The Human Security Agenda

How Middle Power Leadership Defied U.S. Hegemony

Ronald M. Behringer

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781441176479
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Relations internationales

Middle power states, such as Canada or Denmark, are often thought of as "followers" of great powers rather than significant actors in global security. Challenging this view, this book highlights how middle powers have in fact showed great leadership by developing a "human security" agenda that focuses on countering threats to human beings rather than to nation-states. The work examines how coalitions of middle powers have performed through five case studies: the formation of the Multinational Standby High Readiness Brigade for United Nations Operations (SHIRBRIG), the realization of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty, the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the regulation of the legal trade in small arms and light weapons, and the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle. Furthermore, the book explores how the human security initiatives were shaped by the middle powers' choices of diplomatic strategy, and how they were affected by the reactions of the hegemonic United States. The Human Security Agenda will appeal to those studying international relations and global security, as well as foreign policy and international organizations.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Since the end of World War II, the realist paradigm has been the dominant approach for the study of international relations (Holsti 1995; Lynn-Jones 1999; Pettiford and Curley 1999). Realists conceptualize the dynamics of international security as a zero-sum struggle between nation-states in an anarchic international system (Morgenthau 1948). The great power states are considered to be the primary actors in the global system. International peace is maintained either through a balance of military power between the great powers (Waltz 1979) or through the actions of a globally hegemonic state that possesses preponderant military power and the will to exercise it (Gilpin 1981).

But the events of the post-Cold War era have demonstrated the limitations of the state-centric realist approach. Unlike earlier periods, when the main security concern for national governments was to prevent the outbreak of warfare between nation-states, there has been a proliferation of intrastate conflicts since the Cold War ended. National militaries, warlords, guerrillas, secessionist groups, and terrorist organizations have used deadly force against both military and civilian targets in pursuit of their objectives. The realist perspective, which prioritizes the security of nation-states from military threats, has been incapable of dealing with the post-Cold War conflicts, where the combatants are often nonstate actors, and the primary victims are civilian populations. The world became painfully aware of this fact on September 11, 2001, when members of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States, killing around 3,000 people.

A particular deficiency of realism is its failure to recognize that smaller states may exercise leadership on security issues. The realist view of middle and small powers is summarized concisely in Robert Gilpin’s argument that “both power and prestige function to ensure that the lesser states in the system will obey the commands of the dominant state or states” (Gilpin 1981, 30). But by concentrating overwhelmingly on the activities of great power states, realists have ignored the contributions that middle powers have made to global security. This book addresses the neglect of middle powers and demonstrates how some of these states have taken the initiative to make significant positive contributions to global security, even while facing powerful opposition from great powers.¹

In 1996, the Canadian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, brought to the attention of the international community an alternative conceptualization of security, termed “human security,” which emphasizes the security of people rather than the security of nation-states (Axworthy 1997). In recent years, human security issues have been promoted worldwide by “like-minded” middle powers such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway. These states have launched human security initiatives in multilateral forums and have brokered global coalitions of the willing, which have worked diligently to achieve these initiatives. In short, middle powers have assumed leadership roles on human security issues, and they have played these roles successfully.

Formidable obstacles may lie in the path toward success, however. Negative reactions from other states should be expected whenever a human security proposal does not correspond to their national interests. One particular state, the hegemonic United States of America, stands alone above all other states due to its preponderant power, capabilities, and influence in the domain of global security. In this book, I explore the US policy on the human security issues, as well as the reaction of Washington to each middle-power-led initiative. I expect that if the US government should perceive a human security initiative as a threat to its core national interest—defined as the security of the American territory, institutions, and citizenry—the superpower would mount a fierce campaign to thwart the initiative. It can be safely asserted that the like-minded middle powers would never take any action that would willfully endanger the territory or population of the United States, a fellow democracy and close ally. But there is the possibility that an international institution (norm, law, or organization) that is established with the intention of furthering human security may simultaneously contradict American domestic institutions (laws and constitutional rights). In this scenario, I assume that Washington would defend the American institutions by countering the human security initiative.

