So I'm David Ignatius, a columnist for the
Washington Post.
I want to thank Sara Bloomfield for that wonderful
introduction.
Just to repeat we have an opportunity this
morning to hear about the fruits of a year
spent studying the question of how the Responsibility
to Protect can become more meaningful and
powerful in the world.
It was sponsored by three wonderful organizations.
I want to repeat them because the work they
do is so important: the US Institute of Peace,
the Brookings Institution, and the Holocaust
Museum.
I want to turn to the two co-chairs of the
working group who guided this study, former
secretary of state Madeleine Albright and
ambassador Rich Williamson who was America's
special envoy to the Sudan during the Presidency
of George W. Bush that has a distinguished
record beyond that and ask each of them starting
with Ambassador Williamson to give this audience
a sense of what after a year of study they
have concluded about how to make this R2P
not just a doctrine but a reality and a basis
for action in the world.
So Ambassador Williamson, please start.
Thank you, David.
First I want to thank those of you who were
interested in coming here today.
I want to thank the three institutions, especially
the Holocaust Museum and Michael Abramowitz
for being so helpful.
I especially want to thank my friend and colleague
Madeleine Albright who has been a terrific
collaborator on this and other things.
I just want to take a slight step back.
The United States like other countries first
should be driven by a desire for their own
national security.
That should be the dominant claimant, then
other vital interests many of them economic.
But what has made the United States different
was not only that it was founded on a belief
in human rights, but in the last 100 years
we have allowed it to animate our foreign
policy.
And America is best when it allows that to
happen.
And our interests are served and the world
is more secure.
When I was up in New York as ambassador for
special political affairs I dealt with peacekeeping
and became familiar with what was going on
in the Eastern Congo and in Sudan.
And I was continually shocked about the capacity
of man's inhumanity to man.
Then when I was special envoy to Sudan I spent
time in Darfur and Chad and South Sudan visiting
every time with refugees who had gone through
horrific experiences.
I came to believe that what President Clinton
and Secretary Albright did in responding to
the crisis and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia
and Kosovo was important not only for that
region, for Europe, but for United States
and the world.
When President Bush joined the consensus for
the Responsibility to Protect in 2005, the
United States agreed to this concept and I
felt it was valuable to try to help strengthen
it, which is why I sought out Madeleine to
join me in this effort.
The Responsibility to Protect isn't the answer
but hopefully it can contribute by being an
emerging norm that gains greater acceptances
by governments to make it easier for the decision
makers to do something early when these crises
break out.
Anyone who has had the privilege and honor
of being in the Situation Room with the President
wrestling with these sorts of decisions know
they are always tough.
They are case-by-case.
You can't do everything but just because you
can't do everything doesn't mean you shouldn't
do some things.
And the Responsibility to Protect and the
implementation of a Genocide Prevention Task
Force that Madeleine chaired with Secretary
Cohen tried to lay out steps that can be taken
to make it easier to give early notice to
make a difference.
So I think that's why we both believe in R2P
- all three pillars - trying to get the United
States to have the political will to help
lead with others to stop atrocity crimes before
they become too horrific and the death despair
and agony becomes too great.
Secretary Albright?
Sara mentioned that it's about to be 100 years
since the beginning of World War I.
And she quoted Woodrow Wilson.
I am a person that was born in Czechoslovakia,
a country that came into existence because
of Woodrow Wilson and the Fourteen Points
and the real ideas of self-determination and
that people should live in their own sovereign
countries.
I left Czechoslovakia during World War II
and came to the United States when the communists
took over and I wrote a book about what really
happened in terms of the beginnings of World
War II and what were the warning signs?
And one could say, nobody sitting in this
room however would say it, is that we didn't
know what was happening during the Holocaust.
We now know everything that's going on everywhere
as a result of information technology and
our capability of being more knowledgeable
about the internal affairs of other countries.
And while what happened with Czechoslovakia
from a war-weary England and France led Neville
Chamberlain to say "Why should we care about
people in faraway places with unpronounceable
names?"
And that is something that I think echoes
in our own approach as we look at the various
issues that are out there in the world, trying
to figure out when we do know what is going
on somewhere whether we should care about
people in faraway places with unpronounceable
names, and what is the responsibility of the
international community - having kept in mind
very much what Rich said about what our national
security issues are.
Is there a way that the international community
that was not able to prevent World War I and
World War II whether there's something that
can be done now to protect those and prevent
the kinds of things that lead to examples
of never again?
So this is a very practical approach.
We do understand that it's a difficult concept
and we are going to talk about that.
And one of the reasons that we wrote the report
and we're so pleased that everybody is here
- I'm really blown away by the number of people
that are here - because we think that it is
not a fully understood concept that needs
to be seen as part of an international norm
that is in the process of evolving and having
all of you understand it, and question it
and question us, will we hope lead to the
evolution and understanding of the concept.
And David, thank you very, very much for being
here with us.
You and I talked about this and I'm very pleased
that you -respected is an understatement when
one talks about what you are able to do in
your writings.
Thank you very much.
