HUMAN RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC SANCTIONS IN IRAQ

Transcription

1 1 HUMAN RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC SANCTIONS IN IRAQ Ramon Das It has become common to invoke the concept of human rights in a wide range of discussions of global injustices. Doubtless this concept is better suited to some of these injustices than it is to others. There can be no doubt, however, that it is centrally important to any assessment of the adverse effects of economic sanctions, which have emerged as one of the preferred methods of international governance in the last fifteen years or so. In this essay I shall examine the connection between human rights and economic sanctions by looking very closely at the case of Iraq, a country that has been the target of comprehensive multilateral sanctions since August Much has been written about this case, and it is by now fairly widely recognised that Iraqi civilians, particularly young children, have suffered grievously under the sanctions of the last twelve years. I shall briefly argue below that such suffering constitutes a serious abuse of human rights. There is, of course, some disagreement about what role economic sanctions have played in such human rights abuses, and considerable disagreement about who is morally responsible for them. My main focus shall be on this last question. My thesis is that it is the UN Security Council (UNSC) that bears considerable, if not primary, moral responsibility for the human rights violations of Iraqi civilians. 1 This is not to excuse the Iraqi government or Saddam Hussein, as I shall have occasion to indicate below. But primary responsibility rests with the UNSC, a conclusion that holds, I shall argue, when tested against any of the most widely accepted ethical frameworks for thinking about such questions. 1 For the purposes of this essay I shall simply assume, without argument, that the United States has a decisive influence on UNSC sanctions policy toward Iraq. Although I shall mostly refer to the UNSC, I shall sometimes speak interchangeably of the United States and UNSC as agents in this regard, particularly in Part IV Economic Sanctions and UNSC Intentions. Certainly the moral conclusions reached in this paper apply, a fortiori, to the United States.

2 2 Human Rights Research As I write, young children are dying in Iraq from lack of clean water, basic medical care, and food. They join the ranks of countless others under the age of five who have died from similar causes since the UNSC imposed comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq in August Estimates of the excess number of deaths of children during these twelve years range from around 250,000 to well over 1,000, A plausible estimate at the present time is that some 600,000 children under the age of five have died, with the total number of excess civilian deaths exceeding 1,000, These are, however, only the most tangible aspects of the tragedy occurring in Iraq. Some 500,000 Iraqi children suffer from acute malnutrition; additionally, 1,000,000 children are chronically malnourished. 4 Malaria, virtually eradicated before the imposition of sanctions, has increased twenty fold since 1989, and in the last few years rare forms of cancer have been showing up with alarming frequency in Iraqi hospitals. 5 On even the most conservative of estimates and optimistic of outlooks, there is an appalling and ongoing humanitarian tragedy in Iraq, one that shows little sign of ending soon. 2 That is, the number of deaths above what would normally be expected for Iraq during this period, a calculation that takes into account the death rate of underfives in the years previous to At the low end of the spectrum, an April 1999 study by Columbia University epidemiologist Richard Garfield estimates 227,000 excess under five deaths from , based on 1995 United Nations data: Richard Garfield Morbidity and Mortality of Iraqi Children from 1990 through 1998: Assessing the Impact of the Gulf War and Economic Sanctions (1999) < societies/casi/info/garfield/dr garfield.html> (last accessed 8 September 2003). An August 1999 United Nations UNICEF report estimates the figure at that time to be around 500,000: United Nations UNICEF Report of the Results of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Surveys (1999) < newsline/99pr29.htm> (last accessed 8 September 2003). In February 1999, former United Nations Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, who served as Humanitarian Coordinator of the oil for food program in Iraq until he resigned in protest in December 1998, put the figure near 600,000: Matthew Rothschild Interview with Denis Halliday (1999) 63 The Progressive 26. The Government of Iraq estimates excess child deaths for this period at over 1,000,000: Geoff Simons The Scourging of Iraq (2 ed, Macmillan Press, London, 1998) 214. Both the United Nations report, above, and Rothschild, above, put the total number of excess civilian deaths (all ages) during this period at well over one million. 4 United Nations UNICEF, above. 5 Geoff Simons Iraq: Who s To Blame (1999) The Link published by Americans for Middle East Understanding.

