Photo courtesy of Albion College |
By Emma Planet
Last Wednesday, Feb. 19, assistant professor of political
science Carrie Booth Walling delivered a lecture on a matter of international
interest: humanitarian intervention.
Bobbitt Auditorium was packed with students and faculty
eager to hear about Walling’s recently published book, All Necessary Measures:
The United Nations and Humanitarian Intervention.
“I have a passion for human rights,” Walling said in her
lecture.
This passion, she said, started when she was the same age
as many of her students here at Albion College. While Walling was in college,
the wars in Yugoslavia and the Rwandan Genocide were both ongoing.
“I was really struck by a horrific sense of injustice and
an immense amount of frustration that these crimes were being permitted to
continue,” Walling said.
It was within this context that Walling discovered
international human rights, which provided dignity, justice and equality on a
global scale.
Most deplorably, crimes similar to those in Yugoslavia
and Rwanda continue today.
Walling’s work focuses largely on international responses
to these mass crimes.
“When we get to the point of debating whether or not
humanitarian intervention is appropriate or necessary, it’s a sign that our
policy or our international policy has already been a failure,” Walling said.
Wondering what drives the United Nations Security Council
to interfere in some crises and not others, Walling researched patterns in
council member reactions and the consequent solutions. She investigated
situations where the council stepped in – Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Sierra Leone – and noted the council’s absence in the cases of Rwanda, Kosovo
and Sudan.
Walling set out to determine what prompts the use of
military force in defending human rights.
“[P]ower in the Security Council at the start of the 21st
century is no longer simply about whose military can win but also about whose
story can win,” Walling says in her book.
The key, she decided, is in the council members’ stories
about the conflict’s cause and nature, as well as the target state’s
authority.Walling explained that Security Council members must conclusively
agree on the conflict, its clear perpetrators and victims to reach a solution.
In addition, state sovereignty must often allow for intervention.
“Generally, the Security Council needs a ‘bad guy’ to
stop and a ‘good guy’ to work with or defend,” Walling said.
In the end, it’s largely an argument of definition – is a
conflict intentional, inadvertent or complex?
“An intentional story identifies a perpetrator [which] is
deliberately and systematically harming a particular set of victims,” Walling
said.
For example, following a massacre in Sarajevo, the
Serbian government identified Bosnian-Serbs as the perpetrators. The victims
were the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A casual chain is evident through use
of the word “ethnic cleansing” in this case.
A story like this, with clear perpetrators and victims,
opens up the possibility that you can get humanitarian intervention, Walling
said.
However, when states are labeled perpetrators of a crime,
mediation doesn’t happen because this would bring state sovereignty and
military intervention into conflict.
“The protection of state sovereignty prompts policies of
non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states, whereas the protection of
fundamental human rights prompts the possibility of humanitarian intervention,”
Walling said.
Albion College junior Patrick Lopez of Boise, ID,
attended Walling’s lecture.
“Her presentation was very effective in demonstrating the
UNSC’s decision-making logic when it came to the use of force,” Lopez said.
Lopez, who especially appreciates learning how
supranationals make decisions, said she did a great job boiling it down to the
basics.
First-year Madeline Beattie of Mount Prospect, IL, works
with Walling through the Student Research Partners Program.
“I really liked the lecture,” Beattie said. “Most of the
research I help Dr. Walling with is centered on Syria, so it was interesting to
hear about how our ideas applied to other events,” she added.
Walling’s exploration of the Council’s values, national
interests and their impact on decision-making is especially valuable as they
suggest prospective UN intervention.
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ABOUT AUTHOR
Emma Planet
Emma is a first-year at Albion College from Sterling
Heights, Michigan. She is pursuing a double-major in English and Environmental
Studies as well as a pre-law concentration. She uses her writing to raise
awareness about environmental issues and adores pretzels paired with junior
mints. Add her on Twitter:
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