Council members to competing normative demands. The council is charged with two principal tasks: regulating state sovereignty and maintaining international peace and security. Protecting the norm of state sovereignty often leads to a policy of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. Maintaining international peace and security often involves enforcement action under Chapters VI, VII, and VIII of the Charter. When human rights violations are defined as a threat to international peace and security, the protection of human rights may require enforcement action within the sovereign boundaries of a state without its permission, bringing sovereignty norms and human rights norms into conflict. Norm research shows that when two norms come into conflict, the stronger, more institutionalized norm generally wins out over the newer, less established norm.89 As a result, it is expected that when these two sets of norms conflict in a place like the UNSC, sovereignty norms should trump human rights. This did not happen in Iraq in 1991 and 1992 because Security Council members had temporarily suspended Iraqi sovereignty and discursively constructed the protection of human rights as complementary to the preservation of Turkey and Iran’s sovereignty, eliminating the tension between the two norms.
Although Resolution 688 was unprecedented for redefining international security interests to include the protection of human rights, it also reaffirmed the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of member states, despite demanding immediate and unfettered access to Iraq’s sovereign territory and the end to human rights violations against its citizens. The UNSC reconciled this inherent tension between sovereignty and human rights norms by reasoning that the internal human rights situation extended beyond the border of Iraq, moving it beyond the realm of domestic affairs, and thereby justifying an international response.90 In effect, Resolution 688 reaffirmed the domestic jurisdiction of states over their peoples and territories while portraying the human rights situation as no longer an internal matter of the Iraqi state. Thus the resolution cited Article 2.7 of the Charter of the United Nations (which protects state sovereignty), the preamble of the Charter (which identifies the protection of human rights as a function of the United Nations), and Chapter VII (which authorizes enforcement action to protect international security) simultaneously.
The prior reversal of Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait by Coalition forces acting under UNSC authority created the unusual conditions necessary for a small group of powerful members to extend enforcement action to include the protection of human rights in northern and southern Iraq. Iraq was viewed as a pariah state because it had violated the highly internalized norms of state sovereignty and territorial integrity when it invaded Kuwait. Since Iraqi sovereignty had already been temporarily suspended for its breach of international norms, it was easier to garner political support in the Security Council for an expansion of its mission for humanitarian purposes. The promotion of human rights norms in Iraq occurred within the context of a conventional war in which the sovereignty of the aggressor state had been temporarily suspended, removing the tension between the protection of state sovereignty and the promotion of human rights norms.91 In this sense, the promotion and protection of human rights was no longer in conflict with the sovereignty and nonintervention norms so deeply revered by the council. Further, Security Council members described Kuwait, Turkey, and Iran as the proper referents of sovereignty in this case and not Iraq. Thus, it was the threat to regional security and the sovereignty of neighbor states posed by Iraq’s violation of international human rights norms, and not human rights norms themselves, that enabled the passage of Resolution 688.
Despite the largely instrumental application of human rights norms in Security Council Resolution 688, their inclusion had profound, if unintended, effects on the meaning of state sovereignty and the legitimate purpose of military force. In May 1991 the United States’ representative to the Security Council, Thomas Pickering, drew attention to changing normative expectations: “The response to the plight of the Kurds suggests a shift in world opinion towards a re-balancing of the claims of sovereignty and those of extreme humanitarian need. This is good news since it means we are moving closer to deterring genocide and aiding its victims. However, it also means we have much careful thinking to do about the nature of, and the limitations upon, intervention to carry out humanitarian assistance programs where States refuse, in pursuit of ‘policies of repression,’ to give permission to such assistance.”92 Similarly, UN secretary-general Pérez de Cuéllar wrote in his 1991 report to the General Assembly that the ability of states to hide their human rights abuses behind the shield of state sovereignty was diminishing: “It is now increasingly felt that the principle of non-interference within the essential domestic jurisdiction of States cannot be regarded as a protective barrier behind which human rights could be massively or systematically violated with impunity.”93 Security Council action in Iraq ushered in a new normative context where human rights norms were growing in their international legitimacy and changing the meaning of state sovereignty and by extension the legitimate purpose of military force.
Conclusions
The Iraq case demonstrates that Security Council unity around a common causal story (in this case an intentional story about interstate aggression) that resonates with an international audience and has the backing of powerful proponents makes the use of military force possible. Justifications for the subsequent coercive response to Iraqi violations of human rights illustrate the growing legitimacy of human rights norms and their ability to shape UNSC decision making alongside considerations of national and international security interests and other powerful international norms such as sovereignty and nonintervention. Resolution 688 marked a fundamental shift in council behavior—the linkage of human rights norms to the maintenance of international security and the use of enforcement measures to curtail human rights violations being perpetrated by a state member of the United Nations against its own people when it negatively affected the security and stability of neighboring states.
Defining the effects of human rights violations as an international security threat was a radical departure from previous Security Council behavior, yet the council sought to maintain its commitment to existing Westphalian conceptions of sovereignty and nonintervention norms. The UNSC was able to promote human rights and protect state sovereignty simultaneously because Iraqi sovereignty had been temporarily suspended and because its referents for sovereign authority were Kuwait, Iran, and Turkey. Human rights mattered to the Security Council in 1991 but largely because their violation had negative consequences for other sovereign states. Most Security Council members articulated an instrumental conception of human rights—they were a means to some other end (international peace and security) rather than an end in themselves. Yet the instrumental adoption of human rights norms by the Security Council created precedent and a political opening for members who believe that the gross and systematic human rights violations warrant Security Council attention. The Security Council response to the situation of Iraq demonstrates that human rights norms and sovereignty norms are coevolving. Ideas about human rights, combined with the Security Council response to Iraqi repression, altered the meaning of sovereignty and introduced a new possibility for the legitimate use of military force—enforcement action in defense of human rights. The passage of Resolution 688 created a precedent for future Security Council humanitarian intervention that would be exercised in Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, and Libya.
Chapter 3
State Collapse in Somalia and the Emergence of Security Council Humanitarian Intervention
When Somalia made it onto the United Nations Security Council agenda in January 1992, the council members were newly optimistic about their ability to react promptly and effectively in concert with one another to threats to international peace and security. Just the year before, the council had reversed Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait and stopped the Iraqi regime from violating the human rights of its population. As a result, the meaning of state sovereignty, the relationship between human rights norms and international security, and beliefs about the legitimate purpose of military force were evolving. In 1992, however, the post–Cold War order that council members collectively desired and expected was challenged by mounting threats to international peace and security originating from conflicts raging within
