Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 6-2019 Hope for Another Humanitarian Intervention? Rwanda, Kosovo, Libya and the Consequences of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on Myanmar Victoria Carter Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Carter, Victoria, "Hope for Another Humanitarian Intervention? Rwanda, Kosovo, Libya and the Consequences of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on Myanmar" (2019). Honors Theses. 2261. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/2261 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hope for Another Humanitarian Intervention? Rwanda, Kosovo, Libya and the Consequences of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on Myanmar By Victoria A. Carter ********** Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of Political Science UNION COLLEGE June, 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………v Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………1 I. Literature Review……………………………………………………………………………………………7 I.I. The Key Norm of International Relations……………………………………………..7 I.II. Norms in IR Literature……………………………………………………………………..10 I.III. The Life Cycle of Norms…………………………………………………………………..18 I.IV. Prevention of Genocide – An International Norm……………………………...20 II. Rwanda………………………………………………………………………………………………………..25 II.I. Warning Signs Ignored……………………………………………………………………..26 II.II. Mis-steps by the United Nations………………………………………………………30 II.III. British Action – Too Little Too Late? ………………………………………………33 II.IV. France – The Wrong Army to Intervene…………………………………………..36 II.V. The Clinton Administration – The True Bystander…………………………….39 II.VI. Implications of Rwanda…………………………………………………………………..43 III. Kosovo………………………………………………………………………………………………………...45 III.I. Origins of the Kosovo Genocide………………………………………………………..46 III.II. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)………………………………………………...52 III.III. The United States’ Will to Intervene……………………………………………….55 III.IV. The UK’s Adamancy to Intervene……………………………………………………60 III.V. French Intervention for Preservation………………………………………………63 III.VI. Criticism and Repercussions of Intervention…………………………………..66 IV. Libya…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...70 IV.I. The Emergence of R2P……………………………………………………………………..71 IV.IA. Darfur – The Test Case for R2P……………………………………………76 IV.II. The Twists & Turns of the Gaddafi Regime………………………………………78 IV.III. US Response to Libya…………………………………………………………………….84 IV.IV. UK Lobbying for Intervention………………………………………………………...89 IV.V. France Takes the Lead…………………………………………………………………….92 IV.VI. Implications for R2P After Libya…………………………………………………….94 V. Myanmar (Burma) ………………………………………………………………………………………..98 V.I. Continued Persecution of The Rohingya…………………………………………….99 V.II. UN on R2P and Myanmar……………………………………………………………….101 V.III. The United States Edging Towards Intervention? ………………………….110 V.IV. The UK’s Gradual Loss of R2P………………………………………………………..115 V.V. France’s Abrupt Change on R2P……………………………………………………...120 V.VI. R2P’s Regression…………………………………………………………………………..125 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………127 References………………………………………………………………………………………………………131 ii ABSTRACT CARTER, VICTORIA Hope for Another Humanitarian Intervention? Rwanda, Kosovo, Libya and the Consequences of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on Myanmar Department of Political Science, June 2019 ADVISOR: Cigdem Cidam After the catastrophic failure of the UN and western nations to prevent and halt genocide in Rwanda in 1990, many pledged “never again.” In less than ten years, the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo provided the international community with a chance at redemption. Without waiting for UN approval, NATO forces led a military intervention to stop Milošević’s campaign of violence against the Kosovo Albanians. The bombing of Kosovo is now considered to be the first ever intervention in another sovereign nation by the international community for humanitarian purposes. However, the lack of legal backing from UN rendered the intervention suspect, putting into question the moral justification of the bombing campaign which led to the death of many civilians. As such, the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo left many questions for the international community: Who should intervene to stop genocide or ethnic cleansing taking place in a given state? When should the international community intervene? What renders a humanitarian intervention legal from the perspective of international law? In the early 2000s, there was a shared sense in the international community that there was an urgent need to set an international framework for humanitarian intervention. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine aimed to provide that framework. Approaching the topic from the perspective of constructivist theory, the thesis describes how the R2P emerged as a potential international norm, cascaded through the international community, and then became diffused enough to be utilized by the UN to address the mass atrocities that took place in Darfur. The 2011 intervention in Libya became iii the test case for the R2P. Utilizing the R2P doctrine the Security Council approved a resolution that authorized use of force by the international community to stop mass atrocities in Libya by any means necessary. However, the moment of the R2P’s success was also its downfall. Many argued that NATO powers used R2P as an ideological tool to protect their national interests in Libya, instead of truly seeking to prevent genocide and other crimes against humanity for moral reasons. Despite the diffusion of R2P as a well accept norm and its use in the Security Council in 2011, the failure of intervention in Libya has led to the regression of the norm. I argue that this regression has caused the lack of humanitarian intervention in the ethnic cleansing and violence in Myanmar against the Rohingya population. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not be possible without the help, guidance, and support of my advisor, Professor Cigdem Cidam. Thank you for inspiring me to find a genuine love for political theory and for the countless hours of dedication that proved to be an invaluable resource to me during my writing. Thank you to Professor Tom Lobe who sparked my interest in international relations and for pushing me to pursue my passion for the topic in my post-graduate career. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to all of those who have lost their lives to genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other crimes against humanity. These losses have and must continue to inspire the international community to act to prevent and halt future atrocities, so that many thousands of innocent lives can be saved. v INTRODUCTION “The operations were designed to instill immediate terror, with people woken by intense rapid weapon fire, explosions or the shouts and screams of villagers. Structures were set ablaze, and…soldiers fired their guns indiscriminately into houses and fields, and at villagers.” “Houses were locked and set on fire. Few survived…bodies were transported in military vehicles, burned and disposed of in mass graves.” “Women and girls were systematically abducted, detained and raped in military and police compounds, often amounting to sexual slavery.” These statements describing the heinous acts of war crimes seem to be out of a history book. Yet, these and countless other atrocities are what have transpired in Myanmar over the last two years as detailed by the “Report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar” (A/HRC/39/64, 8/9). This violence began in 2016 and has continued to affect the lives of hundreds of Rohingya Muslims in Burma each day. Given the horrific nature of these well document crimes, why has the international community failed in its responsibility to protect the Rohingya population in Myanmar? In this thesis I address this question by focusing on the new norm of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) which has its roots in the norm preventing and prohibiting genocide. As I will argue in this thesis, R2P has developed over the past decade and due to its ideological use in Libya by the US, UK, and France, it has lost its hold in the international community. The regression of the R2P norm has thus made it impossible to intervene in the genocide in Myanmar. In December of 1948, Raphael Lemkin successfully lobbied the United Nations to adopt the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Lemkin fought for this resolution in light of the atrocities committed in the Holocaust and fear that those atrocities would be repeated against others in the future. Article I of the Genocide 1 Convention dictates that: “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and punish” (“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide,” 1948). The crimes committed by Hitler and Nazi Germany were no longer to be tolerated or allowed to be perpetrated again by anyone in the international community. Since the development of the norm, 150 countries have ratified the resolution. The sad reality of the Cold War era that