PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF STANLEY FOUNDATION

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF STANLEY FOUNDATION

Richard H. Stanley, President of the Stanley Foundation, met with correspondents at a Headquarters press conference yesterday afternoon to introduce and expand on the Foundation's latest report, "Problems and Prospects for Humanitarian Intervention." The press conference was sponsored by the United Kingdom.

Mr. Stanley said that the report on humanitarian intervention was a product of the Stanley Foundation's United Nations of the Next Decade Conference held in Vail, Colorado last June. The Foundation which was founded in 1956, and is committed to pursuing the effective management of global problems, had held such conferences every year since its founding. Previous conferences had dealt with topics that were of current interest to the United Nations, the United Nations community and the broader international community.

He said that it was important to distinguish between humanitarian intervention and the traditional role of United Nations peacekeeping. Humanitarian intervention was the result of a collision between the need by the international community to react to egregious humanitarian violations and claims by the nation involved that it was a domestic affair. Although Article 2.7 of the United Nations Charter established the principle of internal affairs, it also stated that this principle should not get in the way of the Security Council.

The Conference participants came to a number of consensus decisions on the subject of intervention, he said. There was a high degree of consensus that there were circumstances when the international community did need to intervene, perhaps forcefully, to mitigate egregious humanitarian situations in spite of claims of national sovereignty. There was also strong consensus that the standard for such intervention should be a high one.

Countries needed to be assured that the concept of humanitarian intervention was not a new kind of colonialism. The number of interventions needed to be few enough that the major powers of the world would provide support to them. The participants agreed that the Security Council was the preferred authorizing body, although they differed on whether it should be the only authorizing body.

Mr. Stanley noted that the Foundation had hosted a working lunch at Headquarters today. There had been over 20 representatives of various Permanent Missions to the United Nations. Invitations had been extended to all of the permanent members of the Security Council and other individuals from around the world. At the discussion, there had been a strong interest in continuing exploration of the topic of humanitarian intervention.

In his view, it was important to get to the point where any country that might be considering oppressing or murdering civilians was

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held back by the probability that the international community would intervene. In discussing this topic, the Foundation had taken up a challenge that the Secretary-General had presented to the United Nations back in September 1999. The Millennium Summit had given affirmation to the idea that there were situations where the United Nations needed to intervene.

The Brahimi Report on United Nations peace operations had made a number of very constructive recommendations. He reiterated that there needed to be a distinction between the concept of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention. Often with humanitarian intervention there was no peace agreement to be reinforced and no invitation from the countries involved. The situation was often one where crimes against humanity warranted intervention.

The Policy Bulletin of the Foundation included a synopsis of the discussions in Vail last June. There was also a full conference report and a news release available for those interested. He noted that the documents being distributed had not been reviewed or approved by individual participants. Instead, they were the report of the Foundation's rapporteur, representing the rapporteur's judgement of consensus.

Asked by a correspondent if the participants' idea of "use of force" was something that would be approved by the Security Council, Mr. Stanley replied that the consensus of the group was that the Security Council would be the preferred authorizing body, although there were some differing views. If the Security Council failed to act, that should not necessarily preclude action. This point was controversial.

Were there any practical steps that could be taken to change the tide of what was going wrong in peacekeeping? a correspondent asked. Mr. Stanley replied that there were two aspects to this question. In terms of what could be done, the Brahimi Report listed a lot of very good things that could and should be done within the United Nations peacekeeping operations. This included strengthening the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and setting up a list of military advisers and civilian police advisors, among other things.

He said that humanitarian intervention was different because the nation or nations involved might be opposed to the intervention. This was the area that the Report had tried to deal with. It was important to get to the point where all of the nations of the world saw an effective United Nations as an important part of the way they interact with the world.

A correspondent noted that there had been some interest shown by the Security Council in providing protection for humanitarian intervention. Had that been discussed at all at today's meeting?

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Mr. Stanley replied that it had not been a primary topic of the discussion. It was a real challenge to get the Security Council to be more predictable and more consistent in how it handled interventions. The open question was whether a set of guidelines could be established that might help the Security Council as it considered those issues. There was recognition that political factors would never be removed from the deliberations of the Security Council.

Would Mr. Stanley describe his effort as a "friendly nudge" to get the Council to try to consider humanitarian action more seriously? a correspondent asked. He replied that the Foundation's hope was that there would be serious dialogue on the subject. There was a need for international law to evolve so that the United Nations could be more effective and responsive.

He added that change in any complex system happened slowly. There was a large degree of inertia in any large system. The United Nations and the international community were not an exception. The goal of the Foundation was to raise ideas and questions and to encourage serious discussion in the hope that there would be change. The seriousness with which those questions were being taken by a variety of countries gave him hope.

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