3 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 3 I shall assume, along with virtually everyone who has written about the matter, that there is an important sense in which the Iraqi crisis is occurring as a result of the economic sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. 6 Moreover, there has been since 1991 very good evidence that the sanctions in the wake of the devastation wrought by the Gulf War were producing and would continue to produce these kinds of tragic effects. 7 Thus, I assume both that there is a causal connection between the imposition of the sanctions and the deaths of Iraqi children and that those imposing the sanctions have known about this connection for more than a decade. Taken together, these facts are amply sufficient to support an attribution of moral responsibility, if not to those imposing the sanctions then to some other party. In particular, I wish to address two related questions. First, what responsibility does the UNSC bear for the ongoing death and suffering in Iraq? Second, isn t such responsibility properly attributed to Saddam Hussein? I shall examine these questions in the light of various and widely accepted moral considerations, philosophical as well as commonsensical. One comment is in order at this point. Considerations of motive and intention are of obvious importance to moral judgement; for many philosophers and laypersons such considerations are paramount. Notoriously, however, it is very difficult to be sure of any agent s motives, a difficulty that is compounded when the agent in question is a state or supra national entity such as the UNSC. Accordingly, in most of what follows I shall make as few assumptions about motives and intentions as possible. If anything, I shall assume that the motives of the UNSC are benign, since I believe that my thesis holds even given this assumption. It is not until Section 4 that I shall raise some questions about the assumption. 6 Admittedly, some would qualify this statement by claiming that the true cause of the crisis is not the imposition of sanctions itself, but rather Saddam Hussein s obstruction of the United Nation s weapons inspectors and/or its accompanying oil for food program. I address these claims below in Part III Saddam s Fault, Not Ours. 7 See particularly several United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents discussed in Thomas J Nagy The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the US Intentionally Destroyed Iraq s Water Supply (2001) The Progressive < (last accessed 8 September 2003). One of these documents, Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities (22 January 1991) emphasizes Iraq s dependence on importation of water purification chemicals, noting that failing to secure these could lead to increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease.

4 4 Human Rights Research My hope is that doing so at that stage will be less implausible than doing so at the outset. 1 Rights and Human Rights: A Basic Framework I shall adopt a conception of rights defended by Judith Jarvis Thomson. 8 According to this conception, at least some rights are claims that persons have on others to do or not to do certain things. What this means is that such rights are the correlatives of duties, in the following sense: If X has a claim against Y that some state of affairs obtain (eg that X not be harmed), then Y has a duty that is discharged just in case that state of affairs does obtain. In short, to say that X has a right (ie a claim) implies that Y has a corresponding duty. We need not suppose that rights, understood as claims, are indefeasible. There may be circumstances in which violating someone s rights is morally justified, particularly if doing so is the only way to prevent a greater violation of the rights of others. But rights as claims impose a heavy burden on anyone (or any state) that would violate them. In particular, they may not be overridden merely by an appeal to the greater good (contra utilitarianism), but (arguably) only in the case just mentioned: where violating someone s rights is the only way to prevent a much greater number of like violations. What, then, of human rights? Not all rights are claims in the sense defined, but basic human rights most certainly are. For present purposes, we may assume that these rights make claims (impose obligations) upon states. First, as set out in Article 3, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person. Second, as set out in Article 25, (a) everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate to the well being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care; and (b) motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. Given these two rights, and given the facts about the suffering of Iraqi children briefly set out above, it is evident that there has been a massive violation of the basic human rights of Iraqi children in the last twelve years. It follows from our account of rights that some party (or parties) has been grossly derelict in its duties. The purpose of this paper is to establish which party that is; as advertised, I shall argue that it is (primarily) the UNSC. I turn now to showing the inadequacy of the various arguments that would deny this thesis. 8 Judith Jarvis Thomson The Realm of Rights (Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Mass), 1990).

5 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 5 2 The Utilitarianism of Rights Argument There are two main arguments given by those who deny that the UNSC is morally culpable with respect to human rights violations in Iraq. The first we may describe, following Nozick, 9 as a utilitarianism of rights : although there have been human rights violations, perhaps on a large scale, such violations have been necessary to prevent an even greater number of like violations. Although this rights utilitarian argument is rarely stated explicitly, there can be little doubt that something like it is tacitly held by many persons who have not given much thought to the UNSC sanctions against Iraq. So it is worthwhile to consider the more common forms that the argument has taken. First, it is argued that the sanctions are justified because they are necessary to contain Saddam Hussein, either because of the threat he poses to the human rights of his own people, or to others. It is very difficult to find anything to say in favour of the first version of this argument. This is because it is clear that nothing Saddam has done to his own people, even the repeated gassing of Iraqi Kurds in 1988, begins to compare in scale to the human rights violations that the UN sanctions regime has caused in Iraq over the last twelve years. One might try to argue, counterfactually, that had sanctions not been imposed, then what Saddam would have done to his own people would be even worse than the effects of the sanctions. However, there seems to be little if any reason to believe this, 10 so we may turn to the second version. This holds that Saddam poses an especially perhaps uniquely serious threat to the human rights of people in the region and/or the wider world, and that comprehensive economic sanctions have been necessary to contain him. Presumably, this was a part of the original stated reason behind the imposition of sanctions, namely, to compel Iraq s forces to withdraw from Kuwait. That objective itself has obviously ceased to be a plausible 9 Robert Nozick Anarchy, State and Utopia (Basic Books, New York, 1974). 10 And some independent reason to doubt it: before the Gulf War, Iraq had perhaps the best health system in the Middle East, as well as one of the highest literacy rates. See Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck A New Iraq Policy: What About International Law and Compassion? (May 2001) < ccpi/sponeck halliday.htm> (last accessed 8 September 2003).

