From poverty to power - Oxfam-Québec

FROM POVERTY TO POWERThe only problem was that their report came out in the wake ofthe US-led invasion of Afghanistan, raising fears that were onlycompounded by the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which the UN failed toprevent. Controversies over US unilateralism made it imperative thatany intervention be authorised by the UN. In 2003 and again in 2006France acted on this lesson, leading the UN-approved EU intervention inthe DRC to complement the work of the UN mission there.The 2005 UN Millennium Summit caught this political wave,placingthe issue on the agenda in a way that no government could duck.Moreover, most governments by then had an interest in ‘savingmultilateralism’, which had been seriously damaged by the UN’sfailure to prevent the Iraq war. Hold-outs India, Pakistan, and Russiaagreed, albeit reluctantly, and the UN summit duly endorsed theresponsibility to protect and the central role for the UN in authorisingany intervention. 193The UN made it clear that the use of international force shouldonly be a last and rare resort – like a form of political chemotherapy, itmay be a necessary evil to get rid of the cancer of conflict, but it is likelyto involve serious side effects in terms of undermining sovereigntyand state-building and potentially undermining long-term development.The main responsibility to protect falls on states. At an internationallevel, early and robust ‘preventive diplomacy’, deploying human rightsmonitors, sanctions targeted at those in power (not in poverty), andincentives for improved behaviour should be exhausted before force isconsidered.Where international interventions have succeeded, they havehelped to build peace across four ‘pillars’: development, reconciliation,building a political framework, and providing security. Action on allfour is needed on every level, from local civil society to nationalgovernments, and must be sustained for periods that outstretch theoften short attention span of the international community.The UN’s blue-helmeted peacekeepers are an increasingly commonsight in conflict-torn lands across the world, and have scored significantsuccesses. The UN saw its deployments grow by over 500 per centfrom 2000 to 2005, and at the end of 2006 it had over 80,000 peacekeepersin the field, surpassing its previous peak of 77,000 during theBosnian war. 194 UN peacekeepers have more frequently been mandated394