The successful achievement of a human security objective may also depend on the middle powers’ choice of diplomatic strategy, which I also explore in this book. Occasionally, the middle powers have opted to fulfill a human security initiative without the participation or assistance of any great powers. A possible benefit of this strategy is the maintenance of freedom from the great powers’ influence, interference, and manipulation of an initiative to make it conform to the great powers’ interests rather than serve those of humanity. A drawback, however, is that the middle powers may have limited capabilities and resources to mobilize on behalf of an initiative without contributions from the great powers.

For some human security issues, the middle power states have relied on the traditional decision-making by consensus which characterizes many multilateral organizations. The positive aspect of consensus decision-making is that it may generate broad support from the international community (including the great powers) for an initiative, thereby increasing the likelihood that the initiative will achieve its objectives. On the negative side, any state may single-handedly thwart an initiative on the grounds that it conflicts with the national interest of the dissenting state, no matter how incredulous its arguments are. Moreover, consensus decision-making often produces lowest common denominator agreements that have less substance and may not be satisfactory for fully ensuring human security.

In contrast, the middle powers have sometimes taken control of the negotiating process by utilizing “soft power” (Nye 1990; Sikkink 2002), “fast-track diplomacy” (Axworthy 2003; Lawson 1998), or a combination of both. Soft power involves the use of persuasion, rather than coercion, to convince actors to support an initiative. Rob McRae described soft power as “leadership through both example and exemplary actions, and through partnership” (McRae 2001a, 245). Fast-track diplomacy is a “take it or leave it” approach whereby the middle powers organize a coalition of like-minded actors—including states, international humanitarian organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—which have come to an agreement on a treaty or plan of action that is effective for addressing a particular human security problem. The coalition then uses the soft power of persuasion, through both state-led diplomacy and NGO-led advocacy, to convince as many holdout states as possible to accept the human security proposal within a brief period of time. Although fast-track agreements lack the universal support that characterizes accords reached through consensus, they have made tangible progress in resolving issues that affect human security.

The human security initiatives

In this book, I analyze five cases of human security initiatives on which middle powers played significant leadership roles. I will now summarize these initiatives, which are discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters.

The SHIRBRIG peacekeeping initiative

The lack of a permanent force for rapid deployment in times of crisis has consistently hampered UN peacekeeping operations (Johansen 1998). To address the problem, the governments of Canada and the Netherlands organized the Friends of Rapid Deployment (FORD) coalition, with the aim of promoting the idea of a UN rapid response brigade among the major power states (Langille 2000). In December 1996, seven middle powers established the Multinational Standby High Readiness Brigade for United Nations Operations (SHIRBRIG). Headquartered in Denmark, SHIRBRIG was designed to deploy, at a short notice of only fifteen to thirty days, four to five thousand troops on peacekeeping missions lasting up to six months (SHIRBRIG 2001a, 2001b). SHIRBRIG was first deployed successfully as part of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) in 2000–2001, and was subsequently active in other African countries. At its height, around two dozen middle powers and small states participated in SHIRBRIG at four different levels of membership. SHIRBRIG was created and deployed without the assistance or participation of any great powers. Despite its accomplishments, a reduction in the global demand for traditional peacekeeping brigades forced SHIRBRIG to shut down permanently on June 30, 2009 (SHIRBRIG 2010a).

The Ottawa Process to ban antipersonnel landmines

The scourge of antipersonnel landmines (APLs) claims thousands of victims annually. In response to this crisis, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), an umbrella group of NGOs, issued a call for a global ban on the use, production, stockpiling, and transfer of APLs (Williams and Goose 1998). The Canadian government decided to exercise leadership on the landmines issue by co-hosting, together with the NGO Mines Action Canada, a conference in October 1996 on the issue of banning APLs (Lawson et al. 1998; Lenarcic 1998). At the conference, Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy invited the participants to work with Canada to negotiate and sign an APL ban treaty by December 1997, a mere fourteen months after the Ottawa conference. The Ottawa Process core group, consisting of like-minded states, engaged in fast-track negotiations on an APL ban treaty and networked with NGOs to cultivate global political support for the treaty. At the December 1997 landmines conference, also held in Ottawa, one hundred and twenty-two states signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction. The Ottawa Convention entered into force in March 1999 and had an immediate impact on curtailing the global production and transfer of APLs.