6 6 Human Rights Research justification for sanctions since the end of the Gulf War, not to mention the fact that sanctions were deemed insufficient means to that end at the time. 11 In any case, the most plausible variant of the rights utilitarian argument for the last several years has been, roughly, that sanctions are justified by their utility in denying Iraq the capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD), since these could possibly lead to incalculable devastation. It is important, first, to distinguish this argument from a similar one that attempts to justify sanctions based on their utility in weakening or deposing Saddam himself. Indeed, there is some reason to think that it is the latter, not the former, argument that has actually motivated those responsible for imposing the sanctions. During the Clinton administration, top US officials stated on a number of occasions that the sanctions would remain in place until Saddam Hussein was out of office, regardless of Iraq s compliance on the weapons issue. President Clinton himself, in November 1997, stated that, Sanctions will be there until the end of time, or at least until he [Saddam Hussein] lasts. 12 Again quoting Madeleine Albright, We do not agree with those nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted 13 Current US Secretary of State Colin Powell has, it is true, backed away from this view, acknowledging that it is not part of the official purpose of the UN sanctions to overthrow Saddam s regime. However, he has asserted that such an overthrow is a part of US policy toward Iraq, based on the idea that, We advocate that the country would be better off without this regime. 14 Indeed, this sort of statement is now heard nearly every day as the current American administration apparently plans another major assault on Iraq as the second phase of its war on terrorism. Such statements strongly suggest that it is dissatisfaction with Saddam himself, rather than Iraq s capacity to manufacture weapons of mass destruction per se, that has been a 11 Recall that the first Bush administration deemed comprehensive sanctions ineffective as a means of forcing Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait, leading to the Persian Gulf War. 12 Quoted by Barbara Crossette For Iraq, A Doghouse with Many Rooms (23 November 1997) New York Times New York C At a symposium on Iraq at Georgetown University in March 1997: cited in Geoff Simons The Scourging of Iraq (2 ed, Macmillan Press, London, 1998) See Phillis Bennis Some Preliminary Assessments of Colin Powell s New Iraq Proposals < (last accessed 8 September 2003).

7 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 7 major factor behind the continued imposition of sanctions. I call attention to these statements, mainly to point out that a rights utilitarian argument that attempts to justify sanctions with reference to their utility in weakening and/or deposing Saddam s regime faces extremely dim prospects. If there is one claim on which virtually all commentators on the sanctions seem to agree, it is that comprehensive economic sanctions have only strengthened Saddam s hold on power in Iraq over the last twelve years. 15 Accordingly, I won t pursue this argument any further. Returning to the rights utilitarian argument based on WMD, its soundness does not of course depend on whether public officials believe or endorse it. Yet the argument itself seems unlikely to be sound, for two reasons. First, it is far from clear that fears about Iraq s WMD are warranted. Second, and more importantly, it is doubtful that comprehensive economic sanctions are the best way indeed, doubtful that they are even a very good way from the standpoint of overall protection of human rights to contain Saddam and prevent the spread of such weapons if indeed Iraq possesses them. Consider the first claim. In an October 1999 interview, former UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspector Scott Ritter stated that, From a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has been disarmed. Iraq today possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction. 16 More recently, he has noted that, There is a substantial lack of clarity and credible sources on the actual nature of the Iraqi threat. 17 In March 2001, US Vice President Dick Cheney stated, We don t believe [Saddam] is a significant military threat today we want to make sure he does not become one in the future. 18 It appears 15 This was, in fact, recognized virtually from the beginning of the sanctions regime. Testifying before Congress in 1990, then CIA director William Webster stated that [o]ur judgment has been and continues to be that there is no assurance or guarantee that economic hardships will compel Saddam to change his policies or lead to internal unrest that would threaten his regime : Peter L Pellett Sanctions, Food, Nutrition, and Health in Iraq in Anthony Arnove (ed) Iraq Under Siege (South End Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2000) Fellowship of Reconciliation: Interview with Scott Ritter (1999) 65 Fellowship Scott Ritter Iraq: The Phantom Threat (23 January 2002) Christian Science Monitor < (last accessed 18 September 2003). 18 In an interview with CNN on 4 March 2001: cited in Phillis Bennis Some Preliminary Assessments of Colin Powell s New Iraq Proposals < (last accessed 8 September 2003).

