HEADQUARTERS PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF CANADA

Press Briefing

HEADQUARTERS PRESS CONFERENCE BY FOREIGN MINISTER OF CANADA

Building consensus around the conflicting concepts of State sovereignty and international responsibility would be the focus of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Canada's Foreign Minister, Lloyd Axworthy, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

The Commission, a Canadian initiative announced at the Millennium Summit last week by Canada's Prime Minister, was an independent body that would be tackling one of the most difficult and divisive issues on the international agenda today, said Mr. Axworthy. The Commission, which was given one year to carry out its mandate, would seek to establish open dialogue and debate among governments, civil groups and peoples around the world on issues that were at the very heart of their interests.

"One of the sacred tenets around this building is that sovereignty is supreme", Mr. Axworthy explained. "And yet so are people." That was the interesting balance in the United Nations Charter, he said. The International Commission hoped to accomplish what the World Commission on Environment and Development -- "the Brundtland Commission" -- had achieved a few years ago, Mr. Axworthy continued. That Commission had been able to take two seemingly contradictory ideas and emerge with an entirely new concept: sustainable development. "It changed the way we think and it changed the way we do business", he said.

It was the intention of the International Commission to do the same with what some would say were the conflicting ideas of State sovereignty on the one hand and intervention in response to crimes against humanity on the other. "Many people tell us that even using the term ‘intervention’ is controversial", he said. "We could have called this Commission something else, but it wouldn't get rid of the problem."

Quoting Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a letter addressed to him, Mr. Axworthy said that the Secretary-General supported Canada's initiative in creating the International Commission, and assured the Commission of his "enthusiastic backing" for what it hoped to achieve. Mr. Axworthy said that he appreciated the encouragement that the Secretary-General and his staff had offered.

The Commission's two Co-Chairmen, former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, and the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on issues related to the Horn of Africa, Mohamed Sahnoun, were also present at the press conference.

Commissioners representing a range of interests, ideas and thought would provide the basis for a well-balanced exchange of views, Mr. Axworthy said. Among those serving in the Commission were Cornelio Sommaruga, the former President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); Ramesh Thakur, the Vice- Rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo; Michael Ignatieff, a professor at Harvard University; Vladimir Lukin, the former Chair of the International Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma; Lee Hamilton, a former United States Congressman; Gisele Cote-Harper, a professor at Laval University in Canada, a former Director of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, and member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission; Joseph

State Sovereignty Press Conference - 2 - 14 September 2000

Legwaila, the Permanent Representative of Botswana to the United Nations; and Eduardo Stein, the former Foreign Minister of Guatemala.

The Commission would also work with an Advisory Board consisting of current and former political figures, as well as representatives from academia, non- governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector. The Advisory Board would act as a core group of supporters, and would provide continuing interchange so that the work of the Commission would evolve within the proper political context. Members of the Advisory Board currently serving in government ministries included United Kingdom Foreign Minister Robin Cook, former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, and former Palestine Authority Education Minister Hanan Ashwari. The full composition of the Advisory Board would be announced in about two weeks.

Mohamed Sahnoun, one of the Commission's Co-Chairmen, said that the Secretary-General had initiated the discussion on humanitarian intervention last year. Statesmen around the world had raised the question of how to heed mounting pressures for intervention in grave humanitarian situations on the one hand, and how to cope with the legitimate apprehension that the sacrosanct principle of sovereignty was being undermined on the other. More often than not in recent history, the international community has been forced to make that choice in the face of humanitarian crises.

"Often for some of us -- working in the field in the middle of such crises -- the response of the international community was not timely, not adequate, or did not materialize at all", he said. The result was situations that deteriorated to the point of becoming "intolerable tragedies". When he arrived in Somalia in the early 1990s as the Secretary-General's Special Representative, Mr. Sahnoun had witnessed first-hand the consequences of a "paralysis" of the international community.

On the other hand, the consequences of a gradual limitation of the concept of sovereignty should not be underestimated, he said. Such limitation might jeopardize the working of legitimate governments. That would not be in the interest of democracy or stability in today's world. "History is full of inopportune, unjust interventions", he said.

A number of related questions needed to be raised, Mr. Sahnoun said. Who was to intervene, how would they intervene, how could double standards be avoided and could there be a policy of prevention without intervention? Intervention did not necessarily have to mean military intervention. There were many forms of intervention that could be used before resorting to the military option.

"I don't think any of us are under any illusions about the degree of difficulty in achieving consensus on this issue”, said Mr. Evans. The debate had become extremely polarized. Views were strongly held on either side of that divide. The Commission's emphasis would be to bring the debate on intervention back into the kind of reality the international community periodically had to confront. What would it do if confronted with another Rwanda or Sbrenica? he asked.

With that in mind, the Commission would try to determine whether it was possible to craft a new approach or another set of principles that would make it easier for the Security Council itself to reach consensus on what to do. To achieve consensus, the approach and the methodology that the Commission adopted was crucial.

"There's nothing pre-cooked about this Commission exercise", Mr. Evans said. He added that the use of "intervention" in the title should be seen as a characterization of the problem as it was being formulated in international debate, and not as any kind of anticipation of the solution. He preferred to enter the debate with the expression "responsibility to protect" rather than the "right to intervene".