I'd like to just stay with the report for
a minute so that we give the audience a little
flavor of what's new in it, and I want to
ask you about two particular aspects that
your working group ended up recommending as
a way to make these three pillars on which
R2P is based.
If you don't know the literature the three
pillars are: first, every state has a duty
to protect its people from genocide, ethnic
cleansing; second, the international community
has a responsibility to assist states in doing
this; and third, in the absence of the first
two, countries have to be ready to take action
under the charter and this report says we
need to implement those three pillars more
aggressively but there are two things that
caught my eye in your report and I want to
ask you about them.
Maybe each of you could comment on one.
One is greater use of the International Criminal
Court, the international organization of legal
action that can move early against specific
people so that you don't get to the stage
where wholesale military intervention is required.
And second, the use of technology, the use
of these modern technologies that Secretary
Albright mentioned to give early warning of
disasters that are taking place that might
not be understood and make those visible to
you and maybe each of you could briefly talk
about those two innovative ideas.
Ambassador Williamson, maybe you could start
with the ICC.
Sure.
And Secretary Albright, maybe you could talk
a minute about the monitoring.
To me the issue on the ICC is the issue of
accountability.
I think it's very important and it's something
in the last seventy years the United States
has taken some leadership in.
The United States took the lead in forming
the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials after they
effectively held some of the worst criminals
to account for those atrocities.
There was a presumption that this would continue.
It got lost.
For example, after the Cambodian Killing Fields
no one discussed the need for that.
But then as the 20th century, the most brutal,
the most victims in mankind's history - the
pace picked up in the 1990s with Rwanda, Bosnia,
Kosovo.
The United States took the lead in helping
form the ICTY, ICTR.
Also with the Sierra Leone Special Court and
others, the ICC is another manifestation.
The last three administrations two democrat,
one republican, no one sent the ICC up for
ratification.
There are problems with it.
But as our report says it also is a vehicle
that sometimes can be very useful to try to
get accountability.
The US allowed the referral of Darfur to go
to the ICC, contributed intelligence to strengthen
the case.
Later when the African Union was making an
effort for a so-called Article 16 to stop
that, the US went out, with President Bush's
authority, to say we will veto that and that
faded away.
So I think trying to continue to develop the
principle of accountability is important because
in the end most of these conflicts are not
spontaneous combustion.
They are the result of powerful people, either
trying to stay in power or get to power and
willing to open the gates of hell to do that.
Will accountability change it?
Maybe some cases.
It will make it a more expensive decision.
And that's good, just like the R2P concept
is not an answer but hopefully is a step forward
to ending these types of terrible situations.
Secretary Albright, do you want to talk a
little bit about monitoring?
Well first of all let me just say on the accountability,
it's a very essential point but the other
is frankly that we've talked about is that
the War Crimes Tribunals as well as the ICC
is a way to have individual guilt assigned
and collective guilt expunged, which then
makes it possible for people to deal with
teach other.
So there are various parts of it and I think
that while it's not perfect and there are
a number of different ways that people are
looking at whether it's an inducement for
people to behave well or actually a way for
them not to because they don't- there's no
immunity and so anything that is new has its
issues as it gets worked out, but I'm very
glad that there has been an evolution kind
of in this whole concept of international
norms on it.
The monitoring is interesting because what
is, first of all, none of this can work without
the cooperation of nongovernmental organizations
that are on the ground that can really help
to provide information very quickly about
what is going on.
What we do now have the technology is a two-edged
sword in many ways in terms of our new societies.
In this particular venue, I think it is a
very positive one because with people first
of all are able to transmit information very
quickly through mobile phones which there
are many more than landlines in the developing
world.
And also with photographs that they can take.
All the various video equipment that even
the simplest places have and the monitoring
makes a big difference because then it isn't
just kind of hearsay but allows people to
know what is going on.
It does create a need to act, however.
That may be I think from the perspective of
this report is positive, but there are those
in some places who would prefer not to know.
But I do think that it, there has been an
entirely new way of knowing what is going
on.
Should readers of your report begin thinking
about a world where we have blue surveillance
drones over key crisis areas monitoring the
possibility of terrible mass atrocities and
getting word to people who can act?
We actually do, over Mali, that's what's going
on and I happen to think that, if they are
used for surveillance, I think is a very important
part of this.
And I do think the more we know the more equipped
we are.
We still come down to the question of then
what?
But I do think also if people begin to recognize
that they are being watched, I think that
that in itself may be also a help in preventing.
Yeah and we've seen George Clooney and John
Prendergast's effort with satellites to keep
the Sudan border region viewed and it's very
helpful I think especially, just to refer
to Sudan, when you've got government sometimes
both in Juba and Khartoum that won't let international
NGOs go there or the U.N. so you don't have
on-the-ground observers.
So yeah, it's an additional tool to be used.
I want to turn to the really difficult question
that R2P discussions raise and that is whether
and how to act in difficult situations.
We might do that by just looking at developments
since 2005 when the R2P concept was endorsed
at a U.N.