8 8 Human Rights Research that Iraq has not possessed weapons of mass destruction for many years, if it ever did in viable form. This is an empirical claim, of course, and one that would be very difficult to settle conclusively. One point, however, is worth making. It is one thing to try to eliminate Iraq s existing weapons of mass destruction. It is quite another to try to eliminate Iraq s capacity to manufacture WMD. Evidently, this latter goal will be achieved completely only after all of the material and intellectual capital of the country has been eliminated, ie when the country has been destroyed and all of its people killed. Doubtless this is not anyone s actual intention; my point, rather, is that those who maintain (and those who accept) that a legitimate goal of sanctions is to eliminate Iraq s capacity to manufacture WMD leave open the possibility that sanctions may be imposed indefinitely, since the stated goal cannot be achieved short of annihilating the country. Unfortunately, the record suggests that Iraq has effectively been held to this second, manifestly unreasonable standard. 19 In any case, I doubt that the rights utilitarian argument under consideration hinges on whether or not Iraq in fact possesses WMD: the argument seems unlikely to succeed even on the assumption that it does. Suppose, then, that Iraq does/did at one point possess such weapons, supposing as well that such weapons pose(d) a human rights threat on the order commonly claimed. Could this alleged fact justify, on rights utilitarian grounds, sanctions that have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children? Bear in mind that utilitarianism is standardly taken to require that an agent choose the best of those acts available to her at the time. A rights utilitarianism such as we are considering would similarly require that an agent choose that act that would (in the present context) minimise the total number of human rights violations. Assuming this requirement to have been met, we would have to conclude that a slow economic strangulation of Iraq, with its attendant and massive human rights violations of Iraqi children, was and remains the most human rights friendly means available to the UNSC of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. But it is extremely hard to see how to defend this claim, given that there seem to be other means available that would achieve this goal with far fewer attendant human rights abuses. One 19 See, for example, George A Lopez and David Cortright Pain and Promise (1998) 54 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 39. As Lopez and Cortright point out, there have been virtually no carrots offered by the UNSC in reward for Iraqi cooperation and progress regarding the United Nations weapons inspections.

9 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 9 example, surely, would have been long ago to replace comprehensive sanctions with a more limited sanctions regime, which would have targeted Saddam Hussein himself instead of the general population. 20 It should be stressed that a limited option of this sort was available from the very beginning, and that the sanctions against Iraq are historically unprecedented in their comprehensiveness. 21 Even if the nature of the Iraqi threat did justify an experiment with truly comprehensive sanctions in August 1990, 22 credible information regarding their devastating effects on the civilian population in the wake of the Gulf War, as well as their failure in weakening Saddam s regime, was available by 1991, if not earlier. 23 It would appear that the rights utilitarian argument under consideration has been unsupportable at least since that time. There are other variants of the rights utilitarian argument that focus on the danger Saddam poses to others, all, to my knowledge, still less plausible than the one just rejected. New ones can always be constructed. Obviously, it is 20 Such limited sanctions should not be confused with the smart sanctions just adopted (May 2002) by the UNSC; these latter face serious ethical challenges themselves, as they would have even ten years ago. Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck, have denounced smart sanctions as a recipe for prolonging the misery of Iraqi civilians; they favor a complete lifting of the sanctions altogether: see Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck A New Iraq Policy: What About International Law and Compassion? (May 2001) < sponeck halliday.htm> (last accessed 8 September 2003). Also see Talking Points on Smart Sanctions < (last accessed 8 September 2003). 21 The relevant precedents, in fact, are not sanctions but actual sieges. See Joy Gordon A Peaceful, Silent, Deadly Remedy: The Ethics of Sanctions (1999) 13 Ethics and International Affairs This is highly doubtful, even given the standard and plausible assumption that Iraq s invasion of Kuwait constituted a serious breach of international norms of behaviour. One needs only to consider the United States invasion of Panama the previous year, condemned by the General Assembly of the United Nations by a vote of 141 to 3, yet (of course) resulting in no sanctions at all against the United States, to be led to the conclusion that the vastly different punishments meted out by the United Nations Security Council corresponded very little to normatively relevant differences between the two invasions and very much to vast differences in military and economic power between the two invading countries. 23 Thomas J Nagy The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the US Intentionally Destroyed Iraq s Water Supply (2001) The Progressive < progressive.org./0801issue/nagy0901.htm> (last accessed 8 September 2003).

