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The Creation and Politics of International Protectorates in the > Balkans: Bridges Over Troubled Waters

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The Creation and Politics of International Protectorates in the > Balkans: Bridges Over Troubled Waters Alexandros Yannis The Creation and Politics of International Protectorates in the > Balkans: Bridges Over Troubled Waters The Creation of Inter- Europe in the 1990s is the result of the national Protectorates in combined impact of the violent dissolu- South-eastern Europe tion of the former Yugoslavia that prompt- ed the need for an international response The creations of what are com- and the return of protectorates to inter- monly known as the international national politics that provided the basis protectorates of Bosnia-Herzegovina for these extraordinary interventions. Fail- and Kosovo are the products of two ure to understand and analyse develop- parallel historical processes that ments in the region in the 1990s in terms marked South-eastern Europe in the of both processes often lies behind a 1990s. First, they form part of the wider mutual misunderstanding between those, changes of the post-Cold War internation- mostly from within the region, who per- al environment and particularly the incli- ceive the international protectorates as nation of the Western-led international being merely an extension of the foreign community to respond to post-Cold War policies of big powers and those, mostly conflicts and related sources of instability from outside the region, who perceive the with assertive diplomacy, military inter- international presence almost exclusively ventions and coercive peace operations. as a noble and disinterested international Second, they are part of the particular endeavour to bring peace and stability to challenges of the process of the disintegra- the Balkans. The short-lived international tion of the former Socialist Federal Re- protectorate in Eastern Slavonia in Croatia public of Yugoslavia (hereinafter “former and the current international presence in Yugoslavia”) and, especially the interna- the Former Yugoslav Republic of Mace- tional response to the violent inter-ethnic donia (FYROM), while belonging to the and territorial conflicts that engulfed the same historical experience, are not dis- Balkans as a consequence of the break-up cussed in this analysis respectively due to of the former Yugoslavia. their limited duration and extent. This In other words, the creation of inter- article discusses the international and local national protectorates in South-eastern contexts that produced the international 258 JIRD (2002) 5(3), 258-274 Copyright 2002 by Faculty of Social Sciences, Centre of International Relations Journal of International Relations and Development 5(September 2002)3 protectorates in Bosnia-Herzegovina and believed that the global policing role of Kosovo and their role and politics in bring- the UN Security Council, the way it was ing stability to the region. originally envisaged by the United States’ President Roosevelt and the other victo- The Return of Inter- rious protagonists of the Second World national Protectorates Wa r, was seemingly close to becoming a At the end of the Cold War and with reality. On 31 January 1992, during the first the decolonisation process nearly com- ever UN Security Council meeting at the pleted, it was widely believed that protec- level of Heads of State and Government, torates, mandates and trusteeships also the participants agreed that ‘their meet- belonged irreversibly to the past. By the ing was a timely recognition of the fact end of the 1990s, the return of interna- that there are new favourable internation- The Creation tional protectorates in the form of multi- al circumstances under which the Security and Politics of lateral coercive peace operations had be- Council has begun to fulfil more effec- International come a familiar feature of the post-Cold tively its primary responsibility for the Protectorates War international politics, as illustrated maintenance of international peace and in the Balkans: by the establishment of varying forms of security’ (UN Security Council 1992a:2). Bridges Over international administrations in response The UN Security Council was indeed Troubled to several crises around the world, most perceived and portrayed in the early stages Wa ters prominently in Cambodia, Bosnia-Herze- of the post-Cold War period as a potential govina, Kosovo and East Timor. credible international mechanism to pro- In the aftermath of the Cold War, the vide international society with the much proponents of the theories of the “End of needed authoritative and legitimate col- History” and the “New World Order” lective security means to ensure interna- were advocating that the principles of a tional peace and security. The post-Cold market economy and multiparty democ- War efforts, however, of the UN Security racy coupled with assertive multilateral- Council to translate the doctrines of the ism, when needed under the reinvigorat- “New World Order” and the “Agenda for ed collective security mechanisms of the Peace” into action have been a frustrating United Nations (UN), were emerging as experience. Freudenschuß (1994:530-1) con- the