Amid instability in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, two Tufts professors grappled last night over the issue of the moral and political feasibility of military intervention in conflicts of genocide.
Antonia Chayes, visiting professor of International Politics and Law at the Fletcher School and Professor of Sociology Paul Joseph, director of the Peace and Justice Studies program, took opposing sides on whether the United States should uphold the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in an ongoing genocide. R2P is a recently created concept relaying the commitment of the international community to intervene in grave foreign crises, such as genocide and crimes against humanity.
Beginning the debate, which was held in Braker Hall, Joseph made his case in favor of military intervention. He cited the ongoing brutality in Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has lasted for years, as a conflict that may not fall into the technical definition of genocide, but still merits the need for intervention.
"When I read this, not only the scale of the numbers of sexual violence or killing on a massive scale, but the individual concrete quotes that tell us the exact costs, the bile rises in my throat," Joseph said. "To be aware of this and do nothing about it is not only injurious to the fabric of the world, to this thing called global community ... In the end, it's a violation of ourselves."
Chayes, who is also the chair of the Project on International Institutions and Conflict Management at the Harvard Law School, diverged from Joseph's moral perspective and said that R2P called for the United States to follow a legal route to military action involving the international community.
"I absolutely don't agree with Professor Joseph," she said. "If you think of Rwanda and 1 million people killed, I don't have any problem with the use of force to prevent that killing ... but international legal action is by far the best route."
Chayes cautioned the United States against intervening in another country, having armed forces already "strung out" in Afghanistan and Iraq, without multilateral support and international legal backing.
"The situation that we're likely to face is that the United States is practically constrained, may be politically constrained domestically, and even if it's morally committed to stopping genocide, the rest of the world is reluctant," she said.
The best solution, Chayes said, was for the United States to approach the U.N. Security Council to obtain a resolution that authorizes the use of force.
Joseph agreed that the United States had "substantial commitments" and added that the call to respond to genocide and egregious humanitarian conflicts has been made increasingly difficult in light of a poor economy.
Still, he contended that the authority to act surpassed the United Nations and the Security Council.
"The U.S. may not have an interest in most places to intervene," Joseph said, "but I like to think our national interest is best served by making good on our promise to protect."
Chayes said that R2P was weak in outlining the proper protocol if the international community is reluctant to act, even if a resolution is passed.
"The issue to me is not the issue of genocide but how the international community goes about responding," she said. "In the first instance, I'd say go the legal route. It has the most legitimacy, but the dilemma is that's very hard to attain. The issue we all have to grapple with is what happens in a situation where that legal route is blocked."
Joseph proposed that the global community build up resources to bolster R2P, including a "re-educated" media to better inform the public about international conflicts and an international peacekeeping force that was better trained in police-keeping than in exercising military might.
Both Chayes and Joseph agreed that prevention is the key to averting conflict.
Chayes said that a multilateral "standby rapid-reaction force" should be created to preempt humanitarian conflict before it worsens. "In the event that a genocide should happen, then at least there are international forces there that have trained together," she said.
Questions from the audience followed the debate. One student asked if the professors felt the United States had responded sufficiently with respect to Darfur.
"The simple answer is no," Joseph said. "Genocide treaty doesn't call for the U.S. or any other signatory to the treaty to do anything more than report to the United Nations," he said. "But if their responsibility is held up to a questioning, skeptical media and to an informed public, then I think their responsibilities would be greater than [legal]."
The event was the third installment of an annual debate sponsored by the International Relations Director's Leadership Council (DLC).
"I think it went really well," said sophomore Soraya Alivandi, a DLC member. "We were happy with the turnout, and we thought the debate topic was really relevant."
