SCIR Issue I

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INTERNATIONAL REVIEW
USCS UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
VOL. 1 ISSUE 1 SPRING 2011
Southern California International Review

scinternationalreview.org Editor-in-Chief: Angad Singh Assistant Editor-in-Chief: Noah Pisner Landry Doyle Samir Kumar Editors: Taline Gettas Philip Meyer
Staff
Cover Design: Samir Kumar Layout: Philip Meyer

The Southern California International Review (SCIR) is a bi-annual interdisciplinary print and online journal of scholarship in the field of international studies generously funded by the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). In particular, SCIR would like to thank the Robert L. Friedheim Fund and the USC SIR Alumni Fund. Founded in 2011, the journal seeks to foster and enhance discussion between theoretical and policy-oriented research regarding significant global issues. SCIR also serves as an opportunity for undergraduate students at USC to publish their work. SCIR is managed completely by students and also provides undergraduates valuable experience in the fields of editing and graphic design. The Southern California International Review is published in partnership with the University of Southern Californias International Relations Undergraduate Association (IRUA). The IRUA is a student organization that represents the interests of undergraduate students in the USC School of International Relations. The IRUA advocates on behalf of student interests, provides opportunities for students to engage with faculty, alumni and future employers, and fosters a stronger sense of community within the School. Timothy McNally (SIR 11) and Lindsey Patin (SIR 12) are the IRUAs Co-Executive Directors, with Professor Nina Rathbun as faculty sponsor. For more information, please email usc.irua@gmail.com.
Copyright 2011 Southern California International Review. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the express written consent of the Southern California International Review. Views expressed in this journal are solely those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial board, faculty advisors, or the University of Southern California.
Southern California International Review

Volume 1, Issue 1 Spring 2011
Dedicated to the memory of a beloved teacher and respected leader: Robert L. Friedheim Professor of International Relations, 1976-2001 Director of the School of International Relations, 1992-1995
A letter from the editor:

It is with great pleasure that I introduce the first issue of the new Southern California International Review (SCIR). This bi-annual undergraduate journal seeks to create a unique opportunity for students here at the University of Southern California to publish their research and other academic work in order to spread their ideas to a wider audience. By fostering such dialogue between students of international relations and other related fields both on campus and throughout the region, SCIR looks to promote a better understanding of the global issues facing our world today. As our world becomes increasingly interconnected through technology, trade, and diplomacy, its evident that events occurring anywhere on the globe have worldwide effects. The need to study international relations has never been more important and thus this journal desires to contribute unique and innovative ideas to this fascinating and essential field of study. The pieces contained in the journal are written by undergraduate students and were chosen by our six-member editorial board. The graphics, templates, and formatting was also designed by our editorial board. In an effort to not restrict students in their submissions, SCIR welcomed submissions on a wide variety of topics in the realm of the international studies thereby emphasizing our commitment to interdisciplinary learning. Moreover, the journal also features two historical policy papers alongside three customary research pieces in order to diversify the types of articles in the publication. SCIR is also available on-line at scinternationalreview.org The journal would also not be here without the generous funding of the School of International Relations. Lastly, SCIR would really appreciate to hear your feedback on our first issue. Please send us your comments, questions, and suggestions at scinternationalreview@gmail.com. Sincerely, Angad Singh Editor-in-Chief
Contents
Articles
1. Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina: A Comparative Analysis Zara Lukens The Responsibility To Protect: A Normative Analysis Rebecca Wertman Agents of Change: The State and Global Civil Society in the Preservation of Human Rights in Egypt Timothy McNally 7
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29
3.
45
Historical Policy Papers

4. Risk and Responsibility: The United States in Somalia Rosaleen OSullivan North Korean Bombing of Yeonpyong Island Won Lee 62
5.
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Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

A Comparative Analysis
Zara Lukens
The politics of water governance is a growing topic of international discussion, and there is tension between those who believe water should be treated as an economic good and those who believe it should be deemed a human right. This study explores the differences between the water policies of two states that share a human rightsbased view of water distribution: Argentina and Uruguay. Whereas Uruguay has an effective water system, Argentina does not. This paper concludes that a combination of a strong central water policy framework, a history of failed water privatization schemes, and the presence of an institutionalized means by which civil society can influence policymaking interact to explain Uruguays greater water system effectiveness. The United Nations estimates that more than 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water today, including 130 million Latin Americans.1 The regions water supply is one of the most unequally distributed in the world, because of which the region has been greatly affected by the recent global reconceptualization of water governance. During the 1990s, the discussion surrounding the issue of water distribution underwent a dramatic transformation, and the rhetoric of water as a human need, rather than a human right, became widespread. Actors such as the World Water Council, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, WaterAid, and the Global Water Partnership have brought business leaders, who recognize the untapped economic potential of the global water market, into the debate, creating a market-driven framework for viewing water distribution and access to water. As result of this increasingly prominent approach to water issues, coupled with the IMF and World Banks stance in favor of privatization, there has been
1 Houdret, Anabelle, Shabafrouz, Miriam. 2006. Water Governance and Options for Development Cooperation. INEF Report. University of Duisburg-Essen. <http://www.ciaonet.org.libproxy.usc.edu/wps/idp/0001304/0001304.pdf>
Zara Lukens is a Senior majoring in International Relations and Neuroscience
Zara Lukens
an 800 percent increase in Asian, African, and Latin American purchasing of water from European-owned companies since the 1990s.2 While nearly all Latin American countries adopted some level of water sector privatization in the last two decades, many have rejected the economic approach to water governance, either regionally or throughout the country as a whole. Individuals, civil society, and some governments have begun to approach water policy from a human rights-based perspective, with the goal of achieving equal and consistent supply for all, not just for those who can afford to pay high tariffs. In exploring the topic of water resource distribution and management, it is necessary to look beyond quantitative and economic assessments of public vs. private ownership. A qualitative analysis of the underlying factors that influence a specific countrys water system is crucial for understanding why a particular system is more effective than another. For the purpose of this study, the definition of water system effectiveness will reflect a human rights-oriented approach with the overall goals of efficiency and equality of access and distribution. Effectiveness will be broken down into five main categories: accountability, efficiency, public health, equality, and sustainability. This paper explores the reasons that some states have succeeded in providing universal or nearly universal access to water while others have not, with Uruguay and Argentina as case studies. Three primary explanations for Uruguays efficient and universal water system and Argentinas chronically inefficient system will be explored: Uruguay has a stronger central framework designating water authorities and dividing responsibilities between institutions, while Argentina lacks a national framework to guide the provinces in water provision; Uruguay had a privatization experience that represented a clear decline from previous levels of effectiveness and that became a national issue, regardless of provincial or regional divides; and Uruguay possesses and has historically utilized an institutionalized means by which interest groups can influence policymaking, through direct democracy mechanisms, while Argentinas constitution designates fewer such mechanisms and they have been historically underutilized.
Report of Findings on Water System Effectiveness

Uruguay is a case of greater water system effectiveness than Argentina, performing better in the areas of accountability, efficiency, public health and equality. Neither country performs well in the realm of sustainability, and both will therefore be considered poor in this area. In terms of accountability, Uruguay is not perfect but out performs Argentina. There is some overlap in the functions carried out by the institutions involved in water and sanitation services in Uruguay, but Argentina represents a much more extreme case. Due
2 Goldman, Michael. 2005. How Water for All! policy became hegemonic: The power of the World Bank and its transnational policy networks. Department of Sociology and Institute for Global Studies, University of Minnesota.
Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1
to provincial control and regulation of water services, the ministries involved in water provision in Argentina vary widely between regions and provinces and lack adequate cooperation and communication both between and within provinces. Whereas Uruguays water and sanitation institutions are national entities with adequate designation of roles and responsibilities, Argentinas are fragmented bodies with poorly divided responsibilities and functions. Even at the national level, myriad agencies participate in water provision.3 Without a clear definition of the responsibilities of each agency involved, both national and provincial, these organisms have communication and coordination problems as well as a general dilution of responsibilities. 4 This general dysfunction leads to problems with policy implementation and enforcement, yet it is difficult to isolate the agencies responsible for the deficiencies. The result is an accountability crisis, as problems cannot be traced to specific actors. In Uruguay, a smaller number of agencies are involved in water provision due to the national control of water resource management, making the identification of roles and responsibilities throughout the country an easier task. Different bodies carry out policy definition, regulation, and operation, and though resource allocation and responsibility designation are not without flaw, the World Bank notes significant improvements since the 2004 reforms.5 However, the World Bank also describes a need for even greater separation of responsibilities between URSEA, the regulator, and DINASA, the agency responsible for policy creation.6 The water provider, OSE (Obras Sanitarias del Estado), adopted an official strategic vision in 2005, designed to designate and implement programs and projects that will improve accountability through increasing transparency of decision-making and actions.7 In summary, progress is being made in Uruguays water sector in terms of accountability and responsibility designation, but there remains work to be done. Even so, the situation in Uruguay is much clearer and more transparent than in Argentina, where there has been little effort to eliminate confusion regarding roles and responsibilities in the water sector. Water system efficiency, which encompasses waste, collection of taxes and payment, infrastructure upkeep, and consistency of water distribution and sanitation services, is superior in Uruguay but is not without room for improvement. OSE generates enough
3 Pochat, Vctor. Argentina: Country Case Study on Domestic Policy Frameworks for Adaptation in the Water Sector. Argentine Institute for Water Resources. March 2006. < http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/38/36318770.pdf> Pg. 3 4 Op. Cit. 4 5 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the Administracion de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) with the Guarantee of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay. The World Bank. Report Number 39864-UY. 31 May 2007. <http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/06/12/000020953_2007061 2144947/Rendered/PDF/39864.pdf> Pg. 6 6 Op. Cit. 5 7 Op. Cit. 7
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revenue to cover the costs of maintenance and operations, but this is not the case for the sanitation sector. Cross-subsidization is necessary to balance sanitation sector losses, but overall, water services do not create a deficit.8 Though the efficiency of operations has improved over the last decade, the World Bank reports that work remains to be done, especially in the realm of unaccounted for water (UFW), the difference between the amount of water produced (or consumed) and the amount of water charged to all customers. UFW levels observed in the regions most efficient companies fall within the range of 20 to 35 percent, and levels in Uruguay were as high as 56 percent in 2006.9 More positively, revenue collection rates in Uruguay, or the percentage of billed water for which the water providers are compensated, are very high. Average collection rates were 93 percent in 2003 and are improving.10 Though efficiency varies widely from region to region in Argentina and is therefore difficult to measure at a broad level, it is generally poor due to collection rates as low as 57 percent (in the Catamarca province) and levels of UFW higher than 50 percent in many provinces. Unlike OSE in Uruguay, the water providers in many Argentine provinces fail to recover costs of service provision and therefore finance operations with loans and carry heavy debt loads.11 Though water and sanitation services do not pose a public health threat in Uruguay, water quality tests reveal problems in Argentina. A 2005 Inter-American Development Bank report found unsafe levels of arsenic and nitrate contaminants in groundwater resources as well as unacceptable levels of naturally occurring arsenic and fluoride in some provinces, due partially to poor infrastructure maintenance.12 In 2004, the water in seven districts of Greater Buenos Aires was deemed unfit for human consumption due to nitrate levels three times higher than acceptable,13 and a 2009 study found levels of arsenic exceeding World Health Organization guidelines in 97 percent of samples taken from the Southern Pampa Plains region.14 Water quality monitoring in Uruguay, however, demon-
8 Op Cit. 9 9 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the Administracion de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) with the Guarantee of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay, 1 10 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the Administracion de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) with the Guarantee of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay, 90 11 lvarez, Ximena, Birolo, Normando, Montes, Gabriel, Noel, Teodoro, Piaggesi, Helena, Pizarro, Manuel, Sampaio, Carlos. Argentina: Water Infrastructure Development Program for the Norte Grande Provinces. Inter-American Development Bank. <http://idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=915972 > Pg. 25 12 Op. Cit. 2 13 Hacher, Sebastian. Argentina Water Privatization Scheme Runs Dry. CorpWatch. 26 Feb. 2004. < http://www.corpwatch. org/article.php?id=10088> Par. 14 14 Juan D. Paoloni, Mario E. Sequeira, Martn E. Espsito, Carmen E. Fiorentino, and Mara del C. Blanco, Arsenic in Water Resources of the Southern Pampa Plains, Argentina, Journal of Environmental and Public Health, vol. 2009. <http://www. hindawi.com/journals/jeph/2009/216470.cta.html>
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strates achievement of health and sanitation standards, and the country is free of cholera and other waterborne diseases.15 In a truly equal water system, households in rural and urban, rich and poor areas are equally connected to water lines and receive the same quality and consistency of service. In this realm Uruguay is highly successful while Argentina lags. In 2000, more than 98 percent of the Uruguayan population had access to drinking water services, including 93 percent of the rural population. In the same year, 79 percent of Argentinas population was provided with water services, but this figure drops to just 30 percent of people living in rural areas.16 Uruguays sanitation system is also more efficient than Argentinas, but both countries experience more problems with sanitation than with drinking water coverage. Approximately 97 percent of Uruguays population has access to adequate sanitation, though this figure drops to 56.5 percent when restricted to those with household connections (based on figures from 2007).17 In 2000, 84 percent of Argentinas population had access to sanitation services, but this includes only 48 percent of the rural population. The same year, only 55 percent of the urban population had household connections.18 Despite the large overall percentage of people with access to sanitation, the percentage of those receiving adequate service is much lower. According to a 2010 report commissioned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, only 43 percent of the Argentine population has access to adequate sanitation services.19 The sustainability dimension implies a consideration of future water supply and distribution and is a challenge that both countries face and will continue to face as demand grows and resources shrink. In Argentina, contamination from industrial waste affects many major water resources. Pollution is amplified by the lack of sewage treatment, making domestic waste the second major contributor to water resource degradation. Only 10 percent of wastewater is treated in Argentina, representing a major problem throughout the country. This deficiency is especially detrimental in terms of pollution and water resource degradation.20 In the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, for example, untreated sewage is dumped into the Rio de la Plata, less than three kilometers from the source of much
15 Gambogi, Adriana, and Prando, Ral. Water resources in Uruguay. Main features and challenges towards their sustainable use. CAETS 2009. Pg. 9 16 Jouravlev, 13 17 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the Administracion de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) with the Guarantee of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay 18 Jouravlev, 15 19 Good Practices Related to Access to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation. Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. Feb. 2010. Pg. 5 20 lvarez,, 2
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of the regions drinking water.21 Though Uruguay treats 77 percent of its wastewater,22 it experiences problems with the sustainable disposal of the sludge that results from the potabilization process. The chemical engineering institute at the University of the Republic, Uruguays largest university, has been working to solve this problem and to develop sustainable solutions for agrowaste treatment.23 Though measures are being taken to address these problems, current performance in the realm of sustainability represents a challenge that has implications for future ability to supply quality access to drinking water in both countries.
Case Study: Uruguay
In contrast to many Latin American countries, Uruguayans have historically maintained widespread access to quality water resources. Beginning in this the 1950s connections to the public water line reached 97 percent of the urban population.24 The following case study analysis will demonstrate that Uruguays strong central water policy framework, its failed privatization scheme, and its experience with direct democracy all contributed to the effectiveness of the current water system.
Presence of a Strong Central Water Policy Framework