10 10 Human Rights Research not possible to consider them all, nor would there be any point in trying to do so. I have here tried to consider those rights utilitarian arguments that sanctions are justified by their utility in weakening Saddam and in preventing him from developing WMD that seem on the surface to be the most plausible, and to show that even these are not very plausible. I do not claim, of course, to have shown this conclusively. In the present context, however, it is not clear what significance this concession has, unless we are prepared to reject all utilitarian arguments on the grounds that they are ultimately inconclusive. In practice, any utilitarian argument can be made only more or less plausible, and the same can be said of any critique on similar grounds. The salient point is that there appears to be no good reason to think that the imposition of comprehensive economic sanctions has been an effective means much less the best means to eliminating Iraq s alleged WMD Saddam s Fault, Not Ours The second main argument used by those who deny or minimise the UNSC s moral responsibility for the human rights abuses of Iraqi children is that Saddam Hussein bears responsibility for these abuses, not (or not primarily) the UNSC. Again, there are a number of variants. I shall limit myself here to the two that are most common. The first is based on the claim that the true cause of the suffering of Iraqi children is Saddam s refusal to fully comply with UNSC weapon inspectors. The second proceeds from the claim that Saddam has deliberately obstructed the UNSC s oil for food program, designed to eliminate sanctions caused civilian suffering in Iraq. Both of these views are widely held. George Lopez and David Cortright s assessment is typical: Responsibility for [civilian suffering in Iraq] rests primarily with Saddam Hussein for his continued defiance of the Security 24 One argument that I have encountered is that economic sanctions may be justified on the grounds that they have prevented Iraq from waging another war like the one it fought against Iran during the 1980s, which left millions dead. Again, although it is possible that objectively this turns out to be right, it is not clear that this possibility counts for anything. In response, one might point out that even if the argument does turn out to be sound, there is little if any reason to think that Western leaders were ever moved by it in formulating their policy toward Iraq. Keeping to the American case, United States officials evidenced no such concern in continuing to provide arms (including chemical and biological weapons) to Iraq during the Iran Iraq war, to make no mention of other facts highly relevant to any assessment of United States intentions.

11 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 11 Council and obstruction of the oil for food program. 25 neither of these claims can be sustained. 3.1 Saddam and the UNSC weapons inspections I shall argue that The argument examined in Section 2 used the issue of weapons of mass destruction to try to justify the UNSC sanctions on rights utilitarian grounds. I now consider an argument that tries to exploit the weapons issue in a different way. This argument holds that it is Saddam Hussein s refusal to fully comply with UNSC weapons inspectors that is the true cause of the deaths of Iraqi children; thus that it is he and not (primarily) the UNSC who is morally responsible for those deaths. As before, I shall grant the empirical claim that Iraq possesses such weapons, even though the evidence is at best unclear on this matter. I shall also grant the claim that if Saddam would fully comply with the weapons inspectors then the sanctions would be lifted, although there is good reason to doubt this as well, as we have seen. Even granting these claims, the argument cannot be sustained, on any plausible moral framework. However, the issues are somewhat complicated, and they are easiest to evaluate if we consider an analogous case at the level of individual morality. 26 Suppose that two neighbors, John and Bill, are involved in a dispute over Bill s use of weed killing chemicals on his lawn. John contends that the chemicals seriously threaten his family s health, but Bill maintains that the weed killer is harmful only to weeds. One day John sees Bill preparing once again to spray his lawn with weed killer, and decides he s had enough. Grabbing his rifle, he runs out of the house, threatening to shoot Bill if he doesn t agree to stop using the chemicals. Terrified, Bill flees into his house. John chases after him, but Bill escapes into his basement, just managing to secure the door behind him. John yells through the door that he can wait, and that unless Bill agrees to his terms he s a dead man as soon as he comes out. As it happens, Bill s three foster children have been playing in the basement, and they are now trapped down there with him. Bill informs John of this indeed, John can hear the children s voices but this does not weaken his resolve. There is little food in the basement, and just enough water for one 25 George A Lopez and David Cortright Pain and Promise (1998) 54 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Criticisms of an earlier and very different example by Sam Kerstein and Dave Lefkowitz have helped me in constructing this example.

