For Your Information

Chretien Proposal on International Intervention Rejected

Prime Minister Jean Chretien took a proposal on establishing guidelines for intervention by international bodies to a conference of 14 social democratic leaders that in Bagshot, England last week. The proposal, entitled Responsibility to Protect, was the work of the Canadian International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Under the proposal, the United Nations would be the first body appealed to for intervention; however, if there was no unanimity, other international organizations, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), could decide to intervene.

The stated aim of the proposal is to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing. It stresses several times that its intent is purely humanitarian.

"Millions of human beings remain at the mercy of civil wars, insurgencies, state repression and state collapse," the document reads. "This is a stark and undeniable reality, and it is at the heart of all the issues with which this Commission has been wrestling. What is at stake here is not making the world safe for big powers, or trampling over the sovereign rights of small ones, but delivering practical protection for ordinary people, at risk of their lives, because their states are unwilling or unable to protect them."

Despite these assurances, however, it was widely reported that the only leader other than Chretien to support the proposal was Tony Blair. "In circumstances where there is brutal repression of people by a particular regime, how do we offer them support and protection and what are the rules that govern that?" Blair asked reporters. When asked by journalists whether the proposal would have justified the U.S.-led and British backed invasion of Iraq, he refused to answer.

Indeed, it was clear that other states at the conference viewed the proposal as providing justification for aggression exactly like the invasion of Iraq. Both German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are reported to have opposed the plan the most strenuously.

The final communiqué of the meeting recognized the Chretien proposal as a "valuable contribution" but did not endorse it in any way.