Unlike Argentina, Uruguay has a strong central institutional and legal framework with regard to water policy, providing the basis for an organized and cooperative water system that supplies services uniformly throughout the country. Whereas water policy in Argentina is primarily at the discretion of the provinces, water governance in Uruguay is designated by a series of laws providing for control and oversight by a number of national regulatory bodies and institutions. The Water Code, in Law 14.859, was legislated in December of 1978 and updated in May of 1979. It establishes the Executive Branch as the authority on water provision, and gives the ministry of the central government the right to supervise, monitor and regulate activities related to water use.25 The next major change with regard to water provision occurred in 2004, with the passing of a constitutional amendment against water privatization. The amendment made significant alterations to water law in Uruguay. First and foremost, it designates water as a fundamental human right and excludes private companies from participation in water service provision. It further states that water management should be based on citizen
21 Hacher, 12 22 Uruguay. Office for Sustainable Development and Environment: OAS. 2005. <http://www.oas.org/usde/environmentlaw/ WaterLaw/Uruguay.htm> Par. 1 23 Gambogi, and Prando, 19 24 Domnguez, Ana. La gestin sustenable del agua en Uruguay. REDES- Amigos de la Tierra. 25 Gambogi, and Prando, 11
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participation and sustainability.26 The amendment called for a greater coherence within Uruguays water policy, designed to uniformly reflect the ideals of universality, citizen participation, and sustainability. The new mandates led to the immediate development of legislation and agencies designed to translate the reforms into action. One such development was Decree 305, passed in 2004, which defines the roles of the various institutions involved in water resources and their regulation.27 This decree represented an important step towards alleviating the problem of inconsistent, incoherent, and unsustainable policies that had plagued Uruguays water sector for decades.28 As established by Decree 305, water management in Uruguay is divided between three ministries, two national services, two institutes, and a services regulation unit. The ministries are DINAMA (National Environment Directorate), responsible for water quality regulation; DINASA (National Water and Sanitation Directorate), responsible for water policies; and DNH (National Hydrography Board), which oversees issues relating to water availability.29 The national services involved in water management are UTE and OSE. UTE, the National Administration of Power Plants and Electric Transmissions, was created in 1912 as the state provider of electricity to all citizens of Uruguay, and is connected to water services through hydroelectricity. OSE, the potable water services company, was established in 1952 to provide water and sewerage services throughout the country, with exception of Montevideo. With the exception of the brief period of privatization in the 1990s and early 2000s, OSE has remained the provider of water services throughout the country. The existence of a public company that supplies water to users throughout the country is significant because it makes truly uniform access a real possibility. LATU and INIA are the two national institutes charged with water services. LATU (Technology Laboratory of Uruguay) is working with OSE to enhance the companys environmental management by creating an information system that fosters more accurate monitoring and response to environmental issues.30 INIA, the National Institute of Agriculture, works with the water sector on water provision for agricultural use.31 The service regulation unit of Uruguays water system is URSEA, the Regulator of Energy and Water Services, created in 2002 as part of a continued effort to separate policymaking, regulation, and operation in the public services. URSEA is autonomous and decentralized body with regulatory power over both the energy and the water sectors.
26 Balany, Beln, Brennan, Brid, Hoedeman, Olivier. Reclaiming Public Water: Achievements, Struggles, and Visions from Around the World. TNI and CEO. 2005. Pg. 173 27 Gambogi and Prando, 11 28 Balany, Brennan, and Hoedeman, 177 29 Gambogi, and Prando, 12 30 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the Administracion de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) with the Guarantee of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay, 70 31 Gambogi, and Prando, 16
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Its functions include: protecting consumer rights and resolving consumer complaints; defining quality and providing safety regulations; examining tariff proposals and presenting them to the president; overseeing OSEs compliance with norms and regulations; and promoting competition and transparency by disseminating information and communicating with the public. 32 A final agency involved in water provision and regulation in Uruguay is COASAS, the Advising Commission on Water and Sanitation, created after the 2004 reforms. Its purpose is to assist with the incorporation of water sector policies into the various ministries and institutions involved, as well as inter-institutional cooperation within the water sector.33 This role is particularly important, as the 2004 water reform resulted in a new organizational model for the water system and the creation of new rules and institutions. COASAS and the other recently created agencies and institutions were designed to address the Uruguayan water sectors historical weakness in the realm of policy formulation. The new organization of the water sector has already enhanced operational efficiency by improving the rationale behind resource allocation, and separating the responsibilities for policy definition, regulation, and operation. Public services in Uruguay have historically retained immense political power due to their positions as national monopolies and their control of more than one third of the national GDP.34 However, the recent reform efforts spurred changes designed to streamline the sector and strengthen its ability to weather economic crises and periods of government deficit. The fact that responsibility for water and sanitation services is designated by a central policy framework makes this process easier and the results more uniform throughout the country.
History of Failed Privatization Schemes

The poor performance of the private water companies given concessions by the government in the 1990s catalyzed the 2004 constitutional amendment and water reforms. Whereas in Argentina complaints regarding private provision remained localized to the various provinces and private provision did not always represent a clear decline in services, the companies poor performance became a national issue in Uruguay, with citizens responding to a severe decline in service quality. This crisis of water provision spurred the development of the CNDAV, the organization responsible for the passing of the 2004 referendum. The privatization crisis was, therefore, one of the immediate factors that catalyzed water reform and institutionalized the principle of universal access in Uruguay. In the 1990s Uruguay, like many other Latin American countries including Argentina, began to offer concession contracts to private companies for the provision of public
32 Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Loan in the Amount of US$50 Million to the Administracion de las Obras Sanitarias del Estado (OSE) with the Guarantee of the Republica Oriental del Uruguay, 1 33 Op. Cit. 2 34 Bergara, 32
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services. Like many Latin American leaders during the last quarter of the 20th century, Uruguays president, Jorge Luis Batlle, was committed to the principles of market liberalization and the Washington Consensus, which the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund supported and encouraged. The Uruguayan government awarded the first concession contract in the water sector in 1998 to the company Aguas de la Costa, a subsidiary of Aguas de Barcelona and the French company Suez Lyonnaise, in the Manantiales neighborhood of Maldonado province. In 2000, the Spanish company Aguas de Bilbao received a concession under the name URAGUA for water provision throughout the rest of the province. The move toward privatization was spurred by a combination of the governments perception that neither it nor OSE could afford to meet increasing demand while maintaining high quality services, and encouragement from the World Bank and the IMF. The World Bank provided Uruguay with a loan in 1999 to facilitate the entry of private companies into the water sector, and in 2002, the IMF signed a letter of intent with the government, specifying a timeline for further privatizing the water and sanitation sector.35 The following year, Uruguay received a $151.52 million structural adjustment loan from the World Bank, with water privatization as a key condition. The report issued with the loan described the problems with Uruguays water sector, paying special attention to OSEs failings, and calling it one of the most inefficient major water and sewerage companies in the region.36 While the World Bank approved of URAGUAs performance in Maldonado province, other organizations saw the situation less favorably, noting the 700 percent rate hikes in comparison to the rest of the country. Both Public Services International (PSI) and Friends of the Earth International reported on the situation in Maldonado, citing limited access for those sectors of the population that could not afford the costs, a failure to meet basic quality standards, and a failure to comply with the contractual agreements as major failings of the private company.37 Even the Global Water Partnership (GWP), a pro-privatization organization, concluded that criticisms over inadequate tariffs, inefficient service, and more recently problems with the quality of water supplied, make this a very bad example of privatized concession.38 The public noticed increasing rates, denial of services
35 Taks, Javier. El Agua es de Todos/ Water for All: Water resources and development in Uruguay. Development. 2008 36 Fighting for Alternatives: Cases of Successful Trade Union Resistance to the Policies of the IMF and the World Bank. 16 37 Op. Cit. 16 38 Hall, David and Lobina, Emauele. Water Privatization in Latin America, 2002. Presented at PSI Americas Water Conference, San Jos, Costa Rica, July 2002. PSIRU, University of Greenwich.
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to the poorest families, the drying of reservoirs, decreasing water quality, and the private companys failure to fulfill the requirements of its concession contract.39 In response, the National Commission in Defense of Water and Life (CNDAV) formed in 2002. Four preexisting organizations came together to create the CNDAV: a citizen committee from Canelones, a target for further privatization initiatives; the trade union of OSE, the public water company; a grassroots organization from the territory whose water provision had been turned over to Aguas de la Costa; and an environmental NGO linked with Friends of the Earth International. Its base of supporters gradually expanded to include students and intellectuals as well as more than 50 small and mediumsized organizations. The CNDAVs primary goal was to collect the 300,000 signatures needed to put on the ballot a constitutional referendum against privatization, which it hoped to accomplish by the 2004 election. It succeeded, and on October 31, 2004, the public approved the referendum with 64.6 percent voting in favor.40 The text of the referendum asserts that access to drinkable water and access to sewerage, constitute fundamental human rights, and that the public service of sewerage and the public service of water [supply] for human consumption, will be served exclusively and directly by state legal persons.41 In contrast to the case of Argentina, the privatization scheme in Uruguay brought about obvious declines in water system effectiveness, a condition necessary to spur reform. The previously functioning system suddenly failed to meet the needs of the population as a whole, and consumers noticed. The poor, who were once provided water by the government, were denied service when they could not afford the increasingly high tariffs. Furthermore, the poor quality of the water itself became a national health risk for all citizens. Quality control institutions issued warnings advising citizens to avoid drinking tap water because it no longer met basic health standards.42 Another key factor that helped make the privatization crisis a catalyst for reform was that citizens throughout Uruguay became aware of the problem. Awareness was not limited to Maldonado province, where the primary problems were concentrated. More than 50 organizations comprised the CNDAV by the time of the 2004 election, and the group successfully collected the more than 300,000 signatures, representing about 10 percent of the population, required to put the referendum on the ballot. Maldonado has only about 148,000 residents, less than five
39 Taks, 19. 40 Balany, Brennan, and Hoedeman, 173 41 Hall and Lobina, 7 42 Boys, David. Winning the Water Fight. Public Services International. 2006. <http://www.worldpsi.org/Template.cfm?Secti on=Home&CONTENTID=3049&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm>
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percent of the total population, meaning the majority of the signatures came from outside the province.43 The failed privatization scheme and the actions of the CNDAV led to the institutionalization of universal access and ensured the long-term establishment of a human rights-based water policy framework. The result has been improvements in water policy, including the reorganization of the sector and the development of new agencies charged with carrying out policy reforms.
Civil Society Institutions

Whereas direct democracy is rarely a feature of Argentine policymaking, Uruguay uses direct democracy mechanisms more than any other country in Latin America, providing an institutionalized means for civil society to influence policy.44 These mechanisms provided the means through which the CNDAV achieved water reform success in 2004. Without the constitutional provision of referendum, water reform would not necessarily have appeared on the 2004 ballot. Direct democracy mechanisms provide citizens with the opportunity to influence policy and the policymaking process directly, rather than through elections and elected officials. These mechanisms can be top-down, initiated by political agents, or bottomup, initiated by the citizens themselves. The former include binding and non-binding plebiscites, and the latter include binding and non-binding initiatives, referenda, and petitions.45 The use of direct democracy can be used as an indicator of a states respect for democratic principles, as these mechanisms wrest control from the government and allow the public to voice its opinion in a manner (theoretically) not dominated by electoral politics. The first sign of direct democracy in Uruguay occurred in 1917 as a result of reforms initiated by President Batlle. Influenced by European political thought, Batlle pushed for the use of plebiscite to guard against state corruption. The changes initiated by Batlle were incorporated into various constitutional reforms between 1917 and 1967, but the Constitution of 1967 spelled out the direct democracy mechanisms that apply in Uruguayan politics today. Uruguay is the most frequent user of direct democracy mechanisms in Latin America, and one of the most prominent in the world.46 As of 2003, there were thirty-four instances in Uruguays history of a vote initiated through top-down, bottom-up, or consti43 Laymeyer, Jan. Uruguay: historical demographical data of the administrative division. Populstat. 2003. <http://www. populstat.info/Americas/uruguayp.htm> 44 Democracy in Latin America: Towards a Citizens Democracy. UNDP. United Nations Development Program: New York, 2004.<http://www.votb.org/elsalvador/Reports/Report_Democracy_in_Latin_America_New.pdf> 99 45 Op. Cit. 98 46 Op. Cit. 1
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tutionally required plebiscites, referenda, or initiatives.47 This stands in stark contrast to the vast majority of Latin American countries, which either lack direct democracy mechanisms, have yet to utilize them, or have employed only top-down mechanisms. Argentina legally recognizes the existence of some direct democracy mechanisms, but their use has been very limited compared to the case of Uruguay. The direct democracy mechanisms recognized in Uruguay are national and subnational referenda, popular initiative, and constitutional referendum (plebiscito). The process of referendum is used to repeal or abrogate laws at or below the national level, and must be initiated within one year of the laws passing. It can be similarly used against a decree passed by a sub-national assembly. However, this mechanism is not valid against initiatives restricted to the executive or against tax laws. Popular initiative is the right of the people to put forward new constitutional, legal, or municipal regulations or to oppose a decree passed by the Junta Departamental. The constitutional referendum is the last stage of constitutional reform, following the popular initiative, in which the electorate votes to approve or reject a constitutional reform. The reform must pass with greater than fifty percent approval and there must be a voter turnout of at least thirty-five percent of those eligible to represent a valid change to the constitution. 48 To initiate the process of referendum, twenty-five percent of the electorate must sign a petition, but only ten percent must support a popular initiative in order to call for a constitutional referendum (the CNDAV used the latter).49 The executive branch, the legislative branch, or the electorate may initiate referenda and plebiscitos. Uruguay is the only country in Latin America in which citizens have used a popular initiative to begin the process of constitutional reform, a precedent that undoubtedly paved the way for the 2004 water referendum. However, civil society has not always played a major role in direct democracy mechanisms, which in the past were primarily used by political parties as a tool to promote a specific agenda. For example the 1992 referendum to overturn a law privatizing the state telephone company was dominated by a coalition of left-wing parties working with the labor unions representing telephone workers. The 2003 referendum to repeal the same law received similar support from political parties. 50 The water referendum is an example of one of only a few instances in which civil society actors drove the reform process. In Uruguay, political institutions make it possible for civil society to shape policy outcomes, and the results show greater success than in other
47 Op. Cit. 8 48 Direct Democracy: The International IDEA Handbook. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. 2008. <http://www.idea.int/publications/direct_democracy/upload/DDH_inlay_low.pdf> Pg. 168 49 Altman, David. Popular initiatives in Uruguay: confidence votes on government or political loyalties? (Draft Version). Research Center on Direct Democracy. 2006. <http://www.dd-la.ch/download/Case04_Uruguay.pdf> Pg. 10 50 Direct Democracy: The International IDEA Handbook, 171
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Latin American countries. Even so, party agendas can dominate the mechanisms of direct democracy, and the 2004 referendum is nevertheless a unique achievement. The success of the CNDAV and the reform effort cannot be attributed solely to the opportunity for direct civil society involvement in the political process, but it certainly played an important role in the achievement of constitutional reform. Like Uruguay, Argentina is rich in water resources. More than 85 percent of the countrys resources, however, are concentrated in the La Plata River basin, and 76 percent of Argentinas territory has an arid and semi-arid climate. Though the majority of economic activity and most of the population is centered in the provinces located within the La Plata River basin, the 10 percent of the populace living in rural areas faces a water distribution problem. Water consumption within the country is highly unequal, with people in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area consuming an average of 383 liters per person per day in 2005 while those in some provinces consume less than the annual minimum water stress value of 1000 m3 per person. Consumption varies widely even within the Metropolitan Area.51 While overall coverage in Buenos Aires is estimated at 99.8 percent, some districts, like Merlo, have less than 40 percent water coverage and only 20 percent sewerage coverage.52 The size and varying geography and population density of the country, coupled with a decentralized and heterogeneous water sector, create a pattern of unequal and disorganized water and sanitation service provision in Argentina. The sector is wrought with inefficiencies and ineffective regulatory mechanisms, which impede progress in terms of service expansion and policy advancement.
Case Study: Argentina
Presence of a Strong Central Water Policy Framework

