Excerpt from the Report by Lord Callaghan of Cardiff

on the conclusions and recommendations of
a High-level Group on

"Bringing Africa Back to the Mainstream of the International System"

Cape Town,  January 1993

Humanitarian Emergencies and Assistance

58. Hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of the civilian population in Africa fall victim to humanitarian tragedies, often resulting from civil wars, communal violence and other forms of social upheavals. As a result, these people are being deprived of the fundamental necessities of life, such as food, shelter, clothing, physical security, basic health care, and the integrity of the family. Some of this tragic suffering results from natural calamities (drought, flood, earthquakes and environmental hazards). But by far the most devastating and often unremedied causes are those which relate to political cleavages and confrontations, in other words, human-made disasters.

59. The moral and legal obligation to provide emergency assistance to these innocent victims must in the first place rest with the governments of the countries concerned. In the case of natural calamities, governments will normally act promptly to provide or mobilise the needed emergency relief, often in collaboration with international agencies. However, in cases of internal conflicts where the governments have either collapsed or are themselves partial and the affected population often identified with the adversary, domestic relief services may be unavailable or even actively resisted and a positive response to offers of international assistance cannot be guaranteed. Human rights may be further violated in consequence.

60. Today, media access and the burgeoning NGO activities have created a situation where the pressures of international public opinion are increasingly prompting the international community to demand humanitarian action on both moral and political grounds.

61. The critical questions for the international community then become: what degree of humanitarian suffering under what conditions should justify what form of international action, by whom, through what operational mechanisms and with what precise objectives? This means clarifying the principles, the organizational framework, the operational doctrine, and the precise goals of such intervention.

62. The clarification of the principles would provide guidelines or standards on what would trigger and justify intervention. The organizational framework raises questions as to who would initiate the decision making process for intervention, and once approved, who would conduct the operations. The issue of operations itself raises questions on the military or civilian forces to be used and their preparedness or training for the task. The issue of objectives raises the question of whether the operations should stop at meeting the short-term emergency needs or extend to addressing the causes of the crisis in order to reconstitute a self-sustaining system of public or civil order.

63. How should one define the threshold of human suffering beyond which the international community cannot standby and watch? The following points could constitute a framework of standards that might guide future action by governments and international organisations in cases of humanitarian emergencies:

First: The principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in the internal affairs of states should be upheld and reaffirmed by the international community. In that connection, responsibility for addressing internal humanitarian tragedies must first and foremost rest with governments.

Second: Sovereignty is not absolute, but instead must be seen as entailing certain responsibilities and obligations over the territory and the population, the responsible control of which justifies sovereignty in international law.

Third: Failure to meet such fundamental responsibilities and obligations with the consequential suffering of masses of innocent people creates a right and an obligation on the part of the international community to act toward providing the needed protection and assistance. To facilitate decision-making on this issue, it is necessary to define in relatively precise terms the standards to be observed or whose violation would trigger an international response. Such a standard-setting could in itself be an effective deterrent to violation.

Fourth: Humanitarian intervention in Africa should ideally be genuinely collective and be undertaken by the United Nations or under its authority.

Fifth: While addressing an emergency situation must remain a paramount objective, the international community should strive to create conditions that would ensure the normalization and sustainability of a civil order that meets minimum standards in providing protection and assistance to the masses of the affected population.

Sixth: There is a need to design rules of intervention that would serve the dual purpose of initial military pacification and the civilian role of reconstituting a functioning civil society and a self-sustaining public order.

Seventh: A government that refrains from seeking or welcoming international humanitarian assistance could be perceived to have failed in meeting its responsibilities and obligations. These ought to be assumed and exercised by the international community. There should thus be no essential conflict between the traditional concept of sovereignty and the right or obligation of the international community to intervene and offer protection and assistance.

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