KOFI ANNAN: BALANCE STATE SOVEREIGNTY WITH INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY! 

 I shall like to address the prospects for human security and intervention in the next century. As Secretary General, I have made it my highest duty to restore the U.N. to its rightful role in the pursuit of peace and security, and to bring it closer to the peoples it serves. This mission continues in a world transformed by geo-political, economic, technological and environmental changes whose lasting significance still eludes us. As we seek new ways to combat war and poverty, we will succeed only if we all adapt our organization to a world with new actors, new responsibilities, and new possibilities for peace and progress.

State sovereignty is being redefined by the forces of globalization and international cooperation. The state is now widely understood to be the servant of its people, not vice versa. At the same time, individual sovereignty --the human rights and fundamental freedoms of each and every individual as enshrined in our Charter-- has been enhanced by a renewed consciousness of the right of every individual to control his or her own destiny.   

These parallel developments demand that we think anew --about how the United Nations responds to the political, human rights and humanitarian crises affecting so much of the world; about the means employed by the international community in situations of need; and about our willingness to act in some areas of conflict, while limiting ourselves to humanitarian palliatives in many other crises whose daily toll of death and suffering ought to shame us into action.  

A variety of challenges confront us today, most urgently in East Timor. From Sierra Leone to Sudan, Angola, the Balkans, Cambodia and Afghanistan, a great number of peoples need a real and sustained commitment to help end their cycles of violence, and launch them on a safe passage to prosperity. While the genocide in Rwanda will define for our generation the consequences of inaction in the face of mass murder, the more recent conflict in Kosovo has prompted important questions about the consequences of action in the absence of complete unity on the part of the international community.  

It has cast in stark relief the dilemma of what has been called "humanitarian intervention": on the one side, the question of the legitimacy of action taken by a regional organization without a U.N. mandate; on the other, the universally recognized imperative of effectively halting gross and systematic violations of human rights with grave humanitarian consequences. The inability of the international community in the case of Kosovo to reconcile these two equally compelling interests was a tragedy. It has revealed the core challenge to the Security Council and the United Nations as a whole in the next century: to forge unity behind the principle that massive and systematic violations of human rights --wherever they may take place-- should not be allowed to stand.  

The Kosovo conflict has prompted a wide debate of profound importance to the resolution of conflicts. To those for whom the greatest threat to the future of international order is the use of force in the absence of a Security Council mandate, one might ask in the context of Rwanda: If, in those dark days leading up to the genocide, a coalition of states had been prepared to act in defense of the Tutsi population, but did not receive prompt Council authorization, should such a coalition have stood aside as the horror unfolded? To those for whom the Kosovo action heralded a new era when states and groups of states can take military action outside the established mechanisms for enforcing international law, one might ask: Is there not a danger of such interventions undermining the security system created after World War II, and of setting dangerous precedents for future interventions without a clear criterion to decide who might invoke them and in what circumstances? 

 In response to this turbulent era of crises and interventions some have suggested that the Charter itself --with its roots in the aftermath of global inter-state war-- is ill-suited to guide us in a world of ethnic wars and intra-state violence. I believe they are wrong. Nothing in the Charter precludes a recognition that there are rights beyond borders.

What has brought us to this juncture are our difficulties in applying the Charter's principles to a new era, an era when strictly traditional notions of sovereignty can no longer do justice to the aspirations of peoples everywhere to attain their fundamental freedoms.  

The sovereign states who drafted the Charter over a half century ago knew that there are times when the use of force may be legitimate in the pursuit of peace. That is why the Charter's own words declare that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest. But what is common interest? Four aspects of intervention hold important lessons for resolving future conflicts.  

First, it is important to define intervention as broadly as possible, to include actions along a wide continuum from the most pacific to the most coercive. Ironically, many of the crises that continue to go unnoticed and unchallenged could be dealt with by far less perilious acts of intervention than the one we saw recently in Kosovo. And yet the commitment of the international community to peacekeeping, to humanitarian assistance, to rehabilitation and reconstruction varies greatly from region to region, and crisis to crisis.  