World Summit and since then we've had atrocities
in Darfur, in Sri Lanka, in Libya, which we'll
talk about more in a minute, and most notably
recently in Syria.
And these have all been difficult problems
for the international community to respond
to in a decisive way that would stop the atrocities.
They are tests of R2P but you'd have to say
that they haven't been successful so far so
let me ask you to address those tough questions
that we're facing in our real world and offer
some thoughts about them.
Secretary Albright?
You want to begin?
Well I think what is important is to go back
to as you described the three pillars because
I think that people automatically think that
we're going to militarily intervene somewhere.
The military intervention part is the last
step not the first steps.
And I think that the areas that have been
the most difficult are the ones where not
enough attention has been paid early on.
Nobody can speak about Darfur better than
Rich Williamson and I think that is partially
a lack of recognition of various elements
on the ground including desertification, movement
of a lot of refugees, so I think that we have
not seen the early signs.
Sri Lanka has been a very long, ongoing, complicated
issue where we haven't been able to get any
purchase over either side, frankly, whether
it's the Tamils or whether it's the government
are trying to figure out how to get at it.
Where we have been successful and I think
it's interesting in terms of Kenya where in
the set of elections that took place in 2008
led to a lot of violence and then we were
able to figure out how to get some international
action in there to try to not only diffuse
the violence but also set up a procedure which
allowed the next elections to-- and had an
international negotiator, Kofi Annan went
in in order to do a lot of diplomatic work
and then worked in order to not have this
happen again.
The same as in Cote d'Ivoire where in fact
the person that was elected couldn't take
office.
The guy that was the incumbent didn't want
to leave.
Again there was international attention to
these areas ahead of time and did not require
an on-the-ground intervention.
And so one of the things that we wanted to
point to as success stories are those where
the first two pillars are used or looked at
and the ones that are failures is where you
haven't been able to get in early enough or
haven't seen the signs early enough.
Which leads to this issue of the Atrocities
Prevention Board that does in fact set up
a system within our government where some
early warning systems then yet transmitted
through our government and then into the international
community.
Ambassador?
Thank you, I just reinforce some of what Secretary
Albright said.
I think one of the difficulties with people
looking at the Responsibility to Protect is
the assumption that you will have robust action
right away.
And as we try to emphasize, just like the
US, if you use Secretary Albright's words,
has a large foreign policy toolbox.
There is a large toolbox of what can be done
to respond to these types of crisis.
And the earlier intervention is both the cheapest
and least kinetic.
And Kofi's role in brokering the post-election
with Odinga and others was a good example
of it, Cote d'Ivoire a good example of it.
I think Libya has a whole bunch of lessons
to be teased out but as you know there continues
to be a genocide in slow motion in Sudan.
There are terrible atrocities in Syria and
I'd rather say that just emphasizes why those
of us who believe that it's both in our security
interest and consistent with our values to
stop these spreading atrocities need things
like the Atrocity Prevention Board, need things
like the commitment of Congress, need things
like organizing the bureaucracy of the US
government better to respond, and working
most importantly with international partners
to help us.
The real lesson there is just we have to do
better and it's going to take a while but
progress has been made I believe.
I just want to push a little bit harder on
the question of Syria because that's taking
place before the world's eyes right now.
We have what appear to be documented allegations
of the use of chemical weapons against civilian
populations.
We have allegations by the government of atrocities
committed by the rebels and we have a situation
in which the violence, loss of life, potential
dissolution of the country move forward every
day and despite the heroic efforts by Kofi
Annan and his successor Lakhdar Brahimi as
the international communities representatives
we have no apparent movement toward any diplomatic
resolution.
And I just would say how should the R2P community
view this?
Not simply the terrible bloodshed but the
political difficulty of dealing with it?
Well I do think it is obviously the most difficult
situation that is out there at the moment
and decision makers are in fact wrestling
with some solution.
I have to say I'm trying in my own mind to
figure out how we got there.
And I do think that a lot of it has to do
with what happened in the Arab world generally.
And if I might say last winter I was in a
meeting.
I was having a public discussion with an Arab
and I said, "It's the winter so we can't talk
about the Arab Spring.
We can call it the Awakening."
And he got furious at me and he said "That
is such an insult.
The Arabs haven't been asleep all this time."
And I said "So what would you call it?"
And he said "Arab troubles."
And I said "What about Arab opportunity?"
So just kind of those four phrases indicate
the different thinking about it.
And I don't--I'm not trying to obfuscate here
but I think basically for whatever reasons
we didn't fully understand what was happening
across the Arab world.
That did come as a surprise.
I think that needs to be looked at with some
clarity and a real objective approach to it.
But I believe that what happened in Syria
is a part of that.
Having met both Hafez Assad the father who
was nicknamed the Lion but was more like a
mule and his son, Bashar Assad, for whom when
I met him I always thought that one and one
made two but two and two never made four,
so kind of trying out figure out what they
were doing.
And so there was that issue and then I think,
frankly, people's minds were somewhere else
and were not if I might say so - it's very
hard as a former decision maker to criticize
those in office - but basically whether not
enough attention was paid.