Whereas Uruguay has a strong centralized water policy framework, Argentina does not. As a result, the different ministries and institutions in charge of water resources overlap, lack distinct responsibilities, and have little inter-agency cooperation. Water management in Uruguay occurs primarily at the national level, but provincial authorities are heavily involved in water resources and services in Argentina. Political, fiscal, and policy decentralization are key features of the government, and this characteristic is powerfully illustrated by the fact that sub national spending comprises 49 percent of total government spending in Argentina.53 The primary theory behind decentralization as a positive influence in a democratic society is that local governments are more accountable to the
51 Pochat, Vctor. Argentina: Country Case Study on Domestic Policy Frameworks for Adaptation in the Water Sector. Argentine Institute for Water Resources. March 2006. <http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/38/36318770.pdf> Pg. 1 52 Op. Cit. 1 53 Montero, Alfred P., and Samuels, David J. Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America. University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, 2004. Pg. 6
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needs and demands of their citizens. While there are numerous examples of success on these grounds, decentralization does not automatically equate to effective policymaking, but rather depends upon the institutional design of policy.54 Even decentralized systems require a central framework to guarantee coordination, legislative systematization, and the mechanisms of conflict resolution.55 Analyses of Argentinas institutional framework surrounding water management share the common finding that fragmentation and a lack of coordination and cooperation between agencies plagues the sector and causes, according to a World Bank report, an inevitable overlapping of missions and functions involving more than two agencies answerable to different Ministries or Secretariats, with consequent uncertainty in the processing of concrete issues.56 A large part of the lack of coordination in the water sector can be explained by the absence of a national water law. The various provinces have chosen different models for water resource management, involving a diverse range of institutions. This framework is described in Article 121 of the Constitution, which states that provinces hold all power not delegated to the Federal Government by this Constitution.57 Legislators and the executive have submitted various proposals for a national law since the adoption of article 41 of the constitution in 1994, but were never met with sufficient support for their implementation. Article 41, adopted in 1994, provides for the national government to set regulations regarding minimum requirements on issues relating to resource management; however, this article has not been put to use, and water policy continues to be legislated independently by each province with little regulation by national and federal level laws.58 The current national legislative water framework is comprised of rules and laws in the Civil, Commerce, Mining and Penal Codes as well as federal laws that directly and indirectly relate to water governance, but there is no clear piece of national legislation.59 The provinces set their own criteria for resource allocation, conditions of use, water concessions, dispute resolution, and water rates.60 As is true of the national water policy structure, provincial legislation is not systematized, and myriad agencies and authorities operate within an uncertain and ill-defined legal framework. The institutions involved in
54 Montero and Samuels, 30 55 Dinar, Ariel, and Saleth, R. Maria. The Institutional Economics of Water: A Cross- Countyr Analysis of Institutions and Performance. Edward Elgar Publishing Inc.: MA. 2004. Pg. 180 56 Argentina Water Resources Management Policy Issues and Notes Thematic Annexes Volume III. World Bank. 25 Feb. 2000. <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWRD/9266241112685065402/20434096/ArgentinaWRMPolicyIssuesNotesThematicAnnexesEnglish.pdf>. Pg. 20 57 Op. Cit. 7 58 Op. Cit. 35 59 Pochat, 7 60 Water Infrastructure Development Program for the Norte Grande Provinces. Inter-American Development Bank. <http:// idbdocs.iadb.org/wsdocs/getdocument.aspx?docnum=915972> Pg. 3
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water management lack clear responsibilities, resulting in frequent overlap in function on one hand, and gaps and a lack of initiative in particular areas on the other. The sector is wrought with inefficiency, yet resources are simultaneously underutilized in some areas due to a lack of communication among agencies. Disputes among regulatory bodies over jurisdiction are common, but the legal system is not conducive to a well-regulated and cooperative provincial water sector.61 The absence of clear national jurisdiction over the provinces exacerbates the organizational incapacity. COFEMA, the Federal Council on the Environment, designates the power of the national authority to convene provinces. However, not all provinces adhere to the Federal Environmental Pact and commit themselves to COFEMAs regulation, and others do not participate actively due to a lack of incentive.62 Though decentralization does not preclude the possibility of an efficient public sector, Argentinas institutional framework lacks the critical element of central regulation. Without a clearly defined national water law, provincial coordination is impossible, with the result that uniform water provision throughout the country cannot occur. The overlap between provincial authorities involved in water management hinders efficiency at the provincial and local levels, preventing effective assessment and measurement within, let alone between, provinces. While evaluation by agencies including the World Bank have pointed out weakness within Uruguays water sector, these problems are more difficult to pinpoint and address in Argentina because of the lack of a legal framework defining the actors and their roles within the sector. Argentina has an obvious need for water management reform, but legislative and institutional reform must precede any specific policy considerations.
History of Failed Privatization Schemes

Water sector privatization in Argentina produced similar economic and coverage problems as it did in Uruguay, but pre-existing sector inefficiencies and decentralized provision prevented the results from becoming a national issue, as occurred in Uruguay. While the citizens of Maldonado province experienced an obvious decline in services and access to water, a major problem with private control in Argentina was a lack of service expansion, rather than a marked deterioration in service quality. Densely populated areas generally maintained high levels of water coverage, but rural regions did not experience the promised increase in connections and expansion of infrastructure.63 Consumers balked at the problems they faced as a result of the private concessions, and in some cases protested, but the variation in coverage among regions and provinces meant that complaints were often recognized locally, rather than nationally. As a result, the failed
61 Op. Cit. 37 62 Op. Cit. 36 63 Rodrguez-Boetsch, Leopoldo. Public Service Privatisation and Crisis in Argentina. Development in Practice. June 2005. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4029963> Pg. 103
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privatization schemes did not produce the same widespread call for action that influenced the Uruguayan campaign for water reform. Rather than a national response developing against privatization, individual provinces gradually renegotiated or sole their contracts with private companies.64 Carlos Menem, president of Argentina from 1989 to 1999, is widely seen as one of the primary neoliberal reformers in Latin America. After assuming office during an economic crisis, Menem implemented the Convertibility Plan, pegging the peso to the U.S. dollar in an effort to curb hyperinflation and stimulate growth and foreign investment. These measures coincided with widespread privatization of public utilities, including the water sector. The government granted concessions contracts to private companies for periods of up to 30 years. The contracts included service provision and infrastructure maintenance, and most provinces opted for privatization. Water privatization was driven by Argentinas lack of public resources and investment, the poor performance of the water sector, and less than ideal levels of access to water and sanitation. Corrientes was the first province to undergo privatization in 1991, and the Greater Buenos Aires area followed in 1992. By 1999, twenty-two private water companies served 70 percent of the population.65 Privatization coincided with the development of government regulatory agencies, giving the state a continued regulatory function in water services. Private companies, subsidiaries of European multinationals (and dominated by Suez Lyonnaise), entered with little awareness of the variation in geography and population density throughout Argentina. Most of the companies used the same general contract models regardless of the population, infrastructure, and resources of the area in which they operated. They made promises to expand infrastructure in low socioeconomic areas, where cost of connections and incidence of non-payment is high.66 The result was that the private companies profits grew due to rate increases, but most failed to meet the terms of their contracts. Though wages suffered due to the ban on price indexing under the Convertibility Plan and the privatization of public enterprises left many Argentines jobless, Menem allowed private firms to index prices to the U.S. consumer price index (CPI). While Argentinas CPI dropped 1.1 percent between 1995 and 2001, the U.S. CPI increased by 18.4 percent.67 In addition to these gains, private companies negotiated rate increases while simultaneously reducing their contractual obligations, creating a situation in which consumer
64 Corral, Violeta, Hall, David, and Lobina, Emanuele. Replacing failed private water companies. Public Services International. January 2010. Pg. 5 65 Juuti, Petri, Katko, Taipo, and Vuorinen, Heikki. Environmental History of Water. IWA Publishing: London. 2007. Pg. 440 66 Alamsi, Florencia, Ana Hardoy, and Jorgelina Hardoy. Improving Water and Sanitation Provision in Buenos Aires. IIEDAmrica Latina. June 2010. Pg. 8 67 Rodrguez-Boetsch, 109
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fees skyrocketed but saw no gains in service quality. Aguas Argentinas, for example, failed to fulfill its commitment to building a sewage treatment plant in Buenos Aires, with the result that 95 percent of sewage was dumped, and continues to be dumped, into the Rio de la Plata. Even so, household water rates increased 88.2 percent between 1993 and 2002, though Argentinas CPI rose on 7.3 percent in the same period.68 Aguas Argentinas S.A., the Suez subsidiary that provided water in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, reaped a profit rate of 19 percent of its net worth between the beginning of the contract in 1993 and 2001.69 Despite hope that privatization would expand coverage and quality and reduce prices, these problems remained, especially in low-income and rural communities. The 2001 financial crisis created further problems between the companies and government when the peso was devalued by 70 percent. Contract prices had been indexed to the U.S. dollar to guard against currency devaluation, but the scope of the crisis made it impossible for consumers to pay.70 After attempted negotiations regarding the reduction of tariffs, shareholders terminated many concession contracts over the following years. Complaints, for example regarding Aguas Argentinas (a subsidiary of Suez Lyonnaise) contract in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, included a failure to provide adequate levels of investment and to meet water quality targets.71 In 2006, President Nestor Kirchner cancelled Suezs contract in Buenos Aires, creating in its place Aguas y Sanamiento Argentinos (Argentina Water and Sanitation), a state company owned 90 percent by the state and 10 percent by workers. The governments of many other provinces cancelled their contracts with Suez during the same year due to public backlash against rate increases and failure to fulfill contractual obligations.72 Between 1998 and 2009, the Argentine government terminated (or sold, in the case of Crdoba) contracts with private water companies in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Crdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe, and Tucumn.73 The Argentine government made significant errors in the privatization process that effectively doomed the scheme to failure. One such mistake was the absence of a clearly defined regulatory framework and independent regulatory agencies. Without these essential institutions, the private companies were free to engage in rent-seeking activities
68 Rodrguez-Boetsch, 312 69 Water Privatization Fiascos: Broken Promises and Social Turmoil. Public Citizen. March 2003. <http://www.publiccitizen. org/documents/privatizationfiascos.pdf> Pg. 2 70 Budds, Jessica, McGranahan, Gordon. Are the debates on water privatization missing the point? Experiences from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Environment and Urbanization. 2003. Pg. 108 71 Hall, David, Lobina, Emanuele. Water privatization and restructuring in Latin America, 2007. PSIRU. University of Greenwich. 2007. Pg. 14 72 Valente, Marcela. Another War over Water. IPS. June 7, 2006. <http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33526> 73 Corral, Violeta, Hall, David, and Lobina, Emanuele. Replacing failed private water companies. Public Services International. January 2010, 6
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and invest little capital in infrastructure expansion and other contractual commitments. With the majority of water sector power vested in the hands of private corporations, profit gains did not translate to improved service.74 The financial crisis of 2001 catalyzed a series of events that eventually led to state intervention in the water sector. The private company in Buenos Aires, affected by the currency devaluation and burdened by loans taken out in U.S. dollars, cancelled plans to expand infrastructure. Though the poor performance of private companies in Argentina did lead to government intervention in many cases, it did not produce the same large-scale reforms that took place in Uruguay. Argentinas decentralized water system caused results to vary from province to province, and a unified call for sweeping reform did not materialize.
Civil Society Institutions

As is the case with many Latin American countries, Argentinas government has some direct democracy provisions, but they have been historically underutilized. Civil society is limited in its ability to participate in policymaking, and has, traditionally, had less of an incentive to be a voice for the public, as the government is unresponsive. The absence of a clear path for civil society to participate in the policymaking process helps explain why Uruguays privatization crisis produced a social movement while Argentinas did not. Argentina is one of the fourteen Latin American countries that recognize the topdown plebiscite (plebiscite initiated by a government agency), and it is one of the eight in which this mechanism has never been put to use. It similarly recognizes the top-down non-binding plebiscite, which was utilized once between 1978 and 2002. In terms of bottom-up mechanisms of direct democracy, Argentina recognizes only the binding initiative, but, like all but one Latin American country, this mechanism has never been employed. In comparison to Uruguay, a frequent user of direct democracy, Argentina effectively lacks an institutionally strong means for the citizenry to directly influence policy.75 A lack of government accountability and responsiveness to the needs of its citizens is a chronic problem in Argentina. Multiple crises, including the human rights abuses by the military junta and the 2001 financial crisis, brought the severity of the deficit to the forefront of the national consciousness, and some steps have been taken to correct this aspect of institutional weakness in the Argentine government. The dominance of populism in 20th century politics and democratization movements led to the development of an authorization, rather than an accountability model of representation.76 For decades, the
74 75 76 Rodrguez-Boetsch, 313 Democracy in Latin America: Towards a Citizens Democracy. 99 Levitsky and Murillo, 231
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populace voted for an individual (for example Juan Pern) or a party (the Peronist Party) with the understanding that its direct influence over political decision-making began and ended on election day. This model of democracy provided the opportunity for corrupt officials to ignore the needs of its citizens, and sometimes even engage in illegal actions without repercussion. The human rights movement that emerged in Argentina following the end of the military dictatorship in 1983 brought about an increase in public awareness of the states abuse of not only human rights, but also of civil rights and the rule of law. Throughout the 1990s, a series of protests and media exposs of corrupt government officials furthered the push for government accountability, eventually leading to a renewed respect for constitutional mechanisms and guarantees.77 The result has been a profound change in Argentine political culture. Voters are increasingly disinclined to support candidates solely on the basis of party affiliation, and they are more demanding than ever of strong institutions that check and balance political control and accountability.78 Though these changes are taking place in Argentina, they are recent and have yet to produce significant institutional change. Civil society, however, which lacked a diverse presence in Argentina during the majority of the 20th century, is evolving and playing a more active role in politics. NGOs, advocacy organizations, and social movements have all contributed to the public voice for accountability through various initiatives. Additionally, journalism has evolved in the past two decades, taking on an increasingly critical position towards the government and working to expose wrongdoing and inform the public.79 The increased participation of individuals and independent organizations in politics has spurred a respect for democratic principles that were ignored for much of the 20th century, even during periods of democracy. While Uruguay has a clearly defined and historically developed institutional structure through which civil society can interact with and influence policy, Argentina is still consolidating its democracy. The recent wave of civil society mobilization has demonstrated a primary concern for enforcing the countrys basic legal and constitutional framework, which provides for a strong representative democracy with few participatory elements. The revival of social movements and organizations is a step in the right direction for Argentina that may eventually lead to the adoption of a stronger participatory framework.
77 78 79
Levitsky and Murillo, 234 Op. Cit. 233 Op. Cit. 237
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The emergence of a civil society that monitors government action and legality will lead to the strengthening of institutions that promote accountability and transparency.
Conclusions
Summary of Findings
Uruguays greater performance with respect to each of the three explanatory factors explains its effective water provision. Uruguay has a strong central water policy framework, ensuring effective coordination and cooperation between the different ministries and institutions involved in water resource management; Uruguay experienced a failed privatization scheme that gained national attention and spurred widespread mobilization; and Uruguay is the country in the region with the greatest historical use of direct democracy mechanisms, which provide the means for civil society to directly impact policy. Argentinas situation in terms of the explanatory factors does not represent the same ideal environment for a highly effective water system. Argentinas water system is controlled in a decentralized manner by the provincial authorities. Whereas Uruguays water system is managed by a set of national ministries and agencies with an increasing degree of responsibility division and definition, the absence of a national water law gives each province in Argentina the power to define and appoint its own water authorities. The bodies involved in water provision reflect a large degree of overlap in terms of responsibilities and functions, which produces chronic inefficiency. This reality likely played a role in preventing the failed privatization schemes from producing a major public outcry, as public service provision is historically variable, whether under public or private control. Though Argentina experienced widespread failure of private companies in various provinces, the influence of other factors prevented the unified reaction and mobilization seen in Uruguay. Finally, Argentina lacks an institutionalized means for civil society to influence policy. It does not have the experience with direct democracy seen in Uruguay, and civil society organizations are still primarily invested in fighting for the respect of basic democratic principles.
Interpretation of Results
The three factors explored in this paper are all highly relevant to water system effectiveness, but they must be considered in concert rather than independently. Any major policy is the product of many variables interacting, and the same is true of water policy. The fact that Argentina experienced failed privatization but did not develop a more effective water system, as well as the fact that Uruguay scores well but is not perfect on any of the factors, illustrates this point. The failure of private water companies can be viewed as a catalyst for water system reform, but it alone will not lead to increased effectiveness. In the case of Uruguay, the crisis in Maldonado province spurred action on the part of civil society, but the constitutional Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1
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reform may not have occurred, and certainly would not have occurred as rapidly, without the mechanisms of direct democracy. Similarly, Uruguays treatment of water provision as a national, rather than provincial, service contributed to the national reaction because the issue had to be addressed by the national government. The problem in one province, therefore, entered into the national conscious and catalyzed a widespread reform effort. In the case of Argentina, failed privatization schemes did not produce the same results as occurred in Uruguay due to the influence of the other factors. The issue did not become a unified, national-level crisis due partially to the fact that the scenario varied dramatically between provinces, and concerned citizens tended to target their efforts at the provincial governments, who control water provision. An additional obstacle to reform was the absence of a strong civil society influence over policy in Argentina. Even if people had mobilized at the national level, they would not have had the direct path to constitutional reform that the CNDAV utilized in Uruguay.
Policy Implications
The results of this study do not provide a set of guidelines for those striving to influence water policy at either the domestic or international levels. Rather, they demonstrate some of the conditions that are conducive to implementing effective policy. Overall, it is clear that a continued focus on democratization is necessary for achieving universal water coverage throughout the world. Democracy should be assessed not only in terms of procedural elements, like electoral procedures, but also with regard to substantive components. Regular, free and fair elections are necessary but not sufficient to establish a democracy that meets the needs of the people. Social policies, particularly those necessary for the promotion of basic social and civil rights, are essential. Uruguay is one of the longest enduring democracies in Latin America, and it is not coincidental that it also has one of the most universal water systems in the region. While the drive to call water a human right rather than an economic good is crucial for deterring detrimental policies that allow private companies to take advantage of this dwindling resource, providing assistance to countries working to consolidate democracy is equally important. A developed democracy encompasses strong institutions, mechanisms for civil society and the populace to influence policy, and a transparent and accountable government that is responsive to the needs of its electorate. Whether or not water is defined at the international level as a human right or a human need, strong democracies will strive to fulfill basic needs, one of which is universal access to water.
Responsibility to Protect
A Normative Analysis
Rebecca Wertman
Stemming from moral, national interest, financial, and historical beliefs the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) aims to make humanitarian intervention compulsory for states in specific cases. This new human rights norm redefines two key components of International Relations. It first sets out to change the meaning of state sovereignty to be not only the responsibility a state has to respecting what goes on within a countrys own borders, but also a responsibility the state has to its own citizens. R2P further looks into the meaning of humanitarian intervention, and changes it to be the protection of innocent human beings. The Responsibility to Protect, by redefining these two concepts, commands sovereign states, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations alike to take an active roll in combating genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This paper will perform a normative analysis in explaining the background, meaning, and future of the norm, and sets out to convince readers that with R2P there is hope for a future without such humanitarian atrocities. Stemming from moral, national interest, financial, and historical beliefs the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) aims to make humanitarian intervention compulsory for states in specific cases. Although this principle seems to defy the rights of state sovereignty, the norm moves to redefine sovereignty to include intervention in cases of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. This normative analysis of the Responsibility to Protect will simplify and make sense of the complex background, creation, logistics, and implementation of the norm. I will do this by examining the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) report primarily, and also, through referencing a number of other articles, documents, and books written by key scholars in the field of international relations, humanitarian intervention, and specifically, R2P. In addition, in discussing the positive aspects of R2P, I will also discuss several problems with the norm, and why these problems might impair the ability of R2P in becoming international law. I will explain the positive and negative sides to the norm by considering real world examples of where R2P claimed success or failure. Finally, I will conclude by
Rebecca Wertman is a Sophomore majoring in International Relations and minoring in French and Economics
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predicting what the future of the norm might look like in terms of future state intervention and what it will take to achieve the goals that the Responsibility to Protect describes.
Ideas behind R2P

