挽救失败国家

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Saving Failed States Author(s): Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner Source: Foreign Policy, No. 89 (Winter, 1992-1993), pp. 3-20 Published by: Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1149070 Accessed: 10/05/2010 23:05 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=wpni. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Foreign Policy. http://www.jstor.org SAVING FAILED STATES by Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner From Haiti in the Western Hemisphere to the remnants of Yugoslavia in Europe, from Soma- lia, Sudan, and Liberia in Africa to Cambodia in Southeast Asia, a disturbing new phenome- non is emerging: the failed nation-state, utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community. Civil strife, gov- ernment breakdown, and economic privation are creating more and more modem debellatios, the term used in describing the destroyed Ger- man state after World War II. As those states descend into violence and anarchy-imperiling their own citizens and threatening their neigh- bors through refugee flows, political instability, and random warfare-it is becoming clear that something must be done. The massive abuses of human rights-including that most basic of rights, the right to life-are distressing enough, but the need to help those states is made more critical by the evidence that their problems tend to spread. Although alleviating the developing world's suffering has long been a major task, saving failed states will prove a new-and in many ways different-challenge. The current collapse has its roots in the vast proliferation of nation-states, especially in Afri- ca and Asia, since the end of World War II. When the United Nations Charter was signed in 1945, it had 50 signatories. Since that time, membership has more than tripled, reflecting the momentous transformation of the pre-war colonial world to a globe composed of indepen- dent states. During that period, now nearing its conclusion following the independence of Na- mibia in 1990, the U.N. and its member states GERALD B. HELMAN, retired from the Foreign Service, was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and deputy to the under-secretary of state for political affairs. STEVEN R. RATNER is an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is on leave from the State Department's Office of the Legal Adviser. The views are the authors' own and do not represent those of the U.S. government. 3. FOREIGN POLICY made the "self-determination of peoples"-a right enshrined in the U.N. Charter-a prima- ry goal. Self-determination, in fact, was given more attention than long-term survivability. All agreed that the new states needed economic assistance, and the U.N. encouraged institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help them. But fundamental to the notion of decolo- nization was the idea that peoples could best govern themselves when free from the shackles, or even the influences, of foreigners. The idea, then, that states could fail-that they could be simply unable to function as independent enti- ties-was anathema to the raison d'etre of decolonization and offensive to the notion of self-determination. New states might be poor, it was thought, but they would hold their own by virtue of being independent. While it lasted, the Cold War prolonged the viability of some of the newly independent and other Third World states. Countries with seri- ously underdeveloped economies and govern- ments received hefty infusions of aid from their former colonial masters as well as from the two superpowers. The systemic corruption that characterized many of the new states did not stop the superpowers from sending foreign aid as they sought to buttress a potential ally in the Cold War. Thus the Philippines, South Viet- nam, Zaire, and post-1977 Somalia profited immensely from U.S. aid, while Afghanistan, Cuba, post-1974 Ethiopia, and several of the front-line African states benefited from Soviet aid. Granted, most of the foreign aid recipients were not wholly dependent on it. Many--most countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, for example-have become thriving independent states. But clearly foreign aid was critical in sustaining a number of states, based on their real or imagined strategic significance in the Cold War. Over time, however, the hurdles faced by some young countries have proven overwhelm- ing, and the assistance cuts that began in the late 1980s brought home the full weight of their shortcomings. In states like Somalia, Su- dan, and Zaire, discredited regimes are being challenged by powerful insurgencies. The re- 4. Helman & Ratner suiting civil strife is disrupting essential govern- mental services, destroying food supplies and distribution networks, and bringing economies to a virtual standstill; corrupt and criminal public officials only exacerbate the human mis- ery. In Somalia and Sudan, natural disasters have compounded the suffering, killing large portions of the populations and forcing many others to migrate to already overcrowded urban areas or to refugee centers abroad. In Cambo- dia, 20 years of conflict have left the country in ruins, littered with land mines, and still suffer- ing from the Khmer Rouge's genocidal rule. Afghanistan's civil war appears stuck in a stale- mate and the country may not be able to hold together. Of course, most states that have suf- fered economic hardships have not faced gov- ernmental collapse. Most governments have been able to muddle through, although they have been heavily burdened by a stagnant stan- dard of living. Third World countries are not the only ones that could fail. