Remarks by H. E. Mr. Rodolfo C. Severino, Secretary-General
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,
at the opening of the Regional Seminar
on the National Implementation of International Humanitarian Law
of the Southeast Asian Countries

Jakarta, 12 June 2000

The term international humanitarian law, as generally understood - or, at least, as I understand it -- refers to the body of treaties, conventions, international jurisprudence, internationally recognized principles, and customs that govern conduct in armed conflict so as to limit human suffering, particularly of non-combatants.

In the 20^th century, support for the concept of international humanitarian law gained momentum as a reaction to the brutalities of World War I and the atrocities of World War II. In the last decade of the century just past, efforts to expand the scope and step up the implementation of international humanitarian law gathered pace and acquired urgency in the light of three major factors interacting with one another.

The first is the pervasive reach of the media, the rise of the Internet and the growing activism and interconnectivity of civil society - all working together. The second factor is the growing consciousness among people of their common humanity and, therefore, of the existence of universal moral norms arising from human nature itself and applicable to all human persons. And the third is the persistent work of international institutions like the International Committee of the Red Cross and of the United Nations and its agencies.

People’s humanitarian impulse with respect to armed conflict has been intensified by the entry into the world’s living rooms of images, in living color, of rotting corpses, starving babies, stumps of limbs hacked off or blasted away, streams of desperate refugees, the physical and human devastation. Graphic descriptions and passionate advocacy on the Internet have had the same effect. Non-governmental organizations that have taken upon themselves the cause of the victims of atrocities have mastered the art of getting media attention and the skill to use the Internet.

All this has sharpened many people’s awareness of their solidarity with one another, of the humanity that they share. If people are all equally human, certain moral norms, norms of universal justice, apply to them all. It is called law, because it applies objectively to all. It is humanitarian, because its basis is the very nature of human beings. And it is international, because it transcends national boundaries.

It was this sharpened awareness that stirred the international community’s concern over the human impact of recent events in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Kosovo, in Sierra Leone, in Rwanda, in Somalia - with varying reactions and degrees of success. In Southeast Asia, it is what keeps alive the humanitarian issues left over from past conflicts - the comfort women, the use of barbaric weapons in Vietnam, genocide in Cambodia.

The work of the UN and its agencies and of other international bodies like the ICRC has grown in importance with their role in expanding, by practical means, the scope and application of international humanitarian law. This endeavor has gained legitimacy to the extent that international institutions pursue the ideal while concentrating on measures that are within the realm of the possible.

Some of the international institutions’ more recent successes have been the convention to ban anti-personnel land mines and the establishment of international criminal tribunals to bring to justice perpetrators of genocide and other crimes against humanity.

In 1996, the International Court of Justice rendered its historic Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. In that opinion, the Court declared that the use of, or the threat to use, such weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law on armed conflict, particularly international humanitarian law. All ASEAN states supported the move to bring this issue before the Court, and three ASEAN members - Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines - appeared before the Court to argue on behalf of the proposition that using or threatening to use nuclear weapons is illegal. ASEAN states continue to highlight the Court’s opinion at the UN General Assembly.

In the same spirit, ASEAN has concluded a treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone, which is now in effect. ASEAN is currently consulting with the nuclear-weapon states on the terms of the latter’s accession to the protocol to the treaty.

The Prevalence of Internal Conflict

There is an added dimension to the concept and application of international humanitarian law today. This is the fact that most of the conflicts that have taken place in the past decade and are likely to take place in the foreseeable future are conflicts internal to present-day nation-states rather than wars between states.

The prevalence of internal conflict in the recent and contemporary history of warfare has pricked the conscience of humanity with a new sharpness. In inter-state conflicts, armies inflict death, injury and suffering on each other, and if, in the process, civilians and other non-combatants get in the way and get killed or maimed, well, a lot of people think, that is the nature of war. Moreover, in the case of inter-state warfare, the impact of mutual atrocities on human beings’ capacity for outrage is often blunted by national loyalty and patriotism. Yet, even in the case of inter-state conflicts, attempts have been made - notably through the Geneva Conventions - to infuse some degree of humaneness in the conduct of war.

However, atrocities committed by governments and insurgents against their own people, particularly as vividly dramatized by today’s media, intensify in people the impulse to protect the innocent from such atrocities and, if possible, to deter governments and rebels alike from perpetrating them and thus prevent their recurrence.

Today, this has involved the controversial issue of humanitarian intervention.

The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, in his Report to the Millennium Assembly, states: “Humanitarian intervention is a sensitive issue, fraught with political difficulty and not susceptible to easy answers. But surely no legal principle - not even sovereignty - can ever shield crimes against humanity. Where such crimes occur and peaceful attempts to halt them have been exhausted, the Security Council has a moral duty to act on behalf of the international community. The fact that we cannot protect people everywhere is no reason for doing nothing when we can. Armed intervention must always remain the option of last resort, but in the face of mass murder it is an option that cannot be relinquished.”

As Kofi Annan says, “no legal principle - not even sovereignty - can ever shield crimes against humanity.” This is true, but sovereignty remains vitally important. Rogues and villains have used state sovereignty to shield themselves and their crimes. But, in a world of nation-states, a world without world government, the sovereignty of nations serves also as an essential and legitimate shield, a shield especially for weak states to protect themselves from domination by the strong.

In today’s world, then, the expansion and application of international humanitarian law has to take into account the need for a delicate balance between the concept of inherent human rights and dignity on the one hand and the essential nature of state sovereignty on the other. Both are parts of international law.

Moreover, in carrying out humanitarian intervention, care must be taken that the intervention itself does not result in other violations of human rights and in the greater suffering of larger numbers of people. Humanitarian intervention must not inflict larger damage on human beings in the longer term, or in harm greater than the evil whose end is being sought.

Our objective should be threefold. One is to enhance the capacity of the UN and other legitimate international bodies, including regional organizations, to expand the scope of international humanitarian law and strengthen its application. The second is to cooperate as closely and as broadly as possible with the international institutions in this task, ensuring that “humanitarian intervention” is not carried out merely in the pursuit of national policy objectives. And the third is to make sure that the measures taken to apply international humanitarian law are effective and proportionate to their specific objective and that they result in an improvement in the lives of the great proportion of the people concerned and for the fairly long term. The intended cure must not be worse than the disease.

Regional seminars such as this should help advance our thinking on these issues, issues that call for the utmost perspicacity, sophistication, diplomacy and good sense. Above all, they demand genuine compassion and sincerity of purpose truly in the cause of our common humanity.