I think that part of the issue here and this
is the difficulty of R2P is to analyze whom
you're going to help.
Who are the people?
And part of it has to do with the pillars
again because it is the responsibility of
a leader of his country, it's usually his,
to in fact protect the people in that country.
That is the responsibility.
To care about the people, the territory and
the way of life, so the opposite was happening
is happening in Syria.
So then I do think the international community,
and not the United States but the international
community, as a whole has really failed in
trying to find the right tools to deal with
it.
And the US is not the only member of the international
community.
And that leads to one of the major issues
with R2P that I think we have to recognize
and that is that it requires the approval
of the Security Council.
And having been there and done that on Kosovo,
where it was clear that in the Security Council
that the Russians were going to veto that,
we took it out of that cul-de-sac and put
it with NATO.
And so I do believe that R2P is a very, very
good international community approach, but
personally I never believe we should get stuck
in a cul-de-sac.
Well said.
Ambassador?
Thank you.
These are really tough decisions made more
difficult by the fatigue of the American public
as a result of overreach from the Bush administration
and the poor events in post-conflict in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
I would have wished we had been more leaning
in on Syria.
But if I could I think one of the lessons
of Syria is when you don't act, the cost.
There has been a bleed with 600,000 Syrian
refugees in Jordan, a critical ally, where
the king was already suffering with other
issues because of the Arab Spring.
There has been a bleed with refugees into
Turkey and two instances where there actually
were missiles filed into our NATO ally, where
we have certain treaty commitments if it gets
out of hand.
Lebanon has been affected; Hezbollah's involved,
Israel is threatened.
It's become a proxy war for a rising Shi'a
Tehran against the Sunni states, the Gulf
States that are friends and allies.
And the casualties have gone up.
President Obama here at the Holocaust Museum
in April discussed how genocide and ethnic
cleansing are a national security threat.
I think we're seeing that today.
Hopefully it will inform smarter people to
think through this and also as they weigh
difficult decisions keep that in mind because
the costs in Syria are tragic for the over
100,000 people who have died and even more
who have been wounded.
It's a tragedy that's going to be ongoing
for a long time and probably a functioning
failed state for a while.
But it's a tragedy because of US interests
that have been compromised and challenged
and may yet force us to take action that will
be more expensive than if we'd begun a long
time ago.
Could I just add I think that the points that
Rich made about being tired and I refer back
to my opening statement?
The British and French were exhausted from
World War I and they had lost a whole generation
of young people.
Their budget was a mess.
Their military infrastructure was questioned,
and Neville Chamberlain decided that in fact
he would do anything for peace.
And they made a deal over the heads of the
Czechoslovaks with the Germans and Italians
and that country was sold down the river.
And I think that we need to recognize, and
Rich said it, is we are tired from the War
in Iraq and the War in Afghanistan.
And people feel that we have not paid enough
attention to things in this country which
I happen to believe.
And the question then is how do we have a
national discussion about this?
Are we in fact in danger of what I've called
the inkblot spread of Syria and its longer
term effect on our strategic interest.
Or do we in fact legitimately spend a lot
of time thinking about what is going on in
this country?
And so I return on the following thing which
is, President Clinton said it first and I
said it so often it became identified with
me - "We are the indispensable nation," which
we said at a time that Americans were also
tired from the Gulf War and too many years
of not paying attention to the United States.
There is nothing, nothing in the definition
of indispensable that says alone.
It just means the United States needs to be
engaged, and I think and I deliberately said
the international community has failed on
this.
It is the United States needs to be a part
of this but we do not have to respond to this
all alone and R2P is not just America in there.
And therefore we need to do more in terms
of recognizing what the problems are and that
it's an international responsibility, and
that is where I think we need more action
and we need to have a discussion in the United
States about what our national interests really
are.
There is a big takeaway in what you both just
said that war weariness does not absolve a
country's moral responsibility to act.
I want to turn to a question that I think
is rarely raised in discussions of R2P but
is one that has interested me for some years
and I'm going to characterize it as the moral
hazard problem that goes along with an international
commitment that there's a Responsibility to
Protect.
And by that what I mean is there is something
that I sometimes call the power of the weak.
By that I mean the ability to start conflicts
that you can't finish - hoping, believing
that the international committee will come
to your rescue when you are at death's door.
We have seen bits of this in many countries
as you know and I want to ask you how you
think sensible people involved in the R2P
debate should deal with this question to make
sure that this international commitment isn't
taken by people to do things that if they
had to be entirely responsible for themselves
and their communities they might not undertake.
Ambassador Williamson?
Well, especially as you know there has been
a great deal written about the events that
led up to NATO's intervention in Kosovo in
that context with the Muslim community and
the Christian community.
I think that you see that in a number of U.N.
peacekeeping operations.
Slightly different than the initiation of
atrocity crimes but it is a challenge.
It's case-by-case.
It's difficult.
There is no one-size-fits-all.