The International Criminal Court

The idea of creating a permanent institution that would pursue justice for crimes against humanity has been discussed for decades. In 1994, the Like-Minded Group of Countries (LMG) was formed, with the objective of campaigning for the establishment of an International Criminal Court (ICC) that would try cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression (Pace and Schense 2001). The LMG developed a close working relationship with the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC), which professed its faith that the leadership and negotiating capabilities of the LMG would produce a strong ICC. Instead of settling for a lowest common denominator agreement, the LMG campaigned for an effective treaty, even though a few major powers expressed their opposition (Pace 1999; Robinson 2001). At the 1998 Rome Conference, skilled diplomacy by delegates from the LMG managed to persuade holdout governments to vote in favor of the Rome Statute, which established an independent ICC with the power to initiate its own investigations and prosecutions of crimes. The ICC came into effect on July 1, 2002, following the sixtieth ratification of the Rome Statute.

The campaign to regulate the legal trade in small arms and light weapons

Small arms and light weapons (SALW) have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people in intrastate conflicts in the post-Cold War era. But due to a preoccupation with major weapons systems during the Cold War, the global community failed to adopt international norms regarding the production, transfer, and possession of SALW (Renner 1999). It was not until 1993 that the SALW issue was placed on the international agenda, when Mali asked the UN for assistance with the uncontrolled proliferation of SALW in West Africa (Smaldone 1999). In August 1997, a UN Panel of Governmental Experts issued a report calling for the convening of an international conference on the illicit trade in SALW in all its aspects (Lozano 1999).

At the meetings of the Preparatory Committee prior to the conference, Canada submitted a working paper which recommended that an action plan on SALW should examine the relationship between the licit and the illicit aspects of the SALW problem, and that states should exercise maximum restraint on the legal manufacture and trade of SALW (UN Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in SALW 2000). The middle powers established a close working relationship with the NGO community, including the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), and co-hosted a series of seminars and workshops that were designed to cultivate the global political will to address the problem of the SALW trade.

At the July 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, the anti-SALW coalition pushed for a prohibition on the sale of SALW to nonstate actors and emphasized that the eradication of the illegal trade in SALW cannot be accomplished without first establishing stronger regulations on the legal trade (NGO Committee on Disarmament 2001c). Because negotiations at the conference were characterized by consensus decision-making, pressure from the US delegation was successful in ensuring that the final agreement would not include any references to the regulation of private gun ownership or a ban on SALW transfers to nonstate actors. The conference ended with the participants adopting a Program of Action (PoA) that is politically, but not legally, binding and addresses solely the illicit aspects of the SALW trade. Subsequent UN meetings have not dealt with the legal trade in SALW.

The responsibility to protect

The genocidal conflicts of the 1990s illustrated that the sovereignty principle may harm human security as much as it protects national security. In response, middle powers such as Canada and Australia took the lead in redefining sovereignty, emphasizing the responsibilities that states have toward their citizens. Chief of these is the responsibility to protect (R2P). The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), established by the government of Canada and co-chaired by the former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans, issued an influential report in 2001, which argued that R2P involves the responsibilities of prevention, reaction, and rebuilding (ICISS 2001a). The UN members endorsed the ICISS report and the notion of R2P at the 2005 World Summit, but modified the R2P concept significantly. The middle powers accepted the consensus decision-making of the World Summit negotiations in order to generate a R2P principle that, despite being watered down, would receive the widespread approval of the international community.

The structure of the book

This chapter presented an overview of my research. Chapter 2 provides the theoretical background to my study. The chapter discusses the evolution of security studies, the emergence of the human security agenda, the dynamics of “middlepowermanship,” and the potential consequences of human s...