SOVEREIGNTY: Opinion Pages Crackle With Debate

     UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's speech last week on the UN's right to intervene within countries with massive human rights violations has sparked a wave of commentary in the world's newspapers. Here is a sampling:
     The Bangkok Post argued that "Annan's new proposals should be considered with the great attention they deserve," but that "the chief problem is the old puzzle of who will police the policemen" (27 Sep).
     A Chicago Tribune editorial said Annan's challenge to the international community was "understandable" but "overly idealistic." The "reality" is that "the UN has no army of its own and must rely on individual member states to decide when intervention is warranted" (26 Sep).
     Dhaka Independent: "A radical reform of the UN system with equitable participation of smaller states in the decision-making process remains a prerequisite for an effective supra-national role of the UN" (23 Sep).
     The Johannesburg Sowetan echoed the idea that better representation of developing countries is "the key" to legitimate interventions in social development and human rights. But it supports Annan's idea that countries that violate their people's rights "cannot claim sovereign status" (22 Sep).
     Santiago's El Mercurio suggested that as the sovereign state is adapted to globalization, "it is important to adopt necessary precautions and assure that the ... new principles are universal and defined carefully." At this "historic moment," the tendency "is to show enthusiasm and political correctness ... not prudence or rigor" (23 Sep).
     The Miami Herald suggests that the Internet and the news media are making it more difficult for "governments to shield themselves from outside scrutiny. ... Intervention, especially in its nonviolent form, will become an increasingly common tool in world affairs" (26 Sep).
     An editorial in Long Island Newsday says Annan's idea is "better in the abstract than it would be in its concrete manifestations." For example, would the UN intervene in a powerful country like China? Whose values would prevail in fights between religious factions? And some small countries might see the tendency toward intervention as a good reason to acquire nuclear weapons (26 Sep).

Holbrooke: "It Depends"
     In an interview with journalist Nathan Gardels, US Ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke said humanitarian crises "cannot all be treated identically because each will have its own unique characteristics." In some cases, issues that in the past would have been considered internal matters will be seen as issues that affect the world, and they may prompt intervention. But in other cases, intervention -- or the hope of it by rebel forces -- may make matters worse, he said (Bangkok Post, 26 Sep).

Other Commentators Chime In
     Toronto Star columnist Gordon Barthos: "Because it is becoming impossible to predict when or where the UN may choose to intervene, despots can no longer be confident that the roof won't crash in on them if they put huge numbers of people at risk. That's progress" (24 Sep).
     Toronto Star columnist Stephen Handelman said Annan's speech "called into question the foundations" on which the UN was erected after World War II. "If the UN has lasted longer than the (old) League of Nations, it is because the UN has accommodated the state system rather than posed a direct threat to it," observed Singaporean Foreign Minister Shunmugam Jayakumar (26 Sep).
     The London Guardian's Ian Black noted that Annan "posed the burning post-Kosovo question about humanitarian intervention," but "this being the UN, Annan didn't actually answer it." Black added that Annan "has made real progress in dealing with problems of waste and management, though the biggest issue of all -- creating a representative and workable Security Council -- remains utterly stuck" (27 Sep).
     Author Emilio Lamo De Espinosa in Madrid's El Pais: "With the end of bipolarity and the Cold War emerges one single community over one single territory, in such a way that all war is now a civil war" (27 Sep).
     In the Washington Times, columnist Don Feder criticized what he calls the "Clinton Doctrine," which he defines as intervening in countries where innocent civilians are targeted because of their ethnicity. Feder said Clinton's interventions "in the name of stability have had the opposite effect ... replicating the world of August 1914, when fractious minorities clashed with multinational states" (Washington Times, 26 Sep).
     Earth Times columnist Michael Littlejohns writes that Annan has "placed himself too far out front of conventional thinking," but that "it would be a pity if Annan's proposals failed to influence thinking in a positive way" (27 Sep).
     Columnist William Pfaff in the International Herald Tribune notes the lack of consistent rules about interventions and concludes: "When an intervention is proposed, it is essential to be serious about exactly what outcome is wanted, how autonomy is to be reestablished for the country when the immediate crisis is over, and whether the international community is prepared to see the thing through to the end. This has not always been the case, which is why things could go badly for the new NATO and UN mandates" (25 Sep).
     In the Philadelphia Inquirer, author Richard Reeves notes that "most Americans" do not find globalism divisive, but that is because "what they have in mind is global Americanism -- everybody should be like us." But perhaps globalism -- in the form of television images that force us to react and "take sides" -- is more divisive than we realized, Reeves says (26 Sep).
     In a letter to the editor of the New York Times, V.W. Jim Steward, formerly South Africa's permanent representative to the United Nations, says the reason why more and more UN personnel are being attacked is because "they are far more likely to be considered partisan when interposed between factions within a state or when delivering humanitarian aid" (25 Sep).

You Can't Force Globalization Too Quickly -- Book
     The Financial Times excerpted a book by Edward Mortimer and Robert Fine called People, Nation, and State. Although the book doesn't respond directly to Annan's remarks, it is relevant to the debate over globalization because it points out that even in democratic countries, permanent minorities have two options: assimilate or rebel. The same dilemma applies at the global level: "People sharing the same experiences will in time become more like each other, and will find shared institutions useful. But forced assimilation leads, sooner or later, to secession" (26 Sep).