Remember Hammerskjöld once wrote when he
was asked about U.N. peacekeeping if we should
have a permanent force and he said, "Well
the challenges are so different case-by-case
you need to make each one tailor-made."
So I don't think you can come out with a simple
rule of how to handle it, but it's something
decision makers have to be aware of, and frankly
the US has a particular responsibility.
When I was sitting in the Security Council
and everybody would talk about, and I'm sure
Madeleine had this, "We've got to do this.
We've got to do that."
I'd raise my hand and say, "We?"
Because others were volunteering the only
country that had the power for lift and other
things to make it happen.
So there are unique responsibilities and opportunities
with our status but I don't think you can
have a rule that will fit all.
You've got to be aware of it.
You've got to be aware of the best way to
intervene.
You've got to be aware of the need to have
other countries involved with you.
You need to be aware of the broad participation,
but sure, one of the factors is to the extent
in some circumstances you might have political
minorities.
Not ethnic minorities, political minorities
who see initiating violence as a way to get
the international community to enhance their
situation.
And let me just say finally we see that in
Syria where when there's talk of a conference
people try to change the facts on the ground
and commit even more intense atrocities to
enhance their political position.
It's just a reality that decision makers have
to be aware of and the United States has a
particular attentiveness if we're going to
be effective.
Secretary Albright, what would you say to
someone, a political minority that starts
a fight they can't finish?
Is there a thought you have on that?
Well we've obviously all kind of thought about
this, one, when we had to deal with it and
then in a more thoughtful academic way.
Let me just say that what I find interesting,
and Rich as pointed out a lot of the issues,
is part of what makes an ethnic group or minority
fight normally is that there is something
that they have been deprived of within the
nation state that they are in.
But also then there becomes a dynamic within
the group itself as to who is tougher, who
is really standing up, who is somebody who
is a compromiser or whatever.
I think that's the hardest part.
And I can only tell you, you mentioned Kosovo,
the time that I spent in Rambouillet dealing
with the Kosovo fighters, one of whom is now
the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci,
and part of it was the extent to which he
was willing to make a compromise on something
but some of the other people would say no,
no, you're just giving in.
So the question is, and I don't know whether
this is at all possible, whether there is
a bit of a bargain before you ever begin to
support X in saying, "I will support you or
we will, the international community, but
the price of the support is that when you've
won you will actually not do the same thing
to the people you just defeated."
And while we're speaking of Kosovo, they like
me there.
We like you here too.
There is a whole generation of little girls
called Madeleine.
But the bottom line is that I spent a lot
of time telling the Serbs what they couldn't
do to the Kosovars.
I have been back to Pristina and what is interesting
to me when I went initially during the bad
period, what you saw were the Orthodox Churches
that were doing well and the Muslim Churches
that were surrounded, the Mosques, that were
surrounded by barbed wire.
When I went back to Pristina the opposite
was true and I said to them, "This is impossible."
I spoke in front of the National Assembly
and said, "You cannot do to the Serbs what
they did to you."
The question is whether one could have some
kind of a reconciliation discussion before
we ever support it.
I don't know whether it's possible because
the dynamics that you talk about Rich, that
somebody for political reasons has to be tougher.
And what I regret about Syria is that because
it's taken so long, the most extremist factions
in many ways now are able to say, "Look, nobody
helped us."
And so that is the issue, but easier to talk
about in theory than practice.
Interestingly, the main message our Deputy
Secretary of State William Burns seems to
have delivered on his recent trip to Cairo
to the new ruling regime is the need for inclusiveness.
Don't try to push the Muslim Brotherhood into
prison, underground, out of politics.
Be inclusive.
I want to conclude with one question and then
we're going to turn to the audience for your
questions so be thinking.
That is what in some ways is a great success
for the R2P doctrine but in other ways illustrates
its limits and that is Libya.
And I'd like to ask each of you to comment
on Libya both in the sense that people who
were on the verge of annihilation in Benghazi
were saved because of intervention, yes, but
because there wasn't a responsibility to rebuild
built into this doctrine adequately.
From every account that I hear and read Libya
is really a mess, I mean security, and normal
life just don't exist there now.
Help us to think about Libya both as a success
and as a challenge.
Libya was fascinating for many reasons.
Among them being it was the first time in
the Security Council they actually invoked
the words "Responsibility to Protect" in a
resolution dealing with this crisis, and then
voted to authorize an intervention.
Two, we learned or relearned both the effectiveness
and limits of our NATO allies in carrying
certain things out.
But another thing I think we've learned is
that in the calculations of getting involved,
part of it has to be the post-conflict situation.
And whether we're looking at Iraq, Afghanistan,
or Libya we shouldn't give ourselves very
good grades.
And you can't come in and walk away and expect
magically a society that's been torn apart
- or in the case of Libya Balkanized for over
30 years even their military down to platoons
were by tribes, never integrated, no civil
society - to all of a sudden find a reconciliation.
And I think we have to keep learning and getting
better, and one of the things I take out of
Libya is in addition to the serious discussions
and deliberations where the President decided
to go forward in March of 2011, I think it
was or '10, to support bombing.
