(Some of the audio is not clear, as indicated by …).
Dearly beloved, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. For too long, the most important interventions in the world's worst places, have ended in the very worst way and tarnished the very name of humanitarian. Intervention... What we strive to do today is stop that. To make humanitarian interventions work properly and work for the people they are designed to protect. I'm going to talk about two things: Firstly I'm going to tell you what this policy best fulfills the principle of humanitarian intervention, secondly, I'm going to talk about why it's the best way to prevent conflict in the long term.
Firstly, in terms of the definition, what does it mean for the population to establish... We think we're going to hold elections; we're going to hold them regularly, there are going to be both elections for governments, who can tell occupying powers to get out, and we may use a referendum on these questions. There’s going to be active election monitoring to make sure that nobody’s getting bullied, we know how to do that… numerous examples of how to do it.
(Guy): “sir”
Secondly, in terms of who has to be in favor of the departure of occupying forces, no thanks, have a seat, this is two-legged. Firstly, we think the overall majority of the population of the country we’re in has to be in favor of it, secondly, we think the specific minority that we may be led to protect (words lost in applause)… also has to be in favor of it. So if all the Hutus in Rowanda want us to get out and the Tutsi’s don’t, we’re not leaving.
Why does this best fulfill the principle of humanitarian intervention. Firstly, what is it that justifies getting into these countries in the first place? We think it is purely and simply to protect those people from human rights’ abuses. (Guy interrupts “Sir”, again). We don’t intervene in countries just to improve their political systems or to improve their economies gradually. We only intervene in the very worst cases. Hold on one second… has been established, that job is done and therefore we no longer have good reason under international law or morally speaking to be there.
(Guy): so when the majority is being persecuted by the minority, like what happened in Iraq, do you then seek the minority to… that situation as well?
(Stopped at 2:37)
[unintelligible]...We seek both. We have to get majority approval so the minority also can't oppress the majority. It's deliberately a two-layered system, right?
If the majority of Iraqis want us to stay, then we'll stay.
Okay, so...we say that we violate sovereignty in these situations because the government has failed the people; but once the people think that they are no longer better off with us being there, then we have no justification in terms popular sovereignty in terms of protecting those people.
(Guy): Sir...
If they think they're better of with us gone, then we say that is the best barometer of [unintelligible].
Moreover, this policy prevents particular misuse of the notion of humanitarian intervention.
What?
Firstly – strategic. We think there aren't going to be very many oil wars in the name of humanitarian intervention if you now can't stay and actually get the oil out of the ground if you invade these countries just in order to plunder them – because there's no incentive.
We think this policy provides clarity for the exact [unintelligible] of what occupying powers can do.
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Secondly, we think that this prevents specific human rights abuses by occupying power forces, which may in fact make the lives of the local population worse. When occupying forces stay for too long, they get [...] you get a large group of soldiers who don't know why they're there, and often don't have clear orders, and that's the kind of thing that then leads to them doing the things that are wrong.
We point you to the fact that initially, when Nigeria, no, when Nigeria lead [...] forces from Liberia, to protect those people, that initially went well, when they stayed for too long, Nigerians started to plunder that country, they started to do them significant amounts of damage. We take this as a policy that stops those kind of abuses happening, and ensures that humanitarian interventions don't make things worse.
Secondly, why is this the best way to prevent conflict, in the long-term, in these societies? Firstly, we think, when an [...] occupying power is in your country, it's very easy for blame to get diverted, to not think about the groups and the factors that lead to the initial humanitarian problems - no, thanks Rich - It's much easier, just to direct your attention at the occupying power, once they can be seen to be there for anything other than pure humanitarian reasons.
That's not true right at the beginning, right? That explains why, initially, it's very difficult to stir up that kind of hatred against the occupying power, because, all they've done, is prevent the human rights abuses. In the longer term, you can start to say, "They're here for plunder, they're here for colonialism, therefore elites - I'll take Jack in a second - can avoid the rigorous reconstruction of their societies that are needed to make those societies better.
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Jack: who takes power in Iraq when the US goes home straightaway?
The newly elected Iraqi government, Jack, that's [unintelligible]. Okay, secondly why does the population judge this better th-- than the occupying power? Firstly, we think: it is inevitable that occupying forces do not necessarily have a proper understanding of the political systems in the countries they are invading, the social structures that underly them. We'd say that it's not always true that [unintelligible] Western liberal democracy is the best path for conflict resolution in these societies. But it's much harder for the public of an occupying power to work out because they inevitably reference their own political systems as a yardstick of success. That's the first reason the local population understands better when we've reached the right state to prevent conflict in the future. Secondly, we'd say: what happens in lots of these situations is that once some instability has been created after the initial prevention of human rights abuses, the occupying forces [unintelligible], right? We point you to the US public's incredibly violent reaction in Somalia to a relatively small amount of violence against its own troops. That means that occupying forces leave at the wrong moment. The leave -- not when we've quelled the initial human rights abuses -- but once the violence has started up again, exactly when you do need some kind of security in those societies. Lastly, we'd say: there is a long term problem when humanitarian interventions' name gets tarnished. When it starts to look like it could be strategically misused. When interventions start to go wrong, it makes it harder to justify to the publics of Western countries why we [unintelligible]. It makes them more scared about body-bags coming home. We'd say: that prevents us doing the very humanitarian interventions we need to, we are very proud to propose.
