Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa

Okon Akiba

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030253530
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030253547
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This edited volume focuses on the development and conflict prevention mechanism of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS. The contributors discuss complex socio-political and economic issues and use a cross disciplinary approach to treat most of the dominant research questions in the field. The chapters come nicely together in a kaleidoscope of knowledge deriving from scholarly investigative traditions in political science, anthropology, economics, law, and sociology. The book is conceived as a source of reference and for graduate courses in African politics, development, human rights, transnational law, and international public policy.

© The Author(s) 2020

O. Akiba (ed.)Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Preventive Diplomacy in Theory and Practice

Okon Akiba¹

(1)

International and Comparative Politics Professor, York University, Toronto, Canada

End Abstract

An ounce of peace is worth a pound of cure. (Benjamin Franklin)

Beginning effectively from the early 1990s, pronounced transformations in the global system of states offered normative institutions of international governance sublime opportunities to redefine global security, re-tool diplomatic machineries for effective management of violent conflict, and work collaboratively with national governments toward constructing fresh norms of conflict resolution for a new world order . With a great sense of the moment, and propelled by a new spirit of commonality at the January 1992 United Nations (UN) Summit ,¹ world leaders also came to recommit their countries to the original Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter , reiterating that it is incumbent on all Member States to help the organization achieve its cardinal goals of maintaining international peace and security, and of securing social justice , to wit, of promoting “social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. ”²

Consistent with the times, special United Nations World Conferences are now convened on a regular basis to raise issues of security and to deliberate upon questions of fundamental importance to sustainable development and peace such as the environment, human rights, women and population, regional security, sources of contemporary conflict and conflict prevention. The UN, the African Union (AU), and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are in search of improved strategies for ensuring sustainable socioeconomic development —and containment of the growing dangers embedded in the use of massively destructive weapons of war is placed on the front burner of diplomatic concerns. In large measure, the rapid rise of conflict prevention to prominence in the agenda of governments and international organizations in the post-Cold War period has been propelled by a growing commitment to resolve the multiple political instabilities that inhere organically in forging new states and collapse of fragile political entities. Deeply traumatized by the experience and consequences of failures on the part of the international community³ to prevent genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda , and the inability to effectively manage the aftermaths of bedlam, international law in the new security environment has manufactured strong consensus on collective responsibility to protect (RP2) vulnerable communities against atrocity and the cluster acts constituting aggression and war crime.

None would raise any objections to the reasoning that new approaches and inventive instruments for easing the distress accompanying violence among rival nationalities must be well calibrated and put into careful use by professionals endowed or skilled in handling conflict at all its multifaceted levels. New beats to the life and momentum of conflict resolution currently are guided by the moral imperative to speedily preempt and prevent crises—rather than investing in plans for post-conflict reconstruction, plans and strategies that have proven in practice to be emotionally exhausting, definitely debilitating and financially costly.⁴

This chapter is primarily an investigation, interrogation, and treatment of the norms, traditions, and principles undergirding preventive diplomacy. To deepen thoughts on the subject, I examine and assess the extents to which human rights principles are guiding the articulation and practice of preventive diplomacy. For similar purposes, the intellectual underpinnings of “just war doctrine;” and questions about the practical implications of laws permitting or legitimizing the use of force—the idea in international law about “permissible use of force”—are posed and addressed. Then, the main lines of argumentation are drawn, to show how they apply to the theory of preventive diplomacy. The overall template of the book is set in a way to guide and ensure that the contributors’ commanding trend of thoughts is in sync, well-integrated, into the tightly knotted provisions of the ECOWAS Conflict Preventive Framework (ECPF, hereinafter, the Framework). And the Sequence of Thought in the Chapter Appears in Five Main Frames, as follows: (I) Research Problem in the Context of a Literature Review, (II) Criminal Impunity, the Use of Force, and Accountability for Atrocity, (III) Human Rights as Path-Defining Instruments of Conflict Prevention, (IV) Conflict Research and the Future of Peace, and (V) Essays in a Nutshell.

I. The Problem and Issues in the Context of a Literature Review

Preventive diplomacy⁵ is anchored principally in fresh thinking about the causes of domestic conflict and interstate war. And it provides for mechanisms considered to be appropriate and sufficient for stopping conflicts before they deepen and assume intractable, bloody dimensions.⁶ It is an approach to peacebuilding that aims to prevent violence from starting by addressing key long-term factors driving tensions toward explosion.⁷ Prevention consists of two main strands of activities: Operational prevention focuses on short-term responses that are embodied in principles and practice of traditional preventive diplomacy as defined in the UN Charter.⁸ Structural prevention is composed of long-term strategies targeting root causes of conflict such as economic marginalization and political exclusion. About this, Kevin Cahill ⁹ observes that diplomacy, like health care, is focusing increasingly on prevention, rather than treatment, and that prevention in this case requires tools including greater reliance on empirical studies of risk assessment and early warning systems. He argues that the causes of conflict are diverse and require the intervention of many academic disciplines including medicine. Most would agree with the reasoning in Cahill’s cross-disciplinary discourse on global politics, that stopping wars before they start is easier than ending wars that are already underway. More so, military interventions and economic sanctions tend to inflict more harm than good on the target community.¹⁰ Instead of anxieties that come parts in parcel with alternative proposition that war is a congenital affliction,¹¹ preventive diplomacy offers hope that wars can be mitigated and eliminated from society.