There probably should have been more discussion
of the responsibility when the change happens
and hopefully working with local players,
the United States and others can help them
to start taking a path toward reconciliation.
The division, the Balkanization between Benghazi
and Tripoli that's been there for centuries
is more acute.
The violence out in the oil area to the east
is worse and we've had instances in the last
two months where there have been demonstrations
in violence and militias taking over even
government buildings in Tripoli.
Getting rid of Mr. Qadhafi was not the end
story, it was just the end of a chapter and
we should have stayed more engaged.
I think that it is fair to say that we live
in an unbelievably complicated world where
easy answers do not come, and the bottom line
is the Libya issue did come up during our
discussions and we asked each other was it
going to help the R2P concept or hurt it?
Because it really was the first time, as Rich
said, that it was included in a resolution.
I think that I hope the message that comes
out of this discussion is that this is just
one way that we and all of the international
community is trying to look at some kind of
tools to help solve increasingly difficult
situations.
We are living in an entirely different world
than the kind I grew up in and the nation-state
aspect is more complicated.
The existence of a variety of ethnic groups,
the different tools that are available, and
I also think that it is much easier to sit
here representing no one than myself than
to actually try to deal with these issues.
Because what happens, and both Rich and I
have been in the Situation Room, as far as
I know you haven't, is that basically you
sit there and you put forward issues and argue
is this good or bad?
What happens often is there are so many people
that can tell you why not to do something
because this will be this and that will be
that, but then you don't do anything and if
you are the United States you are damned if
you do or damned if you don't.
And I think that the question is you have
to do case-by-case and the "doability" aspect
of it, and you have to think about the unintended
consequences of either the decisions you make
or the ones you do not.
There is no President that ever gets a clean
slate.
There are the carry-overs on it, and I can
assure you that whether I agree with them
or not, there is nobody that sits in their
offices trying to make stupid decisions.
They are trying to look at what the various
aspects are and you do get kind of dragged
down by saying we'll go in there, but it's
going to take a zillion dollars and it will
take many years and you still will not have
accomplished anything.
If there is ever any lesson that I learned,
however, we cannot be our normal Americans
of saying done it, been there, over.
It is not true in the Balkans, it is not true
anywhere.
And I think that we do need to understand
that there is a commitment after whatever.
And that the R2P exercise is one of trying
to get our heads around whether there is some
new way of dealing with this.
So let's turn to the audience if you would
wait we have microphone runners.
I see a hand raised there.
If you could please identify yourselves, keep
your questions short so I don't have to be
rude and interrupt.
If you have a question for a specific member
of the panel please direct it to that person.
Hi, my name is Sara Federman.
I'm a doctoral student studying corporate
accountability for mass atrocities, looking
at those issues.
Secretary Albright, you both can answer, you
were talking about the ICC as the criminal
court focuses on holding an individual responsible
to expunge the collective.
And also I feel like the Responsibility to
Protect is actually moving us towards a collective
accountability towards this rather than saying
there are certain individuals responsible
for all this.
I know this is so complex and I guess I would
like to hear what you both have to say about
holding the collective more accountable and
is there a way to do that that doesn't create
cycles of just shame and retribution?
I don't know how to answer that.
It's interesting, I hadn't put that together.
I do think it's a combination of it.
I do think that not everybody - when we say
it's "collective," it's collective responsibility
by the international community to do something
and one would hope a collective way that those
who are fighting might think more as a group,
but ultimately what we have seen is that often
the individual guilt is something that has
been a result of "X" political leader thinking
that he can do better by whipping up anti-"X",
not just being proud in your own group but
curdling into hate of another.
So I think it's that combination of the collective
responsibility of the community to do something
about it, but I do think that one would find
individuals, certainly it was true in the
former Yugoslavia as well as in Rwanda, of
people that were specifically responsible
for stirring up the hatred.
If I could just comment on that briefly.
Again it's somewhat a case-by-case situation.
In South Africa, Mandela made a determination.
He was negotiating a transition and he couldn't
sit across the table from the white apartheid
government to negotiate a path to sustainable
peace and a new era if there was a threat
of harsh justice.
So he made a decision that we're going to
have a truth and reconciliation commission
so victims can record what they went through
so they could never be denied.
Perpetrators would be identified.
And there is a certain punishment in that
but he would not set up a court and it's worked.
You have victims of apartheid who are now
police commissioners, etcetera.
My only point is that it is going to have
to be case-by-case because I used to be asked
by my friends in the ICC and International
Justice during my tenure in Sudan about accountability,
and I said, "Look, to me it's pretty simple.
If you can hold those most accountable and
bring them to justice great, but if it's a
question of justice for saving lives I'm going
to save lives."
And I was involved in getting Charles Taylor
out of Sierra Leone because we thought there
would be 10,000 that would die in the next
few weeks if we didn't during the Bush administration.
But these are not easy questions.
They can be gray, they can be difficult, and
I think when you're talking about other sorts
of collective responsibility you have to have
those factors in as well.