If the new commitment to intervention in the face of extreme suffering is to retain the support of the world's peoples, it must be --and be seen to be-- fairly and consistently applied, irrespective of region or nation. Humanity, after all, is indivisible.  

Any armed intervention is itself a result of the failure of prevention. As we consider the future of intervention, we must redouble our efforts to enhance our preventive capabilities --including early warning, preventive diplomacy, preventive deployment and preventive disarmament. A recent powerful tool of deterrence has been the Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. In their battle against impunity lies a key to deterring crimes against humanity. We must explore ways of moving from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention. Even the costliest policy of prevention is far cheaper, in lives and resources, than the least expensive use of armed force.  

Second, sovereignty alone is not the obstacle to effective action in human rights or humanitarian crises. No less significant are the ways in which the Member States of the United Nations define their national interest in any given crisis. As the world has changed in profound ways since the end of Cold War, our conceptions of national interest have failed to follow suit. A new, more broadly defined, more widely conceived definition of national interest in the new century would induce states to find far greater unity in the pursuit of such basic Charter values as democracy, pluralism, human rights, and the rule of law. A global era requires global engagement. Indeed, in a growing number of challenges facing humanity, the collective interest is the national interest.  

Third, when forceful intervention becomes necessary, the Security Council must be able to rise to the challenge. The choice must not be between Council unity and inaction in the face of genocide, as in the case of Rwanda, on the one hand; and Council division, with regional action, as in the case of Kosovo, on the other. In both cases, the Member States of the United Nations should have been able to find common ground in upholding the principles of the Charter, and acting in defense of our common humanity. As important as the Council's enforcement power is its deterrent power. If states bent on criminal behavior know that frontiers are not an absolute; if they know that the Security Council will take action to halt crimes against humanity, then they will not embark on such a course of action in expectation of sovereign impunity.  

The Charter requires the Council to be the defender of the common interest, and unless it is seen to be so --in an era of human rights, interdependence, and globalization-- there is a danger that others could seek to take its place. The Council's prompt and effective action in authorizing a multi-national force for East Timor reflects precisely the unity of purpose that I have called for today. However, far too many lives have been lost and far too much destruction has taken place for us to rest on our laurels. The hard work of bringing lasting peace and stability to East Timor still awaits us.  

Finally, just as our commitment to humanitarian action must be universal if it is to be legitimate, so our commitment to peace cannot end with the cessation of hostilities --in East Timor as everywhere. The aftermath of war requires no less skill, no less sacrifice, no fewer resources in order to forge a lasting peace and avoid a return to violence. Kosovo --and other United Nations missions currently deployed or looming over the horizon-- present us with just such a challenge. Unless the United Nations is given the means and support to succeed, not only the peace, but the war, too, will have been lost. From civil administration to policing to the creation of a civil society capable of sustaining a tolerant, pluralist, prosperous society, the challenges facing our peace-keeping, peacemaking and peace-building missions are immense. But if we are given the means --in Kosovo and in Sierra Leone, in East Timor and in Angola-- we have a real opportunity to break the cycles of violence, once and for all.  

If the collective conscience of humanity --which abhors cruelty, renounces injustice and seeks peace for all peoples-- cannot find in the U.N. its greatest tribune, there is a grave danger that it will look elsewhere for peace and justice. If it does not hear in our voices, and see in our actions, reflections of its own aspirations, needs, and fears, it may soon lose faith in our ability to make a difference.  

Just as the world cannot stand aside when gross and systematic violations of human rights are taking place, so intervention must be based on legitimate and universal principles if it is to enjoy the sustained support of the world's peoples. This developing international norm in favor of intervention to protect civilians from wholesale slaughter will no doubt continue to pose profound challenges to the international community. Any such evolution in our understanding of state sovereignty will, in some quarters, be met with distrust, skepticism, even hostility. But, at the end of the Twentieth Century, it is an evolution that we should welcome.

(A reproduction of his speech on 20 September 1999 before the U.N. General Assembly appeared in the Autumn 1999 Toward Democratic World Federation.)