Principled Beliefs
The ideas behind the Responsibility to Protect are not new and have their roots in the founding principles of the United Nations. Professor of International Relations Apichai Shipper, author of Fighting for Foreigners, explains that principled beliefs are the foundations to international norms. A norm, in this sense, is a widely prevalent pattern of behavior and a generally accepted standard of proper behavior.1 Professor Shipper references the creation of different non-governmental organizations (NGO) and how the principled beliefs of one person lead to the formation of an NGO. The NGO can then project the principled beliefs to the international community and create change through different models, such as Keck and Sikkinks Boomerang Model, Sidney Tarrows models of Externalization and Internalization. as well as Professor Shippers own model of Associative Activism.2 Professor Shipper further explains these principled beliefs to be the inherent ideas a person is born with, similar to their morals.3 To understand where the ideas of R2P came from, one needs to consider the principled beliefs of human rights that led to the norms creation. Unlike an NGO, the principled beliefs do not just belong to one person but to a collective group: the United Nations. I trace the ideas behind R2P back to the creation of the United Nations in 1945 when following the Holocaust came the popular expression, Never Again. The belief was that never again would the world stand idle as the death of innocent human beings took place because of the action, or inaction, of others. The United Nations believed that as a coalition of states, it served the people of the world, and with that notion, the Declaration of Human Rights came to be. The Declaration of Human Rights gave universal recognition to the idea that every human being deserves the respect of having basic rights.4 Following the signing of the declaration in 1948 came the creation of a number of United Nations organizations and mandates with specific reference to the idea of human rights. These include four Geneva Conventions, two protocols on international human law in armed conflict, the 1948 Prevention and Punishment of Crimes of Genocide, two 1966 covenants
1 Ramesh Thakur and Thomas Weiss, R2P: From Idea to Norm--and Action? Global Responsibility to Protect 1 (2009): 23. 2 Apichai W Shipper, Fighting for Foreigners: Immigration and its Impact on Japanese Democracy (New York: Cornell University Press, 2008). 3 Apichai Shipper, Global Civil Society: Non-governmental Organizations (Lecture, University of Southern California, January 27, 2010). 4 Ramesh Thakur and Thomas Weiss, R2P: From Idea to Norm--and Action? Global Responsibility to Protect 1 (2009): 22.
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relating to civil, political, social, economic, and cultural rights, and the Statute of Rome establishing the International Criminal Court in 1998.5 With the different norms, laws, protocols, and conventions, it seemed as though the world was moving in the right direction by making human rights a priority on the world stage. The 1990s, however, proved to be a decade filled with ethnic conflicts within the borders of sovereign states.6 In 1994 in Rwanda, the world witnessed the worst genocide since the Holocaust where 800,000 people were brutally murdered in just three months.7 The Never Again lesson of the Holocaust seemed forgotten as the nations of the world did not intervene in any meaningful way to stop the death of innocent human beings from occurring. In the post Cold War era, international threats to security came more increasingly from internal conflicts putting more emphasis on a need to punish governments who committed mass atrocities on their own people.8 In addition, the number of noncombatants dying in war rose to a ratio of 9:1 of non-combatants to combatants.9 When looking at the list of crimes against humanity that took place in the 1990s, from Rwanda to Srebrenica, and from Haiti to Kosovo, it is evident that even though United Nation intervention did take place in some cases, something more needed to be done in order satisfy the true meaning of, Never Again. 10 The problem did not seem to be a lack of recognition in the United Nations for human rights, but more of a lack of what to do when such violations did take place within the borders of a sovereign state. In September 1999, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan encouraged states to create a new norm that challenged the Westphalian rooted beliefs of state sovereignty and humanitarian intervention.11 From the principled beliefs of the United Nations, and the encouragement by the United Nations Secretary General, came the birth of a Canadian initiative known as the Responsibility to Protect.12 Funded by the Government of Canada, with the help of international foundations, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was launched on September 14, 2000 by Canadian Foreign Minister Llyod Axworthy.13 Within a year, the com5 Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, The Responsibility to Protect (Ottawa: International Development Research Center, 2001), 6. 6 Alex J Bellamy and Nicholas Wheeler, Humanitarian Intervention in World Politics, in The Globalization of World Politics, by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 528. 7 Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 244. 8 Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come...and Gone? International Relations 22, no. 3 (2008): 285, http://ire.sagepub.com (accessed July 8, 2010). 9 Ramesh Thakur and Thomas Weiss, R2P: From Idea to Norm--and Action? Global Responsibility to Protect 1 (2009): 30. 10 Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, The Responsibility to Protect, Foreign Affairs 81, no. 6 (November-December 2002): 100. 11 Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 246. 12 Thakur and Weiss, 28. 13 Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, The Responsibility to Protect, 81.
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mission produced a report entitled The Responsibility to Protect, setting out guidelines and redefining sovereignty to be the protection of not only a states own borders, but its citizens as well.
State Motivations for R2P

States have a responsibility to protect their own citizens, and if they fail to do so, the international community now has the responsibility to react when genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity take place.14 This statement comes directly from the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty commission report, but the question remains as to why states would propose and agree to such a norm. Through my research, I have come up with three possible reasons; they are moral, national interest, and financial. The first, moral interest is an idealistic view that a country will help the people in another country because every human life has an equal value to it; the lives of one countrys citizens are not worth more or less than anothers. This basic principle of cosmopolitan values comes from Kant and his belief in states acting in terms of a categorical imperative of acting towards a common maxim. For this reason, a state will intervene when it sees the violations that prescribe the use of the Responsibility to Protect. R2P demonstrates that states around the world do care about people as a global population, and desire universal, and not particularistic values of human rights.15 The second motivation is a Realist belief that nations will only intervene in matters that have some importance to their own domestic and self interest affairs. Countries will only help human beings suffering abroad if they know that by aiding them, they will gain something in return. The gain could be political, in terms of establishing a new government in the failed state, or economic, such as acquiring natural resources. Either way, a country will only intervene for the protection of human rights abroad if it can satisfy some form of its own national interest in the endeavor. In establishing R2P, states can satisfy their national interest under the pretense of aiding people.16 Thirdly, a state will intervene in order to prevent a large financial burden when a situation escalades uncontrollably. By intervening early, countries can spend less money by using diplomatic measures to pressure the sovereign state to stop violence on its people instead of resorting to costly military force. This third idea fits well with R2P in that it shows how states will have interest in the emphasis the doctrine puts on prevention, as opposed to intervention. Spending money on something a governments own citizens will
14 15 16
Ibid., XI. Bellamy and Wheeler, 526. Ibid.
Responsibility to Protect not gain from might place constraints on a state however, the idea that a state will spend less if intervention takes place sooner rather than later led to the creation of the norm.17
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The Creation of the Norm
Finding a Middle Ground on Intervention

While intervention for humanitarian purposes did take place in the cases of Rwanda and Kosovo, both had their major faults. These faults led to the need for the ICISS report and the creation of the Responsibility to Protect norm. Too little too late, an accurate description of the type of intervention in Rwanda, shows a need for a norm on what type of crisis constitutes deploying military force for protecting civilians.18 The United Nations, while aware of the genocide in Rwanda, did not take action due to the United Nations Security Council decision not to intervene. The resulting message expressed, therefore, was one of particularistic values of human lives; that some human lives matter less or more than others.19 Reports coming from General Romeo Dallaire of Canada prove that even though a call for action to the United Nations Security Council had taken place, no response from the international community followed.20 This inaction in responding to genocide shows a need for a doctrine on protecting human lives, even if it does mean that the intervention of a sovereign state must occur. Canadian Prime Minister from 1993 to 2002 Paul Martin therefore stated that, R2P essentially says if Rwanda was to happen today, the United Nations would act.21 The United Nations, however, would be acting upon their moral obligation caused by the norm, and not a legal obligation if R2P were law. Kosovo showed an opposite approach taken by members of the international community in response to an ethnic conflict in 1999. In the Kosovo case, action by NATO forces was, Too much too early.22 The un-United Nations sanctioned bombing that took place in Kosovo undermined the United Nations organization and arguably did more harm than good. NATO military intervention, however, brought the idea of using military force for the protection of human rights to the international stage.23 With the lack of intervention in Rwanda, and the copious amounts of military intervention of Kosovo in the minds of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty commissioners,
17 Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, The Responsibility to Protect, 109. 18 Thomas G Weiss, The Sunset of Humanitarian Intervention? The Responsibility to Protect in a Unipolar Era, Security Dialogue 35, no. 2 (June 2004): 141. 19 Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, The Responsibility to Protect, 1. 20 Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security, 357. 21 Tim Harper, Tough wording stays...thanks to Canada, Toronto Star (Toronto), September 15, 2005 (accessed July 11, 2010). 22 Thomas G Weiss, The Sunset of Humanitarian Intervention? The Responsibility to Protect in a Unipolar Era, Security Dialogue 35, no. 2 (June 2004): 141. 23 Don Hubert, The Responsibility to Protect: Preventing and Halting Crimes Against Humanity, in Crimes Against Humanity, by Robert Rotberg, forthcoming ed. (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2010), 91.
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there was a need for something in-between, a norm that would allow for intervention of a sovereign state but only under specific conditions. Kofi Annan encouraged the world to create a norm of humanitarian intervention and Canada responded to the challenge with the creation and funding of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. As a middle power, Canada rose to the leading position out of a desire to enhance its niche as a peacekeeping nation in the international system. According to Dr. Ramesh Thakur, Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and a commissioner to the ICISS, Canada took on a leading role because of the multilateral policies of the liberal government at the time.24 These included ratifying the Kyoto protocol, the banning of landmines, pressuring states for the creation of the International Criminal Court, and supporting United Nations weapon inspections in Iraq.25 In addition, Dr. Thakur stated that Canadian Foreign Minister Llyod Axworthy was inclined towards such multilateralism and to working with different actors in the international community, as seen in his role in the creation of the Ottawa Process style of diplomacy. With Axworthy leading the way, Canada made a name for itself as a peacekeeping country when it worked with non-governmental organizations and governments alike on the landmine commission and in the creation of the International Criminal Court. Therefore, Canada again took the lead in responding to Annan and establishing the ICISS. The ICISS, while funded primarily by Canada, is a multilateral collection of members of epistemic communities from around the world. In an effort to obtain information from all sides of the debate, from the North to the South and the East to the West, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty included 12 commissioners with its leaders, Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun being from Australia and Algeria respectfully. Meetings took place on all continents and in most major capitals to include all perspectives and to create a final whole and inclusive report.26 With the goals of balance, outreach, independence, comprehensiveness, innovativeness, and political realism in mind, the ICISS worked within a narrow mandate to stay focused on their one-year
Why Canada?
24 25 26
Ramesh Thakur, interview by author, University of Waterloo, July 13, 2010. Jean Chretien, CBC News, http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/07/13/f-jean-chretien.html (accessed August 31, 2010). Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 247.
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deadline to respond to Annans challenge.27 The commission succeeded and completed their project within their deadline and presented their findings at the 2005 World Summit.
Explanation of the Responsibility to Protect

Redefining and Renaming
One of the greatest challenges the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty had in developing the Responsibility to Protect was dealing with misused and misinterpreted expressions. The first of these had to do with sovereignty: its tie to the Westphalian system but ever changing meaning. With globalization, we see diminishing in the physical borders of states, meaning that globalization allows for the trade, communication, and free travel from one country to another.28 No one country is an island unto itself anymore, according to Thakur.29 The ideas of sovereignty meaning that what goes on within the borders of one country have no affect on any other country is no longer true.30 The ICISS commission report, therefore, redefines sovereignty to be a dual responsibility. First, sovereignty externally means a country must respect the sovereignty of other states, and second, sovereignty internally means respecting the rights of the people within the countrys borders.31 With this new definition of sovereignty in mind, the commission can then justify intervention when a state fails to meet and accept the responsibility it has to its own people. Sovereignty, therefore, in terms of protecting human beings, is a responsibility to protect, those within your own borders, and only when a country fails to do so can the international community intervene.32 The second challenge of language the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty worked with was stepping away from the idea of humanitarian intervention and moving towards one of the protection of innocent human beings. The word intervention, according to the ICISS report, implies a need for action, and a violation of state sovereignty.33 R2P, unlike humanitarian intervention, emphasizes the need for preventative measures in order to diminish the likelihood of mass atrocities on human life. In addition, the Responsibility to Protect includes the responsibility for rebuilding of the nation after intervention occurs.34 R2P looks at the issues from the perspective of those
27 Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 248-250. 28 Anthony McGrew, Globalization and Global Politics, in The Globalization of World Politics, by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, 4th ed. (1997; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 17. 29 Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 255. 30 Anthony McGrew, Globalization and Global Politics, in The Globalization of World Politics, by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, 4th ed. (1997; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 23. 31 Ibid., 102. 32 Ibid., VIII. 33 Ibid., 16. 34 Ibid., 39.
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affected, not the other states looking to either help or intervene for their own national interests. By changing the meaning of sovereignty and not promoting R2P as a form of humanitarian intervention, the Responsibility to Protect has more of a hope of appealing to the nations of the world.
The Responsibility to Prevent

With the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty emphasis on the Responsibility to Protect being about preventing, responding, and rebuilding in cases of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity there becomes a need for institutions to monitor areas of potential conflict to inform the international community when the need for prevention arises. The institutions that will help, and are already helping with the prevention and, thus monitoring of potential flashpoints are non-governmental organizations. The ICISS report defines the duty of prevention by the international community to be a responsibility to address the root causes and direct causes of internal conflict and other manmade crises that put the internal populations at risk.35 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty commissioner Gareth Evans, further emphasizes the importance of the prevention aspect of R2P, Its about preventing them occurring in the first place . . . Its about a whole continuum of responses.36 The three best sources for alerting the United Nations currently are the International Crisis Group, the Global Center for R2P, and the World Federalist Movement for R2P.37 Non-governmental organizations are experts at knowing how to influence, whom to target, fundraising, and organization when it comes to gaining attention within the international community.38 Non-governmental organizations are, therefore, imperative to the success of the prevention side of the Responsibility to Protect.
The Responsibility to React

