in which it had no troops deployed at the time. This curious fact may not be entirely lost on would-be aggressors. Yet, there are bound to be cases in which some kinds of preventive UN deployments, of which Macedonia is a harbinger, are considered necessary.
Who pays for collective security? The question of burden-sharing in international security matters is notoriously complex, as shown by the experience of NATO, of UN peace-keeping, and of the US-led operations in the 1990-91 Gulf crisis. In 1992, the annual cost of UN peace-keeping activities was the highest ever-about $2.8 billion. Unpaid contributions towards UN peace-keeping operations in September 1992 stood at $844 million, but by the beginning of 1993, this figure was reduced to about $670 million. States have responded well to the increased costs of peace-keeping. However ff more UN peace-keeping (or other)
operations go badly, there could be added difficulty in securing payment. Even if they do not, there are problems to be addressed. During the US presidential campaign, Bill Clinton, while indicating that he would act on payment of the US debt to the United Nations, repeatedly called for new agreements for sharing the costs of maintaining peace and suggested that the US apportionment of UN peace-keeping costs be reduced from 30.4% to 25%. The extraordinary paradox of the country most deeply involved in military support for an international organization being simultaneously its major (though steadily repaying) defaulter is yet one more illustration of the gulf between the theory of collective security and its practice. However, future payment difficulties may come from states not involved in, or critical of, Security Council decisions.
What is the place of disarmament and arras control in a system of collective security? Most proposals for collective security call for lower levels of armaments, consistent with the needs of internal security and international obligations However, the United Nations has yet to work out a coherent philosophy to guide its efforts in the field of disarmament and arms control in the post-Cold War era. "Arms control" is still seen by many as a suspect, meliorist concept. Attempts to develop guidelines for conventional arms transfers have many sharp critics, including China. The rationale for arms reductions, for control of arms transfers, and for nuclear non-proliferation efforts, all still need to be carefully examined and refined. This is especially important in view of the common fears that existing arms control arrangements are discriminatory--fears that could be exacerbated if the Security Council assumes a more central role in non-proliferation matters. |
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