In terms of methodology, the Commission would be flanked by two kinds of input through the advisory board, on the one hand, and a substantial research team on the other, he said. Because of the funding it would be receiving from several foundations, the Commission would be able to embark on a substantial research exercise. The research effort would be supplemented by holding meetings of the Commission in several locations and by having round-table discussions at which members of the NGO community could participate in the debate, Mr. Evans said. The Commission was planning to meet in Canada, southern Africa and South-east Asia. Round-table discussions were scheduled to take place in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the United States.

The goal of the Commission was to produce a three-volume report, he continued. The first volume would be a succinct account by the Commission itself, which would hopefully be a consensus document. If consensus could not be achieved, there would be opportunity for minority or dissenting opinions. The second product would be a volume of Commission research around different themes, including moral, legal, operational and political questions. That volume would be the core set of materials from which the consensus report would emerge, and would reflect the degree of difficulty and intensity of the intellectual debates now taking place. The Commission's third volume would be a compilation of all the best work done in the past. At the very least, it would provide a foundation for ongoing debate.

Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation, one of the Commission's sponsors, said that the Commission was long overdue. He was pleased that the issues would be tackled openly and honestly, and that the Commission would be combining theoretical with practical questions.

Mitchell Wallerstein, Vice-President of the MacArthur Foundation, said that the Commission could be an important catalyst for moving the problem forward. The MacArthur Foundation was pleased to join with the Carnegie Corporation in sponsoring the Commission.

In response to a question on the composition of the Commission, Mr. Axworthy said that the Advisory Board was open-ended, and others would be added. The foreign ministers he had mentioned had been involved in the Commission from the very beginning in shaping and formulating ideas.

There seemed to be two challenges facing the Board, a correspondent said. The first was to come up with a consensus report and the second was to get the United Nations to pay attention to it. How would he plan to do that? The most important connection, said Mr Axworthy, was that he had worked closely on the subject with the Secretary-General, who had expressed his support. The Secretary- General would receive the Commission's report and it would be up to him to determine how it would be circulated to the United Nations system.

Also, the Advisory Board itself consisted of people who were active both at the United Nations and in their own countries, Mr. Axworthy pointed out. Those connections would ensure that the Commission was rooted in the international political system. It was important to have a place where the debate was finally joined and where the exercise would be fully explored with solid research and analysis. People were receptive to the idea of an honest assessment of the situation.

Mr. Evans said that one of the ideas that had initially attracted him the most was how firmly rooted in reality was the Canadians’ perception of the enterprise. "It wasn't just an intellectual exercise", he said. Too many reports of that kind had simply been shelved. The Commission's report was conceived from the outset as something that "had to fly".

Would the Commission be addressing the question of national interest? a correspondent asked. That was precisely why the Commission was established, Mr. Axworthy said. Situations such as Rwanda, Sbrenica and Kosovo would be faced again. Part of the practicality of the Commission would be that it dealt not only with issues but also with questions such as resources, mandates and actors in situations in which there were gross violations of human rights and the rule of law was being broken. One of the areas that had not been incorporated into the debate was the responsibility of non-State actors. Non-State actors, whether they were warlords or private companies, often became the source of oppression, or accomplices in it. Those were the practical issues on the table.

Sovereignty was a sensitive issue in the United Nations. Could Mr. Axworthy share some of the key information on the discussions he had with people in the building? a correspondent asked. Mr. Axworthy said that the issue was sensitive virtually everywhere, not just in the United Nations. Sovereignty was an evolving concept. Like any legal construct, it changed with the times.

Feelings about national interest were very strong, Mr. Evans added. The challenge was to get people to think in a more creative way about what the real nature of national interest was. He had always thought of national interest as involving not just traditional security and economic interests, but also the national interest in being -- and being seen as -- a good international citizen.

What effect would the work of the Commission have on the debate over Security Council reform? a correspondent asked. It was very central to Security Council reform, said Mr. Axworthy, because, in effect, the Commission would help to redefine the notion of security to include the way in which the human security dimension was recognized by the Council as part of its responsibility.

Mr. Sahnoun said that if intervention were to be made credible, more legitimacy was needed in the institutions and bodies which would decide on the question of intervention. To some extent that would affect the reform of the Security Council.

Since there were still major differences in the views of Member States on intervention, the Secretary-General himself could not have established such a Commission, a correspondent said. Did Mr. Axworthy ask the Government of Canada to establish the Commission, or was the initiative to establish the Commission solely led by the Canadian Government? The Secretary-General was providing incredible leadership around the world and had the courage to raise the issue last year publicly and directly, Mr. Axworthy said. It was up to the Member States to respond. Canada had responded. But, the Secretary-General had made no request. While he had been encouraging and receptive, he had left the initiative in the lap of Member States. Canada had responded by asking Member States to become involved in the discussion. The Commission provided a forum and venue to do that.

What kind of participation would there be from those opposed to humanitarian intervention? a correspondent asked. One of the techniques would be to hold regional meetings throughout the world to which everyone would be invited, Mr. Axworthy said.

Mr. Evans said that most countries would be receptive to private dialogue as well as to public debate. The truth of the matter was that unless a number of key countries came on board, the Commission would not be able to move forward in the real world.

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