ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT The international community since the end of the Cold War has failed to agree on a satisfactory solution as to how it should respond to protect vulnerable populations at risk from internal state wars and human rights abuse. Western powers frustrated by this have increasingly resorted to intervention on the basis of ‘right to intervene’. This paper argues that what is required is for the international community to exercise ‘a right to protect’ through the UN. Meanwhile the USA since 9/11 has gone down the route of unilateral intervention on the basis of ‘self-defence’ and in the case of Iraq has extended this concept by placing humanitarian as well as military operations under the single command of the Defense Department. The paper demonstrates how this led to the exclusion of expertise from planning, co-ordination and professional support in the field of humanitarian work. The operational lessons learned are listed and the conclusion is reached that, to avoid the problems experienced in Iraq, military and humanitarian operations should as far as possible be separated, leaving the leadership of relief to the dedicated international agencies but setting ground rules for liaison and lateral communication with the military which leave humanitarian response outside the political arena. A necessary condition for this would be the reform of the legal framework for UN response.