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia over the last two and a half years has created almost 20 new states, most of which have no tradition of statehood or practice in self-government. One hopes that most will succeed, but lack of experience in government, weak civic institutions, limited economic prospects, and ethnic strife will inevi- tably reduce some to helplessness-a condition in which Bosnia, with its civil war, now finds itself. The world's changing political, economic, and cultural configurations are testing the uni- ty-and the borders--of many other countries. It is impossible to be certain that the political boundaries created under colonialism will, in the end, prove sustainable. Thus, there are three groups of states whose survival is threatened: First, there are the failed states like Bosnia, Cambodia, Liberia, and So- malia, a small group whose governmental struc- tures have been overwhelmed by circumstances. Second, there are the failing states like Ethio- pia, Georgia, and Zaire, where collapse is not imminent but could occur within several years. And third, there are some newly independent states in the territories formerly known as Yu- goslavia and the Soviet Union, whose viability is difficult to assess. All three groups merit 5?. FOREIGN POLICY close attention, and all three will require inno- vative policies. Traditional Approaches The international community's traditional re- sponse to states or territories in need of de- velopment assistance has fallen into several patterns. For some non-self-governing terri- tories, the U.N. Charter-and the Covenant of the League of Nations before it--created a sys- tem of trusteeship under which member states or even the international organization itself was charged with promoting the political, economic, social, cultural, and educational well-being of the inhabitants. The Charter regarded the ob- ligation to advance those interests as a "sacred trust." In a few cases, the United Nations took on a direct role. During 1962 and 1963, for ex- ample, at the request of the Netherlands and Indonesia, the United Nations governed Irian Jaya (the western half of the island of New Guinea) during that territory's brief transition from Dutch to Indonesian rule. Plans for other U.N. administrations, such as a separate legal regime for Jerusalem (envisaged in the 1947 Palestine partition plan) or the U.N. Council for Namibia (created after the termination of South Africa's League mandate over Namibia), never resulted in effective U.N. control. The Council for Namibia did, however, help lay the groundwork for the Western members of the Security Council to draft an independence plan, which was finally implemented in 1988-89. The Western Sahara may constitute another exam- ple of the U.N.'s midwifing the creation of a new state. For independent states, the world community has employed conventional remedies to pro- mote the political and economic development of people in distress. The grandfather of all postwar programs, the Marshall Plan, provided more than $16 billion, about $114 billion in 1992 dollars, in bilateral economic assistance to the countries of Western Europe, which were so ravaged by war as to constitute failing states. The United States undertook not only to re- store the economies of its defeated enemies, but to reorganize the Italian, Japanese, and West German political systems along democratic lines. The result was the restoration of states 6. Helman & Ratner that have proven to be economically productive, politically stable, and strongly supportive of a peaceful international system. Since that time, the revived states of Europe, the other countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the former Soviet bloc have con- tributed large amounts of bilateral aid to the developing world. Donor groups have pooled resources for a particular country and donated humanitarian assistance in response to crises. And the United Nations, through the UNDP and various specialized and technical agencies, has furnished training to officials in developing countries and project funding. The World Bank offers grants and loans for specific projects in developing countries, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) supplies credit on easy terms. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refu- gees (UNHCR) assists in relief operations, as do the World Food Programme and the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Unfortunately, those methods have met with scant success in failing states, and they will prove wholly inadequate in those that have collapsed. Western aid cannot reach its intend- ed recipients because of violence, irreconcilable political divisions, or the absence of an eco- nomic infrastructure. Somalia provides a dis- maying example. An IMF program is not possi- ble where there is in effect no government. Grants of money, uncoordinated technical assistance programs, and occasional visits by humanitarian and relief organizations have not been enough to bring states such as Bosnia and Somalia back from the brink of death. Although international organizations deserve much credit for responding to distress, the emergence of additional failed states suggests the need for a more systematic and intrusive approach. Recent U.N. activities have begun to reflect that need. In his landmark June 1992 report, An Agenda for Peace, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali set forth the concept of "post- conflict peace-building" as a new priority for the United Nations. Boutros-Ghali argued forcefully for "action to identify and support structures which will tend to strengthen and solidify peace in order to avoid a relapse into 7. FOREIGN POLICY conflict." To prevent future conflict, the inter- national community must create a new political, economic, and social environment for states riven by war. That would include strengthening governmental institutions, protecting human rights, pursuing bilateral cooperation projects, and encouraging demilitarization. Existing U.N. agencies would provide most of the assistance, requiring member states to increase their finan- cial contributions. Boutros-Ghali largely sought to base his case for assistance on the responsibility of the Unit- ed Nations under its Charter to "maintain international peace and security." Certainly the argument is a strong one. The demise of a state is often marked by violence and widespread human rights