The Fund For Peace
Regional responses to internal war

When outside military intervention in internal wars is called for to stem a humanitarian emergency, many feel that the preferred authorizing body for that intervention should be the United Nations. Questions remain, however, as to who should step in to support U.N. authorized action on the ground or who might respond when the U.N. fails to act to stop mass violence. This dilemma has highlighted a number of controversial issues:

• When do atrocities reach the point where military intervention is necessary?
• Who can legitimately authorize military intervention?
• Who should make up the intervening force?
• How should an intervention be conducted?
• What are the implications of such intervention for redefining sovereignty?

The trend has been towards increased regional participation in responding to humanitarian crises but no internationally agreed upon criteria yet exists. Nor has there been agreement on the proper relationship between the U.N. and regional organizations, when the latter do take the lead in responding. Each crisis is dealt with in an ad hoc manner. 

To address this problem, The Fund for Peace (www.fundforpeace.org) is exploring regional criteria for military intervention to stop mass killings, atrocities and/or ethnic cleansing. Over the past two years, the organization has convened four conferences, each focused on one of four regions—Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas—and aimed at exploring differing regional perspectives on preventing and responding to humanitarian crises. Policy recommendations resulting from conference deliberations were brought by The Fund for Peace to U.S. government officials. In addition, a series of reports and position papers were issued by the Fund, stimulating further discussion, debate and press coverage of this highly controversial set of issues.

“Traditionally, you don’t see regional groups helping to solve regional problems,” says Stephen Del Rosso, senior program officer for Carnegie Corporation of New York, which supports The Fund for Peace efforts, though he adds that the trend is starting to turn with the Australians taking the lead on problems in East Timor and the European involvement in Bosnia, for example. “The Fund for Peace brings together senior regional leaders who then hash out intervention questions in their own regions without U.S. participation.”

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