Say Anything Blog

Since Dougee mentioned final exams earlier today, here’s a bonus question for upper level political science pundits and practitioners:

At what point does an organization founded on the fundamental rule of law, violate both law and the sovereignty of another to assist those being brutally oppressed by a harsh, autocratic and largely lawless regime?

YANGON, Myanmar - France has suggested invoking a U.N. “responsibility to protect” clause and delivering aid directly to cyclone-hit Myanmar without waiting for approval from the military.

The proposal came as internal U.N. documents revealed Myanmar’s government is dragging its feet on giving visas to aid workers who are waiting to help the survivors of Cyclone Nargis.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters on Wednesday that the United Nations recognized in 2005 the concept of “responsibility to protect” civilians when their governments could or would not do it, even if this meant intervention that violated national sovereignty.

He said the idea was under discussion at the United Nations in New York.

“We are seeing at the United Nations if we can’t implement the responsibility to protect, given that food, boats and relief teams are there, and obtain a United Nations’ resolution which authorizes the delivery (of aid) and imposes this on the Burmese government,” he said.

So… does the “responsibility” as envisioned by those wanting desperately to offer aid trump the most fundamental principle of international law and upon which the UN itself was founded… that of national sovereignty?  Are the “good intentions” of those who would violate another country’s sovereignty sufficient to justify the violation? 

Those of you on the Left who are mindlessly apoplectic at the mere suggestion that the United Nations is an inept, ineffective, and incomparably corrupt waste of money would do well to consider carefully before answering.  Any justification that does not reduce to a simple question of ends and means provides an equally powerful argument in favor of the US invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam.  Or even a similar attack on Iran to prevent that country’s acquisition of nuclear weapons!

Of course, the fact is the United Nations has no means to enforce this proposal or any other edict it might issue.  And Burmese officials could very easily tell the UN to go suck eggs.  Just as every other autocratic dictator or junta has done in the past.