global recipes for economic and social cluded his examination of the UN Sec- development, as well as for international urity Council’s practice in authorising the peace and stability. The “Agenda for Peace” use of force under Chapter VII in the launched in 1992 by Boutros-Boutros post-Cold War period stating that Ghali, the then UN Secretary General, as a strategy of the international community while the objective criteria — universality for peace and development in the twenty- and a legal framework — for a system of first century largely echoed this opti- collective security have existed for quite mism. The global equilibrium of power some time now, its subjective elements such that was unfavourable to overt coercive as consistent international solidarity, con- intervention in domestic conflicts during sensus on what is wrong, preparedness to the Cold War had disappeared, and the cede executive authority to the UN, readi- political and military predominance of ness “to bear any burden and pay any price” the United States-led Western world in- for the consequences of collective decisions creasingly favoured the adoption of as- — have always been lacking and are likely sertive responses to international chal- to continue to be so. As long as the much lenges. In the early 1990s, it was widely quoted “international community” remains 259 Journal of International Relations and Development 5(September 2002)3 an elusive phenomenon, true collective secu- introduction of direct UN Trusteeship. rity will remain an elusive chimera as well. Since then, there has been an ever-expand- ing literature on the subject of the resus- A genuine system of collective securi- citation of UN Trusteeships and interna- ty may have failed to be established, yet a tional protectorates. The underlying logic kind of new interventionism slowly em- of proponents of the return of interna- erged in the 1990s. Its major characteris- tional protectorates has been that the inter- tic has been the selective preparedness of national community has a responsibility the Western world to intervene militarily to move in and govern where law and order in domestic conflicts with the aim to halt have collapsed and anarchy and chaos pre- violence, to prevent regional destabilisa- vail. Alexandros tion, to avert humanitarian crises and to More recently, particularly after the Yannis contribute to the reconstruction of state events of 11 September 2001 this debate institutions and the re-establishment of has also started to revolve around the need stability. One of the main new features of to re-think imperialism. Mallaby (2002:4) this post-Cold War interventionism has argued, for instance, that been what Hobsbawm (1999:9) defined as the disappearing distinction between inter- when such power vacuums threatened nal conflicts and international ones as the great powers in the past, they had a ready Kosovo conflict most prominently demon- solution: imperialism. But since World War strated. Another key feature has been the II, that option has been ruled out. After improvised solutions imposed by the new more than two millennia of empire, order- interventionists in trying to resolve domes- ly societies now refuse to impose their own tic conflicts, illustrated most prominently institutions on disorderly ones. This anti- in the Balkans by the establishment of inter- imperialist restraint is becoming harder to national protectorates. sustain, however, as the disorder in poor In this new environment, interest in the countries grows more threatening. resuscitation of international protectorates in the 1990s as a mechanism to resolve In a more sober and balanced analysis, conflicts partly originated in the growing Cooper (2001:6) argued in favour of ‘a frustration of the Western world over the new kind of imperialism’ that can tackle proliferation around the globe of violent domestic conflicts and the instability and domestic conflicts and instability. Helman misery that dominates today big parts of and Ratner (1992-1993:3) stated that the world; problems that the politics of nation-states have failed to settle. from Haiti in the Western Hemisphere to The return, however, of the interna- the remnants of Yugoslavia in Europe, from tional protectorates in the form of inter- Somalia, Sudan and Liberia in Africa to national administrations has taken place Cambodia in Southeast Asia, a disturbing out of the practical experience of the new phenomenon is emerging: the failed international community with military nation-state, utterly incapable of sustain- interventions to domestic conflicts in the ing itself as a member of the international 1990s. The 1992-95 international opera- community. tions in Somalia indeed plunged the inter- national community headlong into its first They continued by recommending a num- serious encounter with the requirements ber of solutions under the rubric of the of the new interventionism and the reali- “UN Conservatorship”, including the re- ties of the new generation of peace opera- 260 Journal of International Relations and Development 5(September 2002)3 tions. The Somalia intervention set a must acknowledge its role in the exercise of precedent in international politics be- executive political authority.
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