Notes

UN Special Summit on Peacekeeping
Humanitarian Intervention
Portuguese Republic
Port Charlotte High School

The topic of humanitarian intervention throughout the history of the United Nations has been extremely controversial in its terms for use, and continues to remain inconsistent in deciding and executing interventions. This usual indecision by the international community has left many countries in the past helpless amidst mass atrocities (Rwanda in 1992), and resulted in regret and remorse for not taking the appropriate actions to save thousands of innocent lives. In 2005, a document aiming to construct a framework as to how and when a country should have permission to intervene was formulated, called the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). However, due to the continuous issues with humanitarian intervention in countries such as Sudan and Libya, further work needs to be completed in providing a more-structured baseline for the benefit of the international community. The Portuguese Republic would also feel it necessary to address not only the issue of steps toward humanitarian intervention, but also the problem many states have had for their underlying motives for intervening into another nation.
As global conflicts begin to take the lives of more people, we believe it is imperative to finally construct a means of handling situations of humanitarian intervention as to where the citizens of the troubled state can be secured and the conflict alleviated. While the Responsibility to Protect doctrine was a significant start for the UN, and has shown some success in conducting peaceful actions to provide necessary assistance, measures for national security as a more efficient method for deciding which countries to intervene by the UNSC also require discussion. Portugal also feels that measures for specific countries should be discussed in order to plan more organized assistance and also prevent countries with unfavorable motives impeding on another state’s sovereignty.
In order to combat indecision for humanitarian intervention in the international community, the Portuguese Republic believes that the formation of a tier-structure framework would best outline the steps necessary to cause a need for such an intervention. In response to any internal conflict within another state, the United Nations must use a ladder-like system with a subsequent pattern consisting of warnings, peace talks, targeted and political sanctions, and only for last resort, the use of humanitarian intervention. Also applied in this tier-structure framework is the use of the principles from Just War Theory, more specifically the application of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The jus ad bellum category handles the conditions that a state must meet in order to legitimize their claim to declare war (intervene) through the ideologies of establishing just authority and just cause. Just authority simply means that, in order for the UN to allow a country to intervene, a political authority within the country must initiate the process to go to war. Just cause on the other hand, strictly deals with being able to illustrate to the international community that the country they wish to intervene has committed mass violations and has not sufficiently provided the needs for its people. This also means that a just intention must be established in order to meet such a cause, so that the threat of intervention for exploitation does not occur. Jus in bello concerns itself around the fact that while a country is permitted to intervene into another state for just causes, they must maintain a just conduct within war, by following the three guidelines of Proportionality, Discrimination, and Responsibility. The Portuguese Republic also firmly believes that the application of the UN-contracted defense corporation AEGIS, as well as the use of dual/multi-incentive benchmarks during peace talks, can further be beneficial in maintaining the security of citizens and attempting to initially eliminate the possibility of intervention in a peaceful manner. Finally, it is imperative that this committee establishes the criteria that all attempts of intervention must be discussed multilaterally while other measures of the tier-structure framework are occurring, and must be passed and ratified by the UN Security Council in order to rationalize the intervention claims, and making them aware to the rest of the international community. Through the application of such ideals previously mentioned, the Portuguese Republic feels that this committee has the distinct potential of eliminating the past indecision over attempts of humanitarian intervention, and as a result can save the lives of millions in the future to come.