I want to call on Martin Indyk from the Brookings
Institution, he's one of the co-sponsors of
this report, and then the woman who sitting
directly behind him in the white sweater.
Thank you very much, David.
On behalf of Brookings, I want to say how
delighted I am with this collaboration of
the Holocaust Museum and the US Institute
of Peace, and congratulate both Madeleine
and Rich and the other members on the Task
Force for a really compelling report and a
fascinating discussion this morning.
I wanted to continue this question of the
ICC.
In particular in the case of Syria where Assad
and his henchmen are so clearly engaged in
crimes against humanity and the evidence is
manifested and just mounting.
And yet the International Criminal Court is
not only not engaged in any way but the threat
doesn't seem to be used either because the
judgment seems to have been made that it won't
be helpful in this case, but that the best
way is to get them to leave the country and
therefore there should be no invocation of
the ICC.
And I wonder is that a problem more generally
that's developing now that precisely the kind
of concerns that you mention, Rich in the
case of Mandela, begins to vitiate the effectiveness
of the ICC?
Let me start but I just think that there have
been questions generally, for instance you
dealt with Bashir and he's an indicted war
criminal and it doesn't seem to have helped
to get him out of office.
That's one of the things that people have
talked about is he then has no kind of incentive
to stop because he knows that he's already
indicted.
I have to say I created a group of former
Foreign Ministers when I left office.
One of them is Lloyd Axworthy who is here
and he can testify to the fact that we I think
it was already two years ago that as a group,
three years ago, we called on the fact that
the ICC should come after Bashar Assad.
There were those who argued exactly that this
is not a good idea because then he has nowhere
to go and could one grant him immunity?
But I think that as that has also evolved
that has raised these kinds of questions.
Is it an incentive or a disincentive?
I always find it uncomfortable to talk about
the ICC since we actually are not members.
I wish we were.
And one of the pressures of the international
community is always that there are people
who take this very seriously and the Canadians
always do.
They have always pushed.
I said this last night, I say it again, the
Canadians are the most responsible international
citizens.
They are always there.
But I do think that the bottom line is this
is a hard issue to deal with, especially for
the way that you've parsed it.
First, I want to say to Martin, thanks again
for Brookings' help on this.
More importantly, I hope the reports are right
both for the sake of the Palestinian and Israelis
and the US interest, and I wish you Godspeed
on your mission, which hopefully you will
take up soon.
Martin, any comment on that?
Been there, done that, right?
I think it is case-by-case in the case of
Sudan, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor
and I had frequent discussions.
I was urging him not to go forward with an
arrest warrant because I thought it would
change the dynamic and Bashir would stay in
no matter what because of the alternative.
I think he took a very credible position which
that wasn't his problem.
He was going to follow the law.
He went forward with the arrest warrant.
I think there was, I have reason to believe
there was pressure in Khartoum that may have
bet their behavior.
Unfortunately by March, 2009 the US let him
off the hook.
So I think it might have been able to be used
in a positive way but instead Bashir's continuing
situation in power and travel I think has
weakened accountability in the ICC.
But I don't mean to cop out.
I do think it's a case-by-case.
I think it was very, very important that Charles
Taylor became the first African head of state
who was brought to justice by the Sierra Leone
Special Court.
I think it had a profound effect on a lot
of bad actors.
I do think as I went back earlier, you have
bad people making decisions to stay or get
into power.
If there is part of that calculation a high
probability that you eventually will be brought
to justice, you are increasing the bar slightly
and anything to make it more difficult for
someone to make the decision to open the gates
of hell is a good thing.
Because we're running out of time I want to
collect a couple of questions starting with
you and then you, Sir, in the white coat and
I recognize one other woman down two seats.
Those three and then we'll turn back to our
panel for final comments.
Thank you very much.
My question is this.
Please identify yourself.
My name is Barbara Dellow and I'm a mom and
I'm a nurse.
And my question is this.
It occurred to me once that North America
has three basic countries, and that if you
look at international bodies like the ICC,
it comes from the whole world and there are
continents like Africa and Europe that have
many countries.
And I became aware that different countries
have different notions of right and wrong,
and different ideas of justice.
How can we ensure that in international bodies
the decision making will be in keeping with
the values that we have?
And how also can we be assured that the outcomes
after an intervention will be respective of
the national desires of the home population?
Good question.
Sir?
I'm Greg Stanton, President of Genocide Watch.
I once served under Secretary Albright.
The question I have really is if a nation
fails to exercise its responsibilities to
protect its own citizens, then who should
it be?
Who will take over that Responsibility to
Protect?
You made one really I think very, very trenchant
point in one of your statements in which you
said, "In Kosovo we did not get caught in
the cul-de-sac out of the U.N. Security Council."
In other words, other coalitions may be needed
and I'm asking that specifically in regard
to Sudan and to Syria.
Aryeh Neier has suggested that a court be
set up, a war crimes court, a crime against
humanity court, to try those who are committing
war crimes in Syria on both sides.
Why aren't we perhaps organizing a coalition
of the willing to wait for the planes to land
who are bombing the people in the Nuba Mountains
and Blue Nile and so forth, and then sending
cruise missiles to destroy those planes?