Forward looking about the prospects of successful peacebuilding through policy initiatives and collaboration, preventive diplomacy is in itself also essentially revolutionary in character.¹² It is revolutionary because it poses a fundamental challenge to biological determinism ¹³ and psycho-analytical¹⁴ approaches to explaining conflict—that human nature is innately selfish¹⁵ or war-prone. And those wars are inevitable in society, given human qualities that are frequently aggravated, deeply, during interstate and intragroup competitive struggles for power and material resources.

Preventive diplomacy in theory presupposes that the causes of war are embedded in material and sociopolitical vectors, which can be isolated, neutralized, and eliminated through the deliberate action of good statesmen, working together with leaders in international organizations. Peace advocates¹⁶ are customarily and commonly motivated and driven into action by personal predisposition and by the moral force of international law. Associated with this are pacifists and non-violent protagonists ¹⁷ of peace such as Mahatma Gandhi ,¹⁸ the Dalai Lama , and Martin Luther King, Jr. , who have sermonized and moralized tolerance showing also that war is socially constructed phenomenon.¹⁹ The sources of war are found not in wicked proclivities said to inhere in human nature, but in arbitrary policies used by public officials to bend the meanings of identity and manipulate cultural difference. Quite a number of leaderships are adroit at marginalizing minorities and reawakening or reinterpreting histories and traditions in ways that create enemy images of the other.

Edward Azar’s “Protracted Social Conflict”²⁰ theory complements these perspectives, showing how the causes of domestic conflict can emerge from the suppression of opposition and minority forces. Violence is also seen as arising from mass reactions to human right abuses or defense against violent attacks by agents of the abusive state. In such circumstances, political stakeholders and international peace organizations in multiethnic societies are enjoined to preempt conflict and foster social progress by promoting inclusiveness in governmental affairs. It is necessary to ensure that group rights are respected and constitutionally protected, with an eye to eliminating impulses for secession among minorities and toward promoting national unity. Parallel to this conception of conflict and conflict prevention is the treatment of all non-democratic regimes as at root dysfunctional, while implantation of multi-party competitive electoral systems of governance is promoted as antidote to violence.²¹

Thus conceived, quite a few theorists are placing the emphasis somewhat differently: Seeing conflict as an essential naturally occurring element in fledgling democracies,²² they say that conflict is not something to be avoided at all cost in all circumstances. Indeed, they are arguing that conflict may well be the stimulus for change toward a more humane society and that conflict can spur normative leaders to craft, define, and re-position alternative development priorities for the common good. As a matter of fact, the ECOWAS Framework calls it conflict transformation .²³ Still, others posit²⁴ that African wars have been exploded many times by rebels seeking to control natural resources. And they are able to recruit followers who are disenfranchised and antipathetic toward government. Emergent leaderships can eliminate those negative forces that grossly undermine their official abilities to expand employment and meet public expectations on improved living standards, such as bureaucratic corruption .²⁵

The range of arguments percolating from all this may be summarized as follows: Conflict is not always anathema. For instance, the popular liberation movements of the 1970s used the force of arms to liberate subjugated people from want and from the fear of tyranny, and certain wars are unavoidable and must be allowed to ripen²⁶ before intervention to resolve them. The appeal of competitive political system of governance may be exaggerated, since quite a few of the ongoing democratic experiments are failing consistently to promote both economic rights and civil/political rights (CPR) concurrently. More so, neoliberal constitutionalism ²⁷ should not be considered the exclusive path to enthroning progressive and predictable democratic peace.²⁸ Citizens in a number of transitional societies ²⁹ are not gaining anticipated peace dividends from externally induced intervention or negotiated settlements, given the prevalence of sociopolitical and economic insecurities.³⁰ These are some of the caveats currently forcing serious reflections upon the cascading justifications and institutional support for conflict prevention.

On the whole, we can see that the idea of conflict and conflict prevention is norm-laden. And needless-to-say, the inherent destructiveness of war always generates moral and ethical questions. While the gruesome outcomes of war are never contested in civilized society, it is the policies, strategies, recommendations, and priority prescriptions to prevent war—such as the pursuit of human rights, promotion, and consolidation of democratic values and the peace potentials of free-market mechanisms—that frequently ignite the hottest conceptual disputes on the subject...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Preventive Diplomacy in Theory and Practice
• 2. ECOWAS and Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa
• 3. Youth Bulge and West Africa: Understanding Dispute Triggers and Conflict Prevention
• 4. Militant Psyche and Separatism: A Note on the Casamance Conflict and Necessity of Preventive Intervention
• 5. Women’s Wartime Struggle for Peace and Security in the Mano River Union
• 6. Making and Enforcing Peace Through Mediation and Fire Power: A Retrospective on the Liberia Experience
• 7. About God and Violence in West Africa! Can Religious Organizations Foster Peace?
• 8. Rwanda and North Macedonia: Considering the Nature of Conflict and UN Peacemaking
• 9. Epilogue: Arbitrariness and Conflict—The Context of Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa
• Back Matter