While the need for non-governmental organizations exists in the attempt to prevent intervention of a sovereign state, they are limited in their ability to react to already established conflicts. If a conflict does meet the requirements then intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations, and individual countries, will intervene under specific conditions described in the Responsibility to Protect report. Intervention, in terms of the Responsibility to Protect, is the responsibility to respond to situations of compelling human need with appropriate measures. These measures can include coercive measures such as sanctions, international prosecution, and in extreme cases, military intervention.39
35 Ibid., XI. 36 Ruadhin Mac Cormaic, Importance of responsibility to protect outlines at conference, The Irish Times (Dublin), November 22, 2008 (accessed July 10, 2010). 37 Evans and Sahnoun, 20. 38 Ramesh Thakur, interview by author, University of Waterloo, July 13, 2010. 39 Evans and Sahnoun, XI.
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Similar to how Just War Theory defines a number of requirements for war, so too does R2P define specific instances when intervention can take place in the name of human rights. The first is the just cause threshold which states that for intervention to occur there must be actual or apprehended large-scale loss of life. This large-scale loss of life can be with genocidal intent (or not) and may come from deliberate state actions, state neglect, the inability to act, or from a failed state.40 The other component of the just cause threshold justifies intervention when a large scale ethnic cleansing arises (again, actual or apprehended) by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror, or rape of victims. Intervention, therefore, under the Responsibility to Protect can take place both when a situation has already begun and when there is belief of potential mass killing or ethnic cleansing in an area. The four precautionary principles explain the justifications for military intervention, the most controversial component of the Responsibility to Protect. Right Intention states that the desire to intervene must be primarily to halt or avert human suffering under multilateral operations, and there must be support for intervention coming from the victims. Military intervention can only take place once other coercive measures, such as economic sanctions and political pressures, have been exhausted. Military intervention is thus only used as a last resort to end conflict and torment to innocent victims. Military intervention must then be the minimum scale, duration, and intensity as explained by Proportional Means. Finally, Reasonable Prospects comes in and states that success must be likely and the consequences of action less than those of inaction.41 These conditions, while extremely specific, aim to make it such that while military intervention can be justifiable, states do not try to use the Responsibility to Protect norm as a cover for their own imperialistic or national interest desires. The final piece of the Responsibility to React, the Right Authority, establishes the time and the people who will authorize military intervention. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty believes the only establishment with the authority to authorize military intervention in the name of human protection is the United Nations Security Council, and Evans further states that, The Security Council is world order.42 The United Nations Security Council also contains the responsibility to direct when the intervention will occur, and must act quickly when a potential Responsibility to Protect situation arises. The veto power, an obvious concern with the Security Council being vested with such power, was not forgotten in the commission report as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty recommend the United Nations Security Council to agree not to apply their veto power for Responsibility to Protect situ40 41 42 Ibid. XII. Ibid. XII. Scott Malcomson, When to Intervene, New York Times (New York), December 14, 2008 (accessed July 11, 2010).
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ations.43 The commissioners also recognized that such reform will take time and only after much negotiation, so they created somewhat of a backup plan in case the United Nations Security Council does veto an imperative humanitarian crisis. If the Security Council fails to act on what should be a case to use the Responsibility to Protect norm on, then the United Nations General Assembly will take part in a General Assembly Special Session under the Uniting for Peace Procedure written in the United Nations Charter. And, if the General Assembly fails to act upon their responsibility to react, then action within an area of jurisdiction by a regional or sub-regional organization is justifiable. The International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty notes, however, that if the United Nations Security Council does fail to react and respond to a R2P situation, the whole credibility of the United Nations would suffer.44
The Responsibility to Rebuild

The third piece of the Responsibility to Protect, the Responsibility to Rebuild, again relies on non-governmental organizations working with states. Rebuilding means that once the conflict ends those who intervened must stay to ensure the root causes of the initial crises cease to exist, that the peace is durable, and that good governance and sustainable development is taking place.45 This third piece of R2P makes sure that following intervention there will be security and justice for all members of the state.46 Non-governmental organizations have already developed a justice package, which according to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty would be a perfect way of fulfilling the goals of R2P. These justice packages include a standard model for a penal code, which ensures protection of minorities and allows forces to detain people who are committing crimes.47 This final aspect of the Responsibility to Protect, the Responsibility to Rebuild, is imperative to the entire norm as it aims to ensure that another conflict will not arise while simultaneously signifying the un-imperialistic nature, and purely humanitarian oriented goals of the Responsibility to Protect.
Controversies Surrounding R2P

The Problem of State Sovereignty
According to Ramesh Thakur and Thomas Weiss, members of the ICISS, critics of R2P range from those who fear the norm will become an instrument of abuse by the most powerful to others who worry it will give the powerful an excuse to avoid international
43 44 45 46 47 Evans and Sahnoun, XII. Ibid., XIII. Ibid., 39. Ibid., 40. Ibid., 42.
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action.48 The current political culture of states contains little room for the idea of willingly allowing another country to interfere within another countrys borders, even if humanitarian purposes remain the soul reason for the intervention.49 Understandably, states worry about the historical imperialistic nature of great powers and fear that intervention, especially with military force, would result in a total loss of their sovereignty. While it remains true, according to Thakur, that great power states will always behave like great power states and have some national interest in their endeavors, they can, and will still act on R2P.50 Even though a reason for intervention for humanitarian purposes might be driven from national interest, this background desire does not have to be considered as a negative. As long as states are willing to follow the specific outline and rules of R2P, what draws a country to a particular crisis should not matter. This being said, the ethnic groups targeted must gain the justice they deserve in the end, and the country must remain sovereign and improved upon once the intervening forces leave. Another interesting point of sovereignty and the idea of justified military intervention, relates to the actual occurrence of instances requiring such force. Thakur made the point that occasions requiring military intervention will probably only occur once per decade. Darfur, he stated during a personal interview, is a prime example of an R2P situation, where the United Nations had a responsibility to react but where reacting with military force just did not work. Thakur further emphasizes that in some instances, military action may do more harm than good, and this directly relates to the reasonable prospects portion of R2P.51 Unfortunately, the issue of military intervention clashing with the idea of state sovereignty seems to be the core of R2P debates within the United Nations, even in its noted unlikely event.
A Trojan Horse for Great Powers

One of the greatest worries about the Responsibility to Protect rests in the presumption that states will use the norm as an excuse for intervention for purely national interests. Already, there have been two attempts at using the norm for this reason. Russia desired to use R2P as a justification for intervention in Georgia, claiming that genocide was taking place and there was a need for protection of foreign nationals. The United Nations, however, verified the facts and found that this was not an appropriate use of the norm. The second attempt to use R2P came from France and their wish to use R2P in Myanmar, Burma following Cyclone Nargis. While the cyclone left 138,000 dead, 1.5 million displaced, and a military government who would not accept aid, this case did not comply
48 Ramesh Thakur and Thomas Weiss, R2P: From Idea to Norm--and Action? Global Responsibility to Protect 1 (2009): 40. 49 Anthony McGrew, Globalization and Global Politics, in The Globalization of World Politics, by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, 4th ed. (1997; repr., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 23. 50 Ramesh Thakur, interview by author, University of Waterloo, July 13, 2010. 51 Ibid.
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with the strict outline of R2P.52 The government of Burma would not allow humanitarian organizations into the country, and while the French desired to push through to provide aid using the R2P norm as a basis, this crisis situation was neither one of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, nor crimes against humanity.53 Thakur even argues that by attempting to use R2P, these countries flattered the norm and showed that it is, indeed, powerful. Thakur further states that by saying the norm does not apply, countries are trapped because they justify its existence.54 If intervention occurred in Georgia and Myanmar then the norm would have become a Trojan Horse, or a cover up, for intervening forces.55 These two cases, while neither actually invoked R2P, strengthened the norm by further justifying when intervention can occur. Thomas Weiss agrees with Thakur in his article entitled, Misrepresenting R2P and Advancing Norms: An Alternative Spiral? In this article Weiss explains what he calls, Norm Consolidation Theory, of how norms are advanced through misrepresentation, by specifically considering R2P.56 He looks at the Georgian and Cyclone Nargis cases as well as the United States attempt to justify their invasion of Iraq with R2P after the failure of the weapons inspections. Weiss argues that each of these failed attempts to invoke a Responsibility to Protect situation further strengthened the norm by refining its definition and proving its legitimacy in the international system. He explains that, Both application and misapplicationin rhetoric and realitycan foster a norms advancement.57 Weiss goes on to say that, The misuse of the R2P language, and especially trenchant protests, suggest a paradox: this norm is better and more broadly accepted than is often believed.58 According to Weiss, however, the Responsibility to Protect norm still rests in its early stages of development and while R2P is an idea and ideas do matter, it will take some time until R2P becomes solidified in the international system itself.59
The Value of a Human Life

One of the requirements and basic concepts of R2P and cosmopolitan values of human rights go hand in hand. In order for the Responsibility to Protect to be fully operational, countries of the world need to view each others citizens as a common humanity. The idea is that once this common humanity, as Kant describes, becomes reality then all
52 Alex J Bellamy, The Responsibility to Protect: Five Years On, Ethics and International Affairs 24, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 4. 53 Cyclone Nagris and the Responsibility to Protect (Bangkok: Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, 2008), 8. 54 Thakur 55 Bellamy, 5. 56 Thomas G Weiss, Misrepresenting R2P and Advancing Norms: An Alternative Spiral? International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 4 (November 2010): 355. 57 Thomas G Weiss, Misrepresenting R2P and Advancing Norms: An Alternative Spiral? International Studies Perspectives 11, no. 4 (November 2010): 369. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., 370.
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human life will take on an equal value. Even if this cosmopolitan humanity is reached, the idea risking your life to save someone unknown to you seems unthinkable. Dying to save someone else would be hard enough for someone you knew, but imagine dying for someone you never met, or whom your only connection to is your own humanity. This idea creates much debate within R2Ps responsibility to react with military intervention. States, according to some Realists, cannot shed the blood of their own citizens, and can therefore not risk the lives of their own soldiers to save strangers.60 In the current world system, it seems as though lives of certain individuals have more value than others. These particularistic views of human rights relate to the Responsibility to Protect in that a country will be apprehensive about risking the lives of its own citizens for the lives of people abroad. For R2P to really work, governments and citizens alike need to accept a common humanity, the Kantian cosmopolitan values, for all people of the world, not value the lives of one nationality or ethnicity over another, and further see the need in risking lives for the greater good of world peace and equality.
Terrorism vs. R2P

The publishing of the ICISS report took place on September 14, 2001, just three days after the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on American soil and national security. With those attacks the whole foreign policy of the Bush Administration shifted from one of minimal foreign policy and focus on economic interests, a Hamiltonian view, to one of a Manichean, Us versus Them policy.61 The us in this case was the American people, and the them became the terrorists around the world, but specifically those in the Middle East. The bad timing of the report meant that the 1990s emphasis on human rights was now in the past, as the central focus became one of fighting terrorism, especially by the United States. With the United States so centrally focused on their War on Terror the idea of the superpower having enough capacity to fight terror, having troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and using military intervention with R2P simultaneously, seemed impossible. Critics of the Responsibility to Protect argue that the basis for military intervention should come from United Nations authority and not United States capacity, however the two are inseparable. The United Nations is global in membership while the United States
60 Alex J Bellamy and Nicholas Wheeler, Humanitarian Intervention in World Politics, in The Globalization of World Politics, by John Baylis, Steve Smith, and Patricia Owens, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 257. 61 Lamy
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is global in reach and power, and without the aid of the United States, the idea of having R2P being fully operational seems unlikely.62
The Future of the Responsibility to Protect