violations that affect other states. Civil strife, the breakdown of food and health systems, and economic collapse force refugees to flee to adjacent countries. Neighboring states may also be burdened with illicit arms traffic, solidarity activities by related ethnic groups, and armed bands seeking to establish a safe haven. As is evident in the Balkans, there is a tangible risk that such conflicts will spill over into other countries. The need to safeguard international peace and security has already prompted specific U.N. action aimed, at least partly, at rescuing failing states through direct involvement in their inter- nal affairs. The massive U.N. plan to restore peace to Cambodia-with civil administration, peacekeeping, and supervised elections-is meant not only to rebuild Cambodia internally, but to eliminate a great source of regional tension in Southeast Asia. In Central America, too, the United Nations has used nation build- ing as a means of preserving the peace. Its close monitoring of elections in Nicaragua and of the democratization programs in El Salvador has shown the U.N.'s willingness to become in- volved in the domestic affairs of its members in order to preserve international peace and secu- rity. Any future U.N. effort in the Bal- kans-moving from its peacekeeping and hu- manitarian assistance programs to creating a long-term peace on the ground-will likely be done under the same rubric. The U.N.'s responsibility for international peace and security is not, however, a sufficient 8. Helman & Ratner basis for its action to resurrect all failed or failing states. Not all failing states pose true dangers to the peace. Haiti's tragedy has been borne by the Haitians themselves, and Liberia's disintegration only minimally imperils interna- tional security, apart from the modest impact of refugee flows from both states on neighbors. In such cases, U.N. members are more reluctant to support multilateral involvement. That reluctance has both legal and political origins. From a legal standpoint, Article 2(7) of the U.N. Charter states that the organization is not authorized under the Charter to intervene "in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state," except when the Security Council is enforcing its will under Chapter VII (the same part relied upon for sanctions against Iraq, Libya, and Serbia). The United Nations, then, is explicitly not author- ized to interfere in purely domestic issues ex- cept to support Security Council resolutions, or with the consent of the concerned state. The international community should now be prepared to consider a novel, expansive-and desperately needed-- effort by the U.N. to undertake na- tion-saving responsibilities. More important, deeply rooted political ob- stacles have tended to prevent extensive U.N. direction of a country's internal matters and even stifled debate about the appropriateness of such involvement. Those barriers stem from the talisman of"sovereignty." That ill-defined and amorphous notion of international law has been used to denote everything from a state's political independence-its separate existence as a political unit on the world scene-to the more extreme view that all the internal affairs of a state are beyond the scrutiny of the inter- national community. The states that achieved independence after 1945 attach great-almost exaggerated-importance to the concept of sovereignty. Those countries, organized region- ally or as the Group of 77 (now numbering over 120 countries), are quick to resist per- ceived threats to sovereignty-whether as hu- 9. FOREIGN POLICY manitarian assistance or U.N. peacekeeping in civil conflicts such as the one in Bosnia. They view an unqualified doctrine of sovereignty as a protection against the predatory designs of stronger states. Many states, especially China in recent years, have sought to hide behind "sovereignty" to shield themselves from international criticism of their abysmal human rights records. Their position endures despite the emerging consen- sus over the past 40 years--codified in the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous U.N. conventions, and institutionalized through the U.N. Human Rights Commission-that human rights are of international concern and that the world com- munity has a right and a duty to promote the basic human dignity of persons in all countries. Sovereignty has been invoked to block interna- tional involvement in other issues as well, like pollution, public health, and narcotics. But the tide is slowly changing, or, as Boutros-Ghali has put it, perhaps the tide was never as far out as some proponents of sover- eignty would have it. In his June 1992 report, he observed that "the time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty ... has passed; its theory was never matched by reality." He called for "a balance between the needs of good internal governance and the requirements of an ever more interdependent world." That the theory was never matched by reality is well document- ed, especially in ways that the world community has aided states in distress. Many economic assistance programs, for example, require the recipient state to under- take policies of a wholly domestic nature. Such "conditionality" is widely accepted, despite the occasional objection from target states. Some conditions relate to the use of the money, such as ensuring that it is spent on a specific project. Others link aid to the recipient's policies on other matters, such as human rights practices, expropriation policy, or, more recently, democ- ratization efforts. The IMF mandates recipients of credit to enter into detailed agreements that require the country to reform, and perhaps even restructure, its economy. The IMF sets targets for inflation, money supply, and foreign exchange reserves, and the recipient has little 10. Helman & Ratner choice but to comply if it wants to retain access to IMF credit and bank loans. It is therefore unpersuasive to contend that absolute sover- eignty-in the sense of full freedom over do- mestic policy--is undiminished when countries