The peace agreement initiated the ending of war and violence which had denied human security to Cambodians for nearly three decades. It remained to be seen whether it would bring human security in the broader sense as defined by the UNDP in 1994. This chapter has so far demonstrated that human security was compromised in a variety of ways by the militarisation of society, international and state security policies and practice, and by the very conditions experienced in refugee and other camps. Using a human security approach has shown that human security is not automatically provided by humanitarian organisations establishing refugee and other camps in conflict situations, nor by the provision of humanitarian aid more generally. Nor can it be assumed that human security is achieved by a negotiated peace and democratic electoral processes.
What has also been highlighted in this section is the failure of the UN Security Council to engage with the global and human security concerns presented by the situation in Cambodia. Key to the Security Council’s inability to act were the power
of veto held by the permanent members; its inability to define its responsibilities in the face of gross human rights abuses by Pol Pot; and its overriding state focus which concentrated its attention on the Vietnamese intervention. These are fundamental problems which have present-day parallels in deliberations of situations such as Dafur, Burma and Zimbabwe and in discussions on Security Council reform. Inclusion of the veto was controversial and opposed by many delegates at the time of the negotiation of the Charter but it was non-negotiable for the five permanent members whose agreement to the Charter was fundamental.71 It meant that the realist perspective, which prioritises state security over the rights of individuals, is built into the Security Council charter. It also protected the permanent members’ right to unilateral military action to protect their own security interests – a right exercised by the US in relation to Vietnam and Cambodia. Proposals for increasing the number of permanent members have also received little support from the current five.
Nevertheless, the UN has been a major forum for the development of normative positions on human rights and the protection of the individual from abuse through its comprehensive covenants and conventions on human rights, refugees, the use of land mines, and other issues.72 However, while these are agreed by world leaders on the international stage, they often remain un-ratified and little respected by governments in practice.73 Thus, Cambodians crossing the Thai border for protection were not considered to be refugees but illegal immigrants. Consequently, the humanitarian organisations such as ICRC, UNHCR and UNICEF were hampered by UN member states in the exercise of their duties towards these people. They were also hampered in bringing humanitarian assistance within Cambodia. Despite the clear concern for human security in its Charter and many conventions addressing the protection of
71 United Nations, "Charter of the United Nations," (United Nations, New York) Article 24.
Early on in its life the Security Council had shown its limitations in the case of Korea which had led the US to pursue its objective of UN sanctioned war against North Korea through the General Assembly. See United Nations, "Uniting for Peace Resolution," (United Nations General Assembly: 1950).
72 MacFarlane and Yuen Foong Khong, Human Security and the UN: A Critical History, 61-
106. There is an extensive list of human rights instruments including declarations, covenants, protocols, conventions, principles and guidelines available on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights web site at www2.ohchr.org/english/law/index.htm#instruments.
73 The US, China and Russia have, for example, refused to sign or ratify the treaty banning land
mines on national security grounds. The UK, France and nearly all other developed countries have ratified the treaty.
individuals and groups, membership of the UN imposes few if any obligations on its members.
What is evident is that the normative regimes do not protect people unless they are implemented by states, and enforcement by the international community is extremely difficult, even if there is the will. The ICISS report has made a series of recommendations, and the Secretary General’s High Level Panel, and the Secretary General himself have also addressed the issue, and proposed guidelines for the Security Council in considering intervention in humanitarian crises.74
From the perspective of its narrow definition, conflict resolution and an end to war and related violence should see an end to human security concerns as responsibility for the welfare of individuals transfers to the international domain of human rights and human development. I have argued, however, for a broad human security approach which harnesses human rights and human development to achieve a common human security objective. This sets the stage for my case study in the next chapter which explores the application of the broad approach to human security in contemporary rural Cambodia. Thus, it is necessary here not only to summarise the implementation of the peace agreement, but also to understand the institutional framework and culture existing in Cambodia on the arrival of UNTAC.
In the following section, therefore, I digress briefly and return to the devastated country inherited from Pol Pot in 1979 to describe the reconstitution and operation of the institutions of state under the Heng Samrin regime. The reconstruction of the institutions also illustrates how former patterns of administrative behaviour re- emerge and persist in the subsequent process of internationally sponsored democratic state building from 1991, and, as will be shown in the next chapter, with a strong impact on human security. Therefore, the following section discusses state rebuilding and its effect on human security from 1979 to 1991 before returning to the implementation of the peace agreement and development approaches established under international donor influence.
74 See United Nations, "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility," (Report of the
Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, United Nations, 2004), 67; and ICISS, "The Responsibility to Protect."