Current Uses
After the United Nations voted unanimously for enacting R2P in 2005, one would believe the norm would now be put into motion and its use would be seen throughout the world in numerous humanitarian crises. Some would argue that R2P has been put into use, while others that it has not. Those who are believers in R2P say that Kenya is a prime example of the Responsibility to Protect in action as the prevention of a potential crisis there took place.63 Violence erupted killing 1,000 people after disputed elections in 2008.64 According to Edward Luck, the Special Representative to the United Nations Secretary General for the Responsibility to Protect, this violence was not yet full-scale ethnic cleansing, but it could have erupted into so. Kofi Annan noted the case as, Gross and systematic human rights abuses of fellow citizens, which promoted the international community to take action. Kofi Annans leadership of the African Union mandated team mediated eminent Africans and brought a power-sharing solution to the crises.65 By the United Nations deciding to apply R2P criteria and focus international efforts in the region, the avoiding of a potential ethnic cleansing took place, and thousands of Kenyans were saved.66 Currently, we see non-governmental organizations informing the international community on Kyrgyzstan being a potential flashpoint, and these non-governmental organizations are citing the conflict as an, Orchestrated, targeted, and well planned violence. If Kyrgyzstan fails to protect its own people then it will become the responsibility of the international community to do so.67 It is not as though action in the name of human rights never took place before R2P, but there is now more of a hope that with the Responsibility to Protect there will be a framework so that action is not subjective to a certain regions national interests. With R2P, as well, action violating the traditional values of state sov62 Thomas G Weiss, The Sunset of Humanitarian Intervention? The Responsibility to Protect in a Unipolar Era, Security Dialogue 35, no. 2 (June 2004): 141. 63 Alex J Bellamy, The Responsibility to Protect: Five Years On, Ethics and International Affairs 24, no. 2 (Summer 2010): 6. 64 Crisis in Kenya, The Responsibility to Protect, accessed May 8, 2011, http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/ crises/crisis-in-kenya. 65 Crisis in Kenya, The Responsibility to Protect, accessed May 8, 2011, http://www.responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/ crises/crisis-in-kenya. 66 Ray Saurez and Deborah Amos, America Abroad, The Responsibility to Protect, Public Radio International, March 7, 2009, PRI Public Ratio International, accessed March 8, 2011, http://www.pri.org/world/global-responsibility-to-protect.html. 67 Andrea Berg, Kyrgyzstan: Decisive Action Needed to Rein in Violence, Human Rights Watch, June 13, 2010, http://www. hrw.org/en/news/2010/06/13/kyrgyzstan-decisive-action-needed-rein-violence (accessed July 8, 2010).
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ereignty will always be taken for humanitarian purposes under the specific conditions of R2P.68 Intergovernmental organizations, governments, non-governmental organizations, and individuals alike will continue to use the Responsibility to Protect as a way of protecting human rights. As the leading country for the creation of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect, Canada will continue to play a key part in making sure R2P remains at the forefront of United Nations debate and is not forgotten on the world stage. According to Thakur, Canada has put too much money and effort into the creation of the ICISS and R2P for it to become a forgotten issue.69 Non-governmental organizations will continue to enhance their role in the international community by playing the important part of monitoring potential flashpoints. These non-governmental organizations will also be responsible for informing the United Nations of such flashpoints where the help of states is imperative to the futures of innocent human beings. Governments will work to recognize R2P and act multilaterally when genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity take place. With United Nations Security Council authorization, these individual governments will act upon the new definition of state sovereignty outlined by R2P, and intervene for solely humanitarian purposes. Finally, when the intervening forces resolve the crisis, non-governmental organizations will again serve a role in rebuilding the state and ensuring that future crises will not occur. The Responsibility to Protect relies on each of these components, intergovernmental organizations, states, and non-governmental organizations, working together to achieve a common goal. The role of individual people around the world, however, remains one needed but often forgotten. Individuals should be placed among the list of actors who have the ability to pressure their governments to turn this norm into international law. The individual, a typical citizen of any given country, needs access to information about the Responsibility to Protect in order to do this. Currently, the information available to individuals, due to the short lifespan of the norm, is minimal and complex. Students and scholars of International Relations understand the basis for such a norm, but without explanation the idea of states intervening based on only human rights principles seems preposterous in a media educated world. The media, while an excellent source of information, is selective and portrays the most controversial pieces to attract the most viewers. R2P, while controversial in the world of International Relations due human interest
Predictions for the Norm
68 69
Ramesh Thakur, interview by author, University of Waterloo, July 13, 2010. Ramesh Thakur, interview by author, University of Waterloo, July 13, 2010.
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surmounting national interest, seems tame compared to stories of war, bloodshed, and the atrocities the Responsibility to Protect aims to eliminate. Until the time when peace becomes a hot-topic of the news, the challenge of distributing the ideas of the Responsibility to Protect rests on individuals, and Gareth Evans explains how the fulfillment of this challenge can arise from universities educating their students on the topic.70 The more that people write and promote the ideas of human interest over national interest, the greater R2P acceptance and use will become. The ideas of intervening for the sake of human rights, regardless if that means violating the traditional sense of sovereignty, will become common practice. As seen in the positive outcome of the use of R2P in Kenya, world leaders can now recognize that implementation of the Responsibility to Protect can and does really create positive change. While those debates occur at the international level, similar discussions must also take place at the individual level so that the idea of Never Again, finally becomes reality. Once this does occur, citations of the Responsibility to Protect will become more common, but at the same time, hopefully less of a need for the norm will arise. The ideas of the Responsibility to Protect are idealistic in that they challenge the Westphalian rooted beliefs of state sovereignty dating back to the 1600s. R2P aims to change this current world conception of sovereignty, and also that of humanitarian intervention to be a human-interest approach to international relations. No human being should have to fear that their own government will abandon them because of their ethnicity, race, cultural beliefs, or ideas, but if this does happen, they should know that the United Nations and the rest of the international community would be there to protect them. We cannot afford a norm like this to be forgotten for without it another Holocaust, another Rwanda, or another Darfur is inevitable. Forgetting R2P would thus be sending a message to the world that states and the United Nations alike do not put human rights at the top of their list of priorities and would thus make the United Nations an extremely weak organization in the eyes of the masses. That is why governments, the small powers, middle powers, and great powers alike, need to, and will come together in the United Nations and act upon the norm that sovereignty is not about borders but is a responsibility, a responsibility to protect.
70 Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect: An Idea Whose Time Has Come...and Gone? International Relations 22, no. 3 (2008): page #s, http://ire.sagepub.com (accessed July 8, 2010).
The State and Global Civil Society in the Preservation of Human Rights in Egypt
Timothy McNally
An emerging trend in the human rights landscape of the Middle East is the establishment of National Human Rights Institutions, agencies of national governments tasked with promoting human rights and investigating reports of abuse. The proliferation of these institutions represents a new direction for human rights advocacy and shifts responsibility for the human rights agenda from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to governments themselves. Since the development of these institutions began in earnest in the 1990s, researchers have only begun to examine their impact on the status of human rights in the Middle East. The aim of this paper is to offer a critical look at the record of one particular NHRI (the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights) in promoting rights in the region, offering its example as a case study to demonstrate the inability of NHRIs to initiate transformative change. The unfortunate truth is that the Egyptian National Human Rights Council and similar NHRIs cannot effectively advocate for rights promotion in the Middle East. NGOs in the region must stand in the gap and prevent governments in the region from violating rights with impunity. This paper was researched before the events of the January 25 Egyptian Revolution, and initially concluded that legal obstacles and interference from state security services impeded the work of Egyptian NGOs. As the revolution has resulted in the dismantling of the Egyptian state security service, there is an opportunity for the development of an organic and invigorated rights agenda, with NGOs taking the lead in rights promotion.
Agents of Change:
Introduction
An emerging trend in the human rights landscape of the Middle East is the establishment of National Human Rights Institutions, agencies of national governments tasked with promoting human rights and investigating reports of abuse. The proliferation of these institutions represents a new direction for human rights advocacy and shifts responsibility for human rights from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to governments themselves. Since 1990, ten governments in the region have created or are in the process of establishing National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), a move that has the potential Timothy McNally is a Senior majoring International Relations
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Timothy McNally
to profoundly affect the status of human rights in the region.1 Since the development of these institutions began in earnest in the 1990s, researchers have only begun to examine their impact on the status of human rights in the Middle East.2 The aim of this paper is to offer a critical look at the record of one particular NHRI (the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights) in promoting rights in the region, using the example of this NHRI as a case study to demonstrate the inability of NHRIs to offer much hope for transformative change. This paper will also examine the impact of Egypts January 25th revolution and implications for NGOs working in the country. While some may be tempted to praise states in the region for their initiative in establishing these agencies, the reality is that the Egyptian National Human Rights Council and similar National Human Rights Institutions cannot effectively advocate for rights promotion in the Middle East thereby requiring non-governmental organizations to stand in the gap and prevent governments in the region from violating rights with a fear of consequences; however, the work of non-governmental organizations is still impeded by legal obstacles and interference from state security services. Before the effectiveness of Egypts National Human Rights Council (one of the first in the Middle East and established in 2003) can be assessed, attention must be devoted to the present state of human rights in the region to determine whether Egypts NHRI is an appropriate case study for the region.
The Current Status of Human Rights in the Middle East
In the eyes of the global human rights community, the Middle East features some of the most prolific violators of human rights. While some progress has been made in regards to human rights implementation, governments in the region have yet to demonstrate that they are capable of safeguarding the human rights of their citizens, even with the establishment of NHRIs. Current regimes are caught between efforts to consolidate their own power and the dual pressures of globalization and democratization, creating the perfect storm for conflict and oppression in the face of reinvigorated activism. Many scholars have analyzed the region and its embrace (or lack thereof) of human rights, but what are the fundamental causes of the present state of human rights in the region? Although there are many contributing factors to this predicament, inconsistent Western policies, the presence of authoritarian governments, lack of regional enthusiasm for some aspects of the human rights portfolio (specifically womens rights) and dependency on Western organi1 The rise of NHRIs began in earnest in the early 1990s, according to the UNHCRs 2009 survey of NHRIs (The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Survey on National Human Rights Institutions. Geneva: UNHCR, 2009. Print). According to the survey, American states were the first to establish NHRIs, followed by African and Asian nations in the mid 1990s. 2 Cardenas and Flibbert first chronicled the growth of NHRIs in the Middle East in their 2005 article in The Middle East Journal (Cardenas, Sonia and Flibbert, Andrew National Human Rights Institutions in the Middle East. The Middle East Journal. 59, 3 (2005): 411-436).
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zations all pose difficult challenges to human rights advances in the Middle East and bring into question governments ability to safeguard these rights.
The Root Causes of Middle Eastern Human Rights Abuses
Western attitudes and policies towards human rights in the Middle East have fundamentally shaped the status of human rights in the Middle East today. Rights promotion has often been sacrificed for the sake of political expediency, leading to serious inconsistencies in human rights implementation in the region. Inconsistency has developed primarily because Western political leaders are committed to the language of human rights as a tool to achieve foreign policy goals, but may not stand behind the principles that they espouse. This can lead to situations where true human rights advocacy is sacrificed for the sake of political gains. Regardless of the motivation, Western leaders are committed to the language of human rights, if not the actual promotion of the rights themselves. Human rights rhetoric is so enticing because it presents foreign policy decisions as based on clear moral principles rather than politics. British scholar David Chandler observes, It is easier to promote a position which can be claimed to be based on clear ethical values, rather than the vagaries of compromise and political pragmatism.3 Western nations intensely promote rights causes in their political discourse but they fall short on implementation of these rights agendas, creating a credibility gap that can be exploited by detractors in the region. If there was more consistent policy on rights instead of rhetoric, governments in the region might actually respond to Western pressure on the rights issue instead of brushing it off as mere talk. Government type and regime structure also has a tremendous influence on human rights promotion. In an intriguing study published in the journal Democratization, Todd Spinks, Emile Sahliyeh and Brian Calfano evaluated Middle Eastern regimes across five dimensions of democracy and human rights, including electoral procedures of democracy, civil liberties, citizens personal integrity rights, individual subsistence rights and economic freedoms. The authors concluded that the Middle East was the least democratic and rights-friendly region in the world. They compared republics with monarchies in the region, and came to the surprising conclusion that monarchies outpaced republics in liberalization and human rights promotion. Monarchies in the region were leaders in human rights, and showed some measureable progress towards liberalization. Republics, on the other hand, were stagnant in terms of liberalization and typically did not offer rights protections similar to the monarchies. Spinks, Sahliyeh and Calfano posit that crises of legitimacy exist for authoritarian regimes in the region and that these crises ultimately deter
3 Chandler, David, Rhetoric without Responsibility: the Attraction of Ethical Foreign Policy, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 5:3 (2003): 295316.
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human rights promotion and undermine liberalization trends. As the authors note in their survey of governments in the region, While Middle East republics such as Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Algeria, and Syria have a presidential system, judiciary, and some variety of consultative body all institutions that would advance liberalization the status quo has barely changed. This is because republics enjoy less legitimacy, and base their rule on military coercion. Having achieved power via coups, republics maintain political control through an oppressive one-party system. Further, although elections are prevalent in many republics, participation is compulsory, and candidates are considerably limited and/or restricted in their bid for office. In some republics, civil society organizations are prohibited. Regime legitimacy is based primarily on its ability to provide for the public good and establish security. However, a majority of republics have historically failed on these counts.4 As respected, republics with strong authoritarian leanings and limited electoral procedures scored very low on human rights promotion and democratization. Progress is sacrificed in these regimes at the expense of self-promotion and preservation. Because these regimes obtained power through military coups and governmental overthrows, authoritarian leaders seem preoccupied with maintaining the status quo and cementing their grip on their nations at the expense of the well-being of their citizens. Fraud, single party balloting, candidate intimidation and restrictions on assembly and political organizations undermine elections, often the only ostensible indicators of progress towards democracy. Leaders in these republics resort to coercive state security apparatus to maintain their grip on power and must suppress or silence critics, or else risk greater unrest and demands for regime change. Without some resolution of the legitimacy crises that plague republics in the Middle East, it is unclear whether progress on human rights can be achieved outside of the monarchies in the region. Researcher Eva Bellin also explored authoritarian regimes and focused on their use of coercive security apparatus to achieve policy goals. She agrees with Spinks, Sahliyeh and Calfanos assertion that state security complexes impede progress on democratization and human rights promotion. The strength, coherence, and effectiveness of the states coercive apparatus distinguish among cases of successful revolution, revolutionary failure, and nonoccurrence. The same might be said of democratic transition. Democratic transition can be carried out successfully only when the states coercive apparatus lacks the will or capacity to crush it.
4 Spinks, B. Todd, Sahliyeh, Emile and Calfano, Brian, The Status of Democracy and Human Rights in the Middle East: Does Regime Type Make a Difference? Democratization, 15: 2 (2008): 321-341.
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Where that coercive apparatus remains intact and opposed to political reform, democratic transition will not occur5 Bellin notes the challenges that stand in the way of democratic transition in her analysis on the effect of coercive systems on political structures. These security apparatus institutionalize ineffective governing regimes and use tactics of oppression, suppression and persecution to maintain power and silence dissent. As long as Middle Eastern regimes are propped up by comprehensive and powerful security apparatus, a full transition to democracy is out of the question. Human rights usually progress along with liberalization (confirmed by Spinks, Sahliyeh and Calfanos analysis), so this portends a difficult path for human rights advocacy in the region. Bellins study makes it clear that democracy, liberalization and human rights promotion will not make major advances aside from total revolutions or an independent stand-down of the state security complex. On January 25 the people of Egypt united in activism and launched eighteen days of protests that resulted in Hosni Mubaraks resignation as President after thirty years of seemingly indomitable rule. Protests in Egypt erupted in the wake of Tunisian President Ben Alis resignation and soon spread to countries across the Arab world including Bahrain and Libya.6 In Egypt, the end of autocracy was made possible because the people no longer feared Hosni Mubarak (especially in the wake of successful revolt in nearby Tunisia). Aside from an emboldened populace, the Egyptian armys relatively independent and neutral position in political matters was exploited by anti-government protesters, who cultivated an image of the army siding with the people. The armys subsequent refusal to protect Mubaraks government paved the way for the collapse of his regime. Ultimately, both popular revolt and a stand-down of the security services (in this case due to the armys political independence) created a perfect storm of conditions that led to the end of authoritarianism in Egypt. As long as the authoritarian government is capable of imposing its rule by force, there is limited potential for democratic reform, Egypts success story notwithstanding. In order for revolution to proceed, parts of a states security apparatus must turn against the governing regime and support political reform. Popular uprising might lead the push for greater human rights recognition, but as long as security services are operational they maintain final veto power over popular efforts to enact reforms. Beyond political considerations, cultural and religious considerations must be taken into account. Foremost among these concerns is the perceived discrepancy between the West and the Middle East over the role of women. Historically, Muslim states have con5 Bellin, Eva The Robustness of Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Exceptionalism in Comparative Perspective, Comparative Politics, 36: 2 (2004): 139-157. 6 Egypt Burning. Al Jazeera English. Web. 12 Apr 2011. <http://english.aljazeera.net/programm es/2011/02/2011267047178387.html>.
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tributed to several key human rights documents, as asserted by Susan Waltz in her article, Universal Human Rights and the Contribution of Muslim States. Waltz describes the 1940s drafting process of foundational human rights documents like the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, recognizing Muslim states for their contributions to these documents in spite of prevailing political and social conditions: The fact that several states, including Iraq, Morocco, and Libya, as well as Pakistan chose to place women on their UN delegations also speaks to their attachment to liberal values, and to the image they sought to create and project. Even as Arab socialism took root and spread through the Middle East, Arab and Muslim delegates continued to their attachment to liberal values.7 Waltz debunks the myth that Muslim and Arab states did not participate in the drafting of human rights agreements and also showcases how progressive the early delegations from this region were. Regrettably, the optimism and progressive sentiment of the 1940s has yielded to a slightly different reality over the past sixty years. This new reality presents a series of challenges to the implementation of full womens rights in the Middle East. Janet Afary, professor at Purdue University, paints a darker picture of the current state of womens rights in the region in her article, The Human Rights of Middle Eastern and Muslim Women: A Project for the 21st Century. She maintains that, the growth of Islamist movements worldwide and the rise of new nationalisms after the fall of the Soviet Union unleashed new atrocities aimed at women.8 Afrays analysis, which opens with a review of the atrocities committed against women during the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, does not make light of this bleak situation, but offers hope that a new generation of womens rights activists can step up to the challenge advocate powerfully for a change in the status quo. The 1990s, a decade that saw terrible womens rights abuses, also witnessed The proliferation and growth of a new feminist scholarship on Muslim women in a variety of fields, such as Anthropology, History, Sociology, Political Science, and Literature. At the same time, through grassroots initiatives, a number of shelters for abused women, hotlines, and womens centers have been established in the region. In Iran, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, activist women held conferences, and even public demonstrations.9 In the midst of violent atrocities, government oppression, rape and attempted ethnic cleansing, small groups of Muslim women found the courage to speak out and unite in ac7 Waltz, Susan Eileen, Universal Human Rights: The Contribution of Muslim States, Human Rights Quarterly 26: 4 (2004): 799-844. 8 Afary, Janet. The Human Rights of Middle Eastern and Muslim Women: A Project for the 21st Century, Human Rights Quarterly 26: 1 (2004): 106-125. 9 Ibid.