And madam, finally, down two rows I recognized
earlier.
Pauline Baker from the Fund for Peace.
Sorry for that.
My question is an extension of Ambassador
Indyk's and that is there seems to be a growing
backlash amongst some countries against R2P,
first because they think it's an instrument
of the powerful in the world to control the
weak, but more importantly, I think in terms
of the ICC and the resistance to that, particularly
in terms of two sitting African heads of state
now who have been indicted and the difficult
thing of dealing with the Kenyan situation
where you have an elected president who is
now indicted by the ICC, and that has set
off kind of a debate within the African community
that this is unfair and unjust and discriminatory.
How do you deal with that?
And how does R2P become a more universally
accepted norm?
Good so there are three good questions: What
rules should prevail in the ICC?
Who should act if the U.N. won't?
And then finally about the backlash that we're
beginning to see against the R2P and any other
concluding comments that either of you had,
Secretary Albright?
Well let me say it's interesting.
All three of the questions and the other points
that have been made here really revolve around
the fact about what has happened to the international
system?
Is it a functioning system?
And again to refer to my age I went to college
sometimes between the invention of the iPod
and the discovery of fire, but the bottom
line is that I grew up learning about the
United Nations system and looking at what
the basis of it was, which is the charter
of the U.N. that is based on a series of accepted
laws and norms in terms of the basic human
rights and that we are all the same.
I won't go through all that, but basically
that we are a system of nation-states.
The U.N. is not a world government.
The nation-states continue to have the power.
But the system in itself as a result of more
and more countries that are artificial countries
created out of a variety of ethnic groups.
The information technology, without going
through it all has complete complicated the
whole aspect of how the international system
works.
The existence of non-state actors, a lot of
people that in fact interpret the charter
in a different way.
But I do think that also what I find interesting
is looking at what happened in the end of
the 20th century and the beginning of the
21st in terms of trying to sort out what new
norms might be.
I think that clearly there's a lot of evolutionary
aspect of this.
And on the R2P, I think the questions have
a lot to do with who actually, let's presume
we agree, that X needs to be done in a particular
country, who really carries it out?
There are questions as to whether it looks
like aggression by white countries against
countries that are predominantly black or
Christian countries versus Muslim countries.
And so there are those particular questions
which need to be answered.
I happen to believe that it has to be multilateral
action, a coalition of the willing of some
kind of way that it is not aggression by one
particular country.
But these are exactly the kinds of questions
that need to be asked and trying to sort out
what is happening with the international system
because it is not the way it was and it has
many more players and it's much more complicated,
and we do know everything that's going on.
So that is why I'm very pleased that we actually
had this task force.
We asked each other a lot of these questions,
and that we have put this on the agenda because
people need to see it as an evolving concept
that we're going to need help in explaining.
Thank you.
First with respect to the different views
on justice.
I teach a course at Northwestern University
on US Foreign Policy and Human Rights, and
I try to emphasize that every member of the
U.N. has agreed to the U.N. charter that does
in paragraph 48 of its charter deal with human
rights and shared responsibility.
Two, they've signed the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights which is a pledge.
So those who want to try to move away from
those standards, and by the way, they were
animated more by US values than anything else.
As I noted earlier Eleanor Roosevelt was the
Chair of the effort, John Foster Dulles as
well as seven other international personalities
drafted it.
So I think you just say you signed up for
it.
You can't recreate it, change it, distort
it.
You are going to be held to account to these
standards.
Two, with respect to protecting if governments
fail, I think it was a great moment for America
for President Clinton and Secretary Albright
when they made the decision they did in Kosovo.
It is better to work through the U.N. because
of the outreach legitimacy buy-in.
But you can't let one country's own view of
its own national interest prohibit action
when these sorts of crimes are being committed.
Yes, there's different views on the ICC.
In fact after Bashir, Bashir had been kind
of isolated within the African Union.
It was his turn to be chairman, he didn't
get it.
The only time he ever got unified support
in the A.U. was when the ICC did an arrest
warrant because A.U. passed resolution to
do an Article XVI and lift jurisdiction.
I was down in Addis meeting with the Secretary-General
of the A.U. and the head of their peace commission,
and they said, "You know, if you don't get
this Article XVI, thirty-three countries will
withdraw from the ICC."
I said, "I'm from the Bush administration
if happens, have me lead the line."
Look, there's going to be differences.
You shouldn't get bogged down.
It is difficult work.
It's case-by-case, I think as I said earlier
we should push back when people selectively
are distorting the record of institutions.
Most of the African prosecutions went through
the Security Council's referrals.
They weren't initiated at the Hague, and of
course there are African members of the ICC,
of the Security Council.
Finally let me thank David, but especially
let me thank Madeleine Albright not only for
her leadership.
It's really awakened US foreign policy in
Bosnia and Kosovo but also her willingness
to join this effort on the report and thank
her for being such a good friend.
Can I say this is what it looks like when
Democrats and Republicans cooperate?