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tion, bringing new attention to the role of the women in Middle Eastern societies through cutting-edge academic research and old-fashioned, on-the-street activism. These efforts succeeded in bringing about a somewhat more liberal environment for women in the 21st century, but much work remains to be done in order to achieve full and equal rights for women in the Middle East.
Dual Dependencies
Another fundamental issue inhibiting the spread of human rights in the region is human rights dependency, which presents a real challenge to both regional human rights organizations and national human rights institutions. Noted Middle Eastern scholar Abd Allah Ahmad Naim first articulated the concept of human rights dependency as a stumbling block to the organic development of human rights organizations in the Middle East and Africa in his article Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective. Naim defined rights dependency as the reliance of regional and international human rights organizations on Western financial and political support, and maintained that Western influence (in the form of financial and political pressure) has hindered, rather than furthered, the goals of Middle Eastern human rights organizations.10 While Western involvement brings much-needed financial support to a range of NGOs and raises international awareness of rights issues, it can also rob organically developing non-governmental organizations of their legitimacy and political independence. Human rights dependency is an especially pernicious problem in the Middle East region because of the stigma that accompanies any public perception of Western meddling. The Middle Eastern public is fearful of any association between local organizations and the imagined colonialism of the Western agenda, and thus any hint of association with Western organizations can derail the mission and progress of human rights advocacy groups.11 Governments in the region are keen to exploit this situation and often target local NGOs for criticism, labeling these human rights organizations as agents of Western imperialist powers. Naim notes the ease with which governments in the region are able to impede the work of local NGOs by denying licenses of operations and manipulating the political climate to project these organizations in a very unfavorable light. Beyond the manipulation of public perception, governments have also been known to resort to harsher methods to silence critics. Lead-
10 Naim, Abd Allah Ahmad, Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective, Human Rights Quarterly, 23: 3 (2001): 701-732. 11 The propensity of Middle Eastern culture towards conspiratorial thinking may bear some blame for the pervasive fear of the Western agenda in the region, a fear that brings some Western-affiliated human rights organizations under great scrutiny and makes them easy targets for governmental criticism. Zonis and Joseph offer an interesting analysis of this paranoia complex in an article in the Journal of Political Psychology (Marvin, Craig, and Joseph Zonis. Conspiracy Thinking in the Middle East. Political Psychology. 15.3 (1994): 443-459).
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ing members of NGOs in the Middle East have been jailed, deported, or have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.12 Attacks on local NGOs are particularly troubling because human rights scholars (including Naim) assert that local non-governmental organizations are the best advocates for change in their respective countries, and can often achieve objectives that international and Western-leaning organizations cannot because of the depth of their knowledge and breadth of their local connections. If these local NGOs are compromised because of their actual or perceived dependence on Western organizations or governmental interference, rights promotion will further regress. Human rights dependency creates the public perception of Western interference in Middle Eastern issues, which can cripple the agendas of local non-governmental organizations because of false linkages between Western involvement and fears of new forms of imperialism. NHRIs in the region may represent an entirely different dependency problem. NHRIs were born out of what many have regarded as a regional effort to appease Western governments and international organizations like the UN instead of a desire to authentically promote human rights. In their landmark study on these institutions in the Middle East, Sonia Cardenas and Andrew Flibbert noted that, their existence is nonetheless paradoxical [as] the states creating them often are the principal violators of human rights in any given domestic context.13 This presents an enormous concern for NHRIs and calls into question their legitimacy. If local NGOs face legitimacy crises because of their dependency on Western organizations, national human rights institutions in the Middle East face a legitimacy crisis because of their dependence on the very governments that violate the rights they were created to defend. This may be enough to write off national human rights institutions as nothing more than ministries of propaganda, but Cardenas and Flibbert were nonetheless encouraged by their survey of NHRIs in the region. They concluded their report with the somewhat positive conclusion that, at a minimum, [national human rights institutions in the Middle East] can reconfigure national discourse and alter how state and society interact in defining the human rights agenda. Under the best of circumstances, they may contribute to the process of democratization and the protection of human rights in the region.14 This offers some measure of hope that NHRIs can succeed in advocating against their supporting governments, but the reality of Egypts National
12 Naim chronicles a shocking range of rights abuses directed at NGOs acros the Middle East (Naim, Abd Allah Ahmad, Human Rights in the Arab World: A Regional Perspective, Human Rights Quarterly, 23: 3 (2001): 701-732.). 13 Cardenas, Sonia and Flibbert, Andrew National Human Rights Institutions in the Middle East, The Middle East Journal, 59:3 (2005): 411-436. 14 Ibid.
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Council for Human Rights undermines the (albeit limited) confidence that Cardenas and Flibbert have placed in NHRIs though they may have been formed to cover the human rights abuses of oppressive regimes, national human rights institutions have impacted the region positively. In light of the available literature regarding human rights in the Middle East, a prototypical state for the study of human rights concerns can be identified. To be representative of the region, such a state would need to sit at the crossroads of Western influence and regional power, with a history of authoritarian rule founded on an expansive state security apparatus. Additionally, the state would need an established NHRI and an emerging network of local NGOs to ensure the availability of adequate reporting on rights issues. Egypt is an ideal state to provide a case study on the effectiveness of human rights advocacy in the region. It is a strong regional power, home to both the preeminent center for Islamic Studies (Al-Azhar University) and the Arab League. Egypt is nonetheless deeply tied to the West, as it is the fifth-largest recipient of foreign aid from the United States (after Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq).15 While Egypt is ostensibly a constitutional republic with regularly scheduled elections, the three-decade reign of president-turned-dictator Hosni Mubarak (who initially assumed the presidency after the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat) fostered widespread corruption and left the Egyptian constitutional system in a state of abject disrepair. For thirty years, the veneer of public support for Mubaraks rule was maintained with the assistance of Egypts state security apparatus, which employed nearly 500,000 people (more than 0.6 percent of the population of Egypt) across a range of agencies subject to the whim of the Mubarak Administration.16 After the January 25th revolution, the interim military governing council dismantled the Egyptian State Security Services.17 This is an extraordinary development for the human rights landscape in Egypt, as this agency was responsible for a great number of abuse and torture cases in recent years. The dismantling of this institution and the fall of the Mubarak regime has paved the way for a transition to democratic governance in Egypt, evidenced by the results of the countrys March 19 constitutional referendum in which 77 percent of voters endorsed amendments that would bring the country closer to a transparent and functioning democratic state. More than 40 percent of eligible voters participated in this referendum, a 30 percent increase from previous (deeply flawed) elections held
15 Sharp, Jeremy. U.S. Congressional Rearch Service. Egypt: Background and U.S. Relations. Washington, D.C.: CRS, 2009. Print. 16 Library of Congress. Egypt: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: LOC, 1990. Call Number DT46 .E32 1991. 17 Egyptian State Security Disbanded. Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera, 15 March 2011. Web. 16 Mar 2011. <http://english. aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/20113151885983516.html>.
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under Mubaraks rule. In the absence of interference from state security services and with a renewed spirit of optimism, Egyptian NGOs should now be emboldened to make great strides in human rights promotion in the New Egypt (a shorthand reference for postMubarak government). Further research and study on this subject is necessary as Egypt transitions from an authoritarian to a more democratic state. Egypts National Council for Human Rights may even find some degree of independence and could begin to partner with the most effective Egyptian NGOs, creating a new climate of cooperation and progress on human rights issues. Egypt has long been in need of a strong watchdog for human rights concerns, a need that has not been met by its NHRI. The human rights monitor Freedom House scored Egypt at a 5 and 6 on a 7 point scale (with 7 as least free) for political and civil liberties, and drew attention to several prominent cases of abuse against political activists. Freedom House disconcertingly relayed the fact that pre-revolutionary Egypt was, not an electoral democracy. The political system is designed to ensure solid majorities for the ruling NDP at all levels of government [with] corruption pervasive at all levels of government.18 Although Hosni Mubaraks government presented itself to the world as a democratic republic, the reality on the ground was very different. At every turn the government attempted to limit political freedoms and established a national system designed to secure Mubaraks grip on political power. Widespread corruption further eroded any semblance of trust in the Egyptian government, and those who voiced their dissatisfaction with the ruling power were harshly punished. Amnesty International noted the audacity of the security forces, reporting that torture and other ill-treatment were systematic in police stations, prisons and SSI [State Security] detention centres. Impunity continued for most perpetrators, exacerbated by police threatening victims with re-arrest or the arrest of relatives if they lodged complaints.19 Instead of providing protection for victims and investigating allegations of torture, the state security services prior to their dismantlement were some of the leading perpetrators of torture and other human rights abuses and their omnipresence rendered victims completely helpless. The abysmal abuses of the security services, combined with the threat of retaliation in the event of complaints, created an impossible situation for victims of abuses in Egypt. Due to the extent to which these abuses pervaded the security services, Hosni Mubaraks government was either complicit in rights abuses or was completely unable to prevent them. In the context of its complete
Egypts Past Climate of Repression
18 19
2010 Country Report: Egypt. Freedom House. 30 January 2010. Human Rights in the Arab Republic of Egypt: 2009 Annual Report. Amnesty International.
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inability to protect its own citizens, the establishment of an NHRI by the Egyptian government appeared to be a laughable undertaking in 2003. Proposed by the Executive branch and ratified by the Peoples Assembly (Egypts parliamentary body), the National Council for Human Rights was established with the passage of Law 94 in 2003 to further the protection, set the values, raise the awareness, and ensure the observance of human rights. Headed by Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Council attempts to fulfill its lofty mandate as an agency of an incredibly repressive regime with complicity in or limited control over rights abuses. Concluding the first paragraph of the founding legislation is the assertion that the Council shall independently perform its duties, activities and functions. This assertion demonstrates that the drafters of Law 94 understood the paradoxical mandate of the Council and sought to assuage the concerns of the Egyptian people and the international community with the sheer force of their words. Beyond the obvious question of political independence, the councils founding legislation undermines its financial independence. One requirement imposed in the founding legislation is the directive that the Councils finances be deposited in a bank that is under the control of the Central Bank of Egypt, a government agency with undoubtedly strong loyalties to the Mubarak regime.20 With no financial autonomy, the legitimacy of the council must be immediately questioned. Human rights work is not an inexpensive practice, and most organizations are beholden to their sponsors. Based on its financial foundation alone, it is unclear whether the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights can function as an independent observer of human rights violations committed by the Egyptian government, even with the relative freedom gained after the revolution. Beyond its legislative foundations, the Councils lack of activism in crucial areas has long betrayed its uselessness as a primary guardian of human rights in Egypt. The Councils major public communications are in the form of annual reports posted on the Councils website. This limits citizens access to information on the Councils work in a country where little more than 12 percent of the population has Internet access, with a 30 percent adult illiteracy rate.21 Historically, these reports have offered little new information on human rights abuses and have gone to great lengths to discount the abuses themselves. The Councils most recent annual report bravely identified the clear gap between the official policies on one hand and the aspirations of the society to operationalize the respect for human rights and citizenship on the other and correctly placed blame for
20 Establishment: Law 94. Egyptian National Council of Human Rights. National Council of Human Rights, 17 February 2010. 21 Egypt Country Report. The CIA World Factbook. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. 7 December 2010.
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this condition on the governments giving priority to security considerations as opposed to public freedoms, [and] giving priority to economic growth as opposed to social justice, but stopped short of criticizing the government for ignoring or perpetuating blatant human rights violations. The report continued with an examination of alleged incidents of torture among prisoners held by the security apparatus of the Ministry of the Interior, and even noted the international communitys position that torture is a systemic problem in Egyptian prisons, but it discounted many of the most prominent cases with a disclaimer that, not all the torture claims are factual and that they may be used to avoid accusations or pressure from the side of those who claim their exposure to torture and ill-treatment. The section on prison abuses concluded with a reaffirmation of the Councils belief that the Ministry of Interior with its technical capabilities and efficiency can enhance the respect for human rights without prejudice to the security assignments.22 The Councils suggestion that the ministry that had institutionalized torture could be capable of reversing its own policy was insulting to the victims of these abuses and their families. While the report was peppered with references to the Councils independence, its party-line stance on various human rights abuses (especially torture) reflected the degree to which the governments influence has long impeded the Councils activities. Since the revolution, the Councils publications have taken a sharply critical tone, with Egyptian state media reporting the Councils joint statement with the Arab Human Rights Organization, which blamed former President Mubarak for the shooting deaths of protesters across the country at the hands of security services during the eighteen-day revolution.23 With the dismantling of state security services and the relative freedom of speech and conduct allowed by the interim military governing council, the National Council for Human Rights has an incredible opportunity to advocate for the rights of the Egyptian people for the first time since its founding, without fear of reprisal by other government agencies like the Ministry of the Interior.24
Law 84 and Government Harassment of NGOs
If the National Council on Human Rights is unable to effectively advocate for human rights promotion due to political pressures, the responsibility for human rights advocacy falls back on non-governmental organizations. Some of the most effective human rights organizations in the Middle East (including the Arab Network for Human Rights Infor22 The Sixth Annual Report of the National Council on Human Rights: 2009-2010. The Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. 23 Fam,Mariam. Committee Blames Mubarak for Protesters Shooting, Ahram Says. Bloomberg 23 Mar 2011, http://www. bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/committee-blames-mubarak-for-protesters-shooting-ahram-says.html. 24 This is a subject that mandates further study, but investigations of the shift in the National Councils policy require more time and distance from the events of the revolution. As Egypt transitions out of autocracy, only time (and elections scheduled for June) will tell what form the new government will take.
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mation) were founded in Egypt but they toil amid continual harassment by the Egyptian government. The National Council for Human Rights is ostensibly committed to supporting local NGOs, and cites in its 2009 annual report its efforts to advocate on behalf of several NGOs that were subject to arbitrary measures of harassment by the Egyptian government. However, reports from Human Rights Watch and other international monitors indicate the extent to which the work of NGOs in Egypt have been compromised by government policy, most notably Law 84 (passed just prior to the establishment of the Council) which forces NGOs to undertake a complex and bureaucratic process in order to satisfy compulsory registration requirements set by the Ministry for Insurance and Social Affairs. Two years after the laws passage, Human Rights Watch contacted thirty NGOs to assess their experience under the new law and found that only seven had successfully navigated the registration process, with five additional groups trapped in lengthy legal proceedings against various government ministries. The report found the greatest barrier to the registration of NGOs to be the one factor with no basis in the law namely, the opinion of the State Security Investigations (SSI) bureau of the Ministry of Interior.25 The experience of local NGOs under Law 84 demonstrates yet again the pervasiveness of the state security apparatus and the impact of security policy in a nation that has been ruled under emergency law since 1981.
Egyptian NGOs: Progress Amid Setbacks
In spite of decades of harassment from security forces and a dazzling array of legal roadblocks, NGOs in Egypt have managed to carve out advances in the fight to promote human rights. Two organizations: the Arab Network for Human Rights Information and the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, have documented cases of rights abuses that were not reported by the National Council for Human Rights and are successfully raising awareness both within Egypt and internationally. The Arab Network for Human Rights Information has undertaken rights reporting in issues ignored by the government and, despite government pressure, has not backed down from its mission to disseminate accurate and timely information on rights abuses to a regional and international audience. In 2009-10, the organization brought the cases of imprisioned bloggers to the notice of the international community, generating enough attention to merit a commendation by Freedom House, which described ANHRI as a leading defender of freedom of expression in the Arab world.26 Prior to the revolution, ANHRI, unlike many prominent Egyptian human rights organizations, was willing to
25 Egypt: Measures of Repression. Human Rights Watch. 3 July 2005. Web. 26 McGuire, Mary. Some in Egyptian Government Call for Use of Violence Against Peaceful Protesters. Freedom House. Freedom House, 20 April 2010. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=1174>.
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voice criticism about the National Council for Human Rights and Mubaraks government. In press releases with titles including The Egyptian Human Rights Council: The Apple Falls Close to the Tree and The National Council for Human Rights, Democratic Reforms Delusions Spread, ANHRI courageously made public to the private thoughts of many involved in promotion of human rights in Egypt.27 While ANHRI drew the ire of members of Mubaraks NDP party, who decried the organization as motivators of instability and agents of Western powers,23 it nevertheless was able to generate a more liberal dialogue on the status of human rights in Egypt and the role of the National Human Rights Council itself. Another notable NGO is the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, a group devoted to human rights reporting. In their 2009 annual report, the EHRO independently verified one hundred and twenty five civilian deaths caused by torture during imprisonment or unlawful detention, while the National Council for Human Rights only identified four cases in its report for the same period.28 At the least, the EHROs reporting on torture deaths implied that Egypts NHRI covered up hundreds of cases involving the most severe human rights violations. Without the work of organizations like the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, no data would be available to compare against the official figures, and the international community, as well as the Egyptian public, would be misled into believing that progress was being made in the realm of human rights promotion in the twilight of Mubaraks rule.
Conclusion
While evidence has demonstrated that Egypts National Council for Human Rights was previously incapable of defending citizens against human rights abuses because of its position as an official agency of the Egyptian government, the Council may now begin to play a greater role in advancing the dialogue of human rights, even though the Egyptian government controls the National Councils funding and has used the Council to present the veneer of reform in a vain effort to cloak serious human rights abuses. During the trying decades of Hosni Mubaraks rule, local non-governmental organizations, like the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and the Arab Human Rights Information Net27 Qenawy, Ahmed. The Egyptian Human Rights Council: The Apple Falls Close to the Tree. Arab Network for Human Rights Information. 2004. Web. 15 Dec. 2010. http://www.anhri.net/en/discussion/2004/ehrc.shtml, and Ismaeel, Abdel Mawla. The National Council for Human Rights.. Democratic Reform Delusions Spreading. Arab Network for Human Rights Information. 2004. Web. 15 Dec. 2010. <http://www.anhri.net/en/discussion/2004/nchr.shtml>. 28 The number of verified cases of death from torture reported in the EHROs 2009 annual report was compared against the number of named cases of death from torture in the National Council for Human Rights Sixth Annual Report. EHROs report is The Situation of Human Rights in Egypt 2009. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. 14 July 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. <http://en.eohr.org/2010/07/14/the-situation-of-human-rights-in-egypt-2009-introduction-summary-andrecommendations/#more-246>.
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work, filled in the gap between the reality on the ground and the misrepresented truths pandered by Egypts NHRI by ensuring accurate reporting and giving voice to the victims of human rights abuses. Even though government pressure on these local organizations was intense, they still managed to advance the cause of human rights in Egypt by generating awareness and drawing international attention to discrepancies between the governments rhetoric and reality. In the wake of Mubaraks departure, the National Council for Human Rights has partnered with local NGOs like the Arab Organization for Human Rights, and if the council continues to build partnerships and strengthen human rights advocacy it could cement the revolutions place in history as a turning point not only in terms of the transition from autocracy to democracy, but in the transition from a legacy of governments abuse of rights to a future of human rights promotion. Incremental reforms during years of autocracy were made possible because of the courage of Egyptian and Arab NGOs to continue their work in the face of government opposition. Unlike Egypts National Council for Human Rights, which served as nothing more than a showpiece for government propaganda during the Mubarak years, NGOs have been the true agents of change in Egypt and in the region. Their work should be supported and encouraged by international human rights organizations and National Human Rights Institutions seeking to generate a more positive rights record in the Middle East. As demonstrated by the case study of Egypt, revolutionary progress in the area of human rights promotion in the Middle East may not be possible until the overthrow of state security apparatus and repressive regimes, but quiet and constant progress can be made by local NGOs working in the face of government repression.
Historical Policy Papers
Risk and Responsibility: Options on Somalia

Rosaleen OSullivan
Background
In 1991 revolution broke out in the country of Somalia, a relatively small state on the Horn of Africa. Somalian dictator Mohammed Siad Barre fled the country and four rival factions began fighting for control. In June of 1991 a ceasefire was declared but failed to hold, and in September severe fighting broke out in the capital city, Mogadishu. The fighting spread throughout the country with over 20,000 dead by the end of the year. The civil war led to massive dislocation and the destruction of the nations agriculture. This in turn led to mass starvation in parts of the country. The United Nations (UN) led a movement to send food supplies into the country, however the vast majority of these supplies were stolen, sent to clan leaders, and sold for weapons. Over a million people suffered and hundreds of thousands died in the following year, sparking an outcry by the international community. Now, in August 1992, there is a call within the United States to take a leadership role in ending the starvation and suffering resulting from this civil war.
Statement of the Problem Goals and Objectives

Short-term objectives:

Should the United States create a military presence in the foreign state of Somalia for a purely humanitarian cause?
To stop massive death in Somalia. To stop mass starvation in Somalia. To placate domestic constituencies. To increase the effectiveness of existing UN multilateral relief. To prevent Somalia from becoming a failed state. To avoid taking responsibility for the crisis in Somalia. To avoid military conflict over a humanitarian issue. To avoid entering into a long-term, nation-building enterprise.
Long-term objectives
Rosaleen OSullivan is a Senior majoring in International Relations and English
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Options
Option A. Unilateral Military Entry
This alternative would involve the United States taking a leadership role by unilaterally entering Somalia and using military troops to provide aid to remote regions of the country that are not receiving aid from the UN. Once the troops have entered, they would have to remain there and continue providing support for an indefinite period until stable governance and agriculture is restored. The benefit of a U.S. operation would be immediate results for the people of Somalia who are in dire need of aid. The U.S. would gain credibility at home and abroad as a moral leader for becoming involved in a humanitarian cause where there are no domestic political issues at stake. The U.S. would also be given credit for ending the Somalian conflict if peace is established as a result of U.S. efforts in nation-building and creating stability. The main cost of unilateral entry would be fiscal. The United States would have to commit to transporting and providing aid to millions of people overseas for an unknown ength of time. The cost of moving and supporting U.S. military troops in Somalia would also be substantial, particularly if the intervention turns out to be a long term commitment. Finally, the United States would have to justify these expenses to constituencies who do not support intervention, which could have domestic political costs. There are several major risks to a unilateral entry in Somalia. The first is the potential to become engaged in a military conflict that would cost American lives. If even one American soldier was killed, this would have a huge domestic political cost and would be very difficult to justify since the government has no political reasons to be in Somalia. Another major risk is that by intervening, America is making itself responsible for Somalian peace and security. Thus, if the state fails, or if its people continue to starve, America could be held responsible. Finally, if the war drags on America may be forced to stay longer than is politically justifiable, or else be heavily criticized for leaving when the country still needs aid.
Option B. Multilateral Entry through NATO

This option would involve calling upon Americas international allies in NATO to take a united stance on this humanitarian issue. The U.S. would still be using its military troops to facilitate a humanitarian intervention but it would be coordinated through a multilateral effort. There are several main benefits to this strategy. First, it would allow America to spread the financial costs, both human and fiscal, across a number of different nations. The U.S. would also gain legitimacy in its actions by organizing with its allies instead of just acting unilaterally. Joint action would play an important role in strengthening Americas NATO ties, which is key as many have been questioning the usefulness of the Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1
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organization since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Because America has such close ties to its NATO allies, the U.S. would be able to give immediate aid, whereas if the U.S. were to call on a coalition of the willing it could take far longer to organize and implement an intervention. Multilateral intervention would allow America to appease domestic constituencies who demand action while also minimizing the risk of taking full responsibility if things go wrong. There would still be substantial financial costs, especially if the U.S. was forced to remain in Somalia for an extended period of time. By acting with NATO the U.S. would not be given full credit for acting as moral leaders, and America would have to share the credit if the country reestablished peace and saved lives. Finally, the U.S. would have to deal with leaders from other nations who may have different goals and strategies, whereas if America intervened unilaterally the nation could make all the decisions by itself. The main risk is the possibility of losing American lives to an essentially unnecessary foreign conflict. By working with NATO, the U.S. would still run the risk of becoming entrenched in a long term intervention. Also, other nations that are members of the UN may resent NATO taking action without asking them to join. If the U.S. called on its NATO allies and received a negative response, the reaction could actually damage the organization rather than creating stronger ties. Finally, if the operation was in any way compromised and the United States decided to withdraw, it would have to act in accordance with NATO or else face the embarrassing situation of a multilateral entry and a unilateral withdrawal.
Option C. No Action
In this alternative, the United States would simply continue supporting the United Nations efforts in Somalia. Calls for entry into Somalia would be ignored, and the government would focus on other issues. The main benefit of this strategy is that there would be no financial or human costs. Because the Somalian crisis does not directly affect Americans, the government could easily justify its decision not to enter on the basis that it is not worth risking American lives. Domestic constituencies who argue against nation-building and intervention would be appeased. The main cost is that the current government would face the moral dilemma of having the means to give aid, yet choosing not to give any of that aid and thus allowing millions of people die as a result. There would also be some domestic backlash from the large
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number of people demanding that the U.S. take action. Choosing not to take action could also be damaging to America in its role as moral leaders. The only real risk is that domestic constituencies might decide that this is a key issue in the upcoming elections. In that case non-action could be far more damaging than anticipated.
Recommendation
The best alternative for the United States is Option B, multilateral entry through NATO. This would serve the immediate goals of stopping mass death and starvation in Somalia and placating domestic constituencies. It will also serve Americas long term goals of preventing Somalia from becoming a failed state and avoiding full responsibility for the outcome of the Somalian crisis. Option B is superior to Option A because it minimizes the total costs and total risks involved. The U.S. would not bear the burden of the full financial and human costs, nor would it run the risk of being solely responsible if the operation fails. Option B would also serve to enhance an important alliance rather than alienating Americas allies, as an unilateral entry could do. Multilateral entry is superior to Option C because if America does not act, the nation would be knowingly allowing the greatest humanitarian crisis of the century to occur. The U.S. would also be undermining its position as moral leaders in the international community. Finally, the U.S. would be remembered throughout history as a superpower that had the ability to act and save millions of lives, but chose not to.
Bibliography
Ken Rutherford, Humanitarianism Under Fire: The US and UN Intervention in Somalia. Kumarian Press, July 2008 The Telegraph. Somalia: Analysis of a failed state David Blair, November 2008. John Donnelly Fage and Ronald Anthony Oliver. Journal of African History. BBC. Somalia Country Profile. BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_ profiles/1072592.stm (accessed November 2010).
North Korean Bombing of Yeonpyong Island

Won Lee
Background
On June 25, 1950, Kim Il-sung led the North Korean army across the 38th parallel to invade South Korea. Three years later, a cease-fire armistice was signed that brought the war to a temporary halt. Nevertheless, the tension in the Korean peninsula did not end and for the past five decades, North Korea has repeatedly provoked its Southern counterpart, leaving a significant number of South Korean casualties each time. North Korea is struggling as one of the most closed off states in the world. Due to the worsening state of Kim Jong-ils health, he rushed the succession of the presidency to his third son, Kim Jong-eun, making him a five-star general overnight as well as including him in every major government commission. This has caused discontent in the top ranks of the North Korean government and among its citizens. Additionally, aside from antagonizing the international community with its nuclear program, North Korea has used their series of provocations as leverage in both domestic and international politics. Many experts suspect that the North is trying to draw attention to themselves to gain advantage in negotiations. South Korea and its allies in the UN have imposed various sanctions in response, but these sanctions have been largely ineffective due to Chinese support for North Korea. Nonetheless, on November 23, 2010, North Korean coastal artilleries bombarded the island of Yeopyong resulting in twenty-three casualties including civilians. In response, South Korea fired back eighty rounds of ammunition and raised its alert to the highest level. Soon thereafter, the tension in the Korean Peninsula reached critical level, with over 13 million soldiers at gunpoint. North and South Korea vowed military action if either side made further provocations. And although the international community, including China and Russia, condemned the bombing, it was hard to predict what North Korea would do next.
Statement of the Problem Goals and Objectives

Short-Term Objectives:
What is the best response the US should take to the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong Island?
Won Lee is a Junior majoring in International Relations
North Korean Bombing of Yeonpyong Island To prevent an all-out war. To ensure the safety of U.S. troops in South Korea. To maintain a good relationship with China. To not appear weak and appeasing in the eyes of the international community. To maintain South Korea as a strong ally in the East Asian region. To sign a peace treaty officially ending the Korean War. To denuclearize North Korea. To bring an end to Kim Jong-ils regime.
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Long-Term Objectives:
Options
Option A: Military confrontation

The United States and South Korea militaries would cooperate in order to retaliate against the North Korean aggression. The defensive would include a massive first-strike as well as paramilitary covert operations to destroy North Korean infrastructures before launching a full-scale assault. This alternative would be the most straightforward response to the continuing North Korean provocations against the South; it would forcibly remove Kims regime and restore peace in the Korean peninsula with the highest probability of success in the shortest amount of time. There would, however, be significant casualties on both sides as well as economic distress resulting from the destruction of infrastructures. There would also be the chance that China and/or Russia may support North Korea and join the war, but it would be less likely than before the Yeopyong bombing.
Option B: Diplomatic pressure from China and Russia

The United States and South Korean government would try to convince China and Russia to cease their support for North Korea and request that the United Nations Security Council impose further sanctions on North Korea. Without support from China and Russia, North Koreas unstable economy would cause the government to collapse. This option would be the most unpredictable one. It would result in the lowest number of casualties, but have a low likelihood of success for two primary reasons. Firstly, although China and Russias support of North Korea has lost much of its force over the years, they may continue their support for strategic political reasons against the United States. Secondly, there are already a numerous sanctions against North Korea from the United Nations, but they have not yielded much success.
Option C: Pulling out of U.S. forces from Korea

This appeasement would be aimed at further undermining North Korean legitimacy. North had been claiming that their aggression and nuclear program are because of the Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1
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Won Lee
United States military presence in South Korea. Therefore, the United States would return strategic control of military operations to South Korea and pull out all of its troops from various garrisons within the Asian state. This alternative would be a gamble. It would expose South Korea to significant risk at another invasion from the North, but once North Korea loses its legitimacy, future negotiations and diplomacy will be easier with members of the Six-Party Talks. It is the safest option; however, the probability of success would be unclear and the process may take a very long time. Furthermore, the United States would lose favor and appear weak to South Korea and Japan as well as other countries in the international community.
Recommendation
Option B would provide the quickest and most effective means to achieve the near term goals of preventing all-out war, ensuring the safety of U.S. troops in Korea, and maintaining good relationship with China. It also would serve to best meet the demands for long term U.S. objectives of bringing an end to Kim Jong-ils regime, maintaining South Korea as strong ally in the East Asian region, and finally ending the Korean War. Although Option B may enhance the risk of further North Korean provocations, it would have a lower chance of causing a full-scale war in comparison to Option A. Compared to Option C, Option B would be consistent to the goal of ending Kims regime and helping the U.S. to not appear weak and lose support from South Korea. Option A and Option C also would carry the risk of further lengthening the conflict, while Option B would have a significant chance of success in the shorter amount of time. Option A, although it would be consistent with the goals of not appearing weak, maintaining South Korean alliance, ending the Korean War, and bringing an end to Kims regime, would not compare in its likely effectiveness with Option B because it would potentially be very dangerous. Whether North Korea would have the second-strike capability or not is questionable, and even the smallest chance of nuclear attack on Seoul would be completely unacceptable. Also, if there were to be an all-out war in East Asia, the international economy would be negatively affected since China, the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and other members of the G20 would be involved in the massive war. Military confrontation would also endanger American lives and may destroy any good relationship with China as well as significantly weakening South Korea. Option C would possibly meet the demands for U.S. objectives of preventing all-out war, ensuring the safety of U.S. troops in Korea, not angering China, and signing a peace treaty, but it would also not compare in its likely effectiveness with Option B because it would be inconsistent with the U.S. goals of not appearing weak, denuclearizing North
North Korean Bombing of Yeonpyong Island
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Korea, bringing an end to Kims regime, and maintaining South Korea as a strong ally in the East Asian region. On the other hand, Option C could also supplement Option B in meeting the near and long terms goals by strengthening U.S. position in negotiations with China and Russia since both nations do not support U.S. presence in South Korea. Option C would additionally work to restore U.S. leverage against China and Russia thereby strengthening the effectiveness of Option B. Hence, compared to other alternatives, Option B with possible supplement of Option C would be the best approach in responding to North Koreas bombing of Yeonpyong Island and continued aggression. And by not taking unilateral and hardliner approach, U.S. would potentially promote international cooperation, reunify Korea, and rebuild that newly unified Korea into an even greater ally.
Bibliography
Korea Herald. World leaders united in condemning N. Korea. http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20101124000857 Van Dyke, Jon M., Mark J. Valencia and Jenny Miller Garmendia.The North/South Korea Boundary Dispute in the Yellow (West) Sea,Marine Policy27 (2003), 143-158. Xiuhuanet. China expresses concern over alleged exchange of fire between DPRK, ROK. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-11/23/c_13618711.htm

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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

USCS UNDERGRADUATE JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

VOL. 1 ISSUE 1 SPRING 2011

Southern California International Review

Cover Design: Samir Kumar Layout: Philip Meyer

Southern California International Review

A letter from the editor:

Historical Policy Papers

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Zara Lukens is a Senior majoring in International Relations and Neuroscience

Report of Findings on Water System Effectiveness

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Case Study: Uruguay

Presence of a Strong Central Water Policy Framework

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

History of Failed Privatization Schemes

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Civil Society Institutions

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Case Study: Argentina

Presence of a Strong Central Water Policy Framework

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

History of Failed Privatization Schemes

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Civil Society Institutions

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Water System Effectiveness in Uruguay and Argentina

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Ideas behind R2P

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

State Motivations for R2P

Ibid., XI. Bellamy and Wheeler, 526. Ibid.

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

The Creation of the Norm

Finding a Middle Ground on Intervention

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Explanation of the Responsibility to Protect

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

The Responsibility to Prevent

The Responsibility to React

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1

Southern California International Review - Vol. 1 No. 1