12 12 Human Rights Research person to survive for a week again, facts of which Bill informs John. Thinking of his own life first, Bill keeps the water to himself. When the police arrive a few days later, the foster children are all dead, but Bill is fine. Questioned by the police, John claims that it is not he, but Bill, who is responsible for their deaths, since they would still be alive if only Bill had agreed to stop using the weed killer. Bill, of course, has a different story to tell. Astonishingly, the police release both men, on the grounds that it cannot be proved that either intended the deaths of the children. Bill, dim as well as callous, subsequently adopts more foster children and resumes his use of the weed killer; and the scene just described recurs month after month, for years. Each time, John tells the police the same story: it is not he, but Bill, who is responsible for the children s deaths, since they would be alive if only Bill would stop using the weed killer. First, a word about the example, which in certain respects may differ from (or fail to capture) the real world case it is meant to illuminate. In particular, it is tempting to focus on the question of John and Bill s respective motives (about which the example is mostly silent), as well as their past track records (about which the example says nothing). Undoubtedly these differences are potentially morally significant, and some readers will be led by this observation to conclude that the example is of limited value in assessing the moral issues at stake. I have two points to make in response. First, the complaint that the example does not touch upon the issues of motive or track record cuts both ways. Many will point out, plausibly, that the characterisation of Bill s behaviour fails to reflect Saddam s vicious record before 1990 as well as his (presumably) bad motives. Yet a good case can be made, for example, that the US record on this score is also hardly above criticism, particularly, in this context, US complicity in Saddam s crimes prior to August As noted 27 According to Phyllis Bennis, the United States sold biological and chemical weapons to Iraq throughout the 1980s, continuing even after Saddam ordered that Kurds be gassed at Halabja in She cites in particular the American Type Culture Collection outside Washington DC as one company that provided, under contracts approved by the United States Commerce Department, the biological weapons materials necessary to make anthrax, E coli, botulism, and a host of other terrible biological diseases. See David Barsamian Iraq: The Impact of Sanctions and US Policy (interview with Phyllis Bennis and Denis Halliday) in Anthony Arnove (ed) Iraq Under Siege (South End Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2000) 39 and sources cited therein.

13 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 13 above, I have tried to make as few assumptions about motive and intention as possible, on either side. Second, and more important, the force of the example, in illuminating the argument under consideration, does not depend on considerations of motive or past track record. In particular, neither Saddam s motives, nor his record prior to 1990, are relevant to assessing the force of the argument that because he has obstructed the UN weapons inspectors, he and not the UNSC is the true cause of, hence bears responsibility for, the suffering of Iraqi civilians. Notice that this argument rests essentially on causal considerations occurring within a given time frame: to assess the argument we do not need to know what happened prior to that time frame, nor what motivation lay behind actions occurring within it. What we need to know, roughly, is who or what is the (true or proximate) cause of human rights violations associated with economic sanctions against Iraq. I now turn to the example itself. Specifically, I shall address John s claim that Bill bears responsibility for the deaths of his step children, not John. I shall do so by briefly considering what some well known approaches to ethical questions might say about this claim, with the aim of showing that on none of them is it at all plausible. For starters, consider commonsense morality, which it seems clear regards John s claim as untenable. If Bill could indeed have saved his foster children by agreeing to John s terms, then undoubtedly he bears some responsibility for their deaths, but even if this is the case it hardly excuses what John has done. Even if John s goal of preventing Bill from using weed killer is perfectly legitimate, it is very hard to see how this justifies the means he employs in the example. Surely, one is tempted to say, there are other, better ways for John to prevent Bill from using the weed killer not excluding ways that involve the use or threat of physical force that do not involve lethally harming Bill s step children. This claim is analogous, of course, to the claim that there are (morally preferable) alternatives to the UNSC s imposition of comprehensive sanctions against Iraq with their attendant lethal effects on Iraqi children in order for it to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Iraq s weapons of mass destruction. It also seems clear that moral Kantians will reject John s claim, particularly as time goes on and his (presumed) claim not to intend the children s deaths becomes progressively less believable in the light of his past track record. In that case, it seems that John has a perfect or exceptionless duty not to intentionally threaten Bill, one that does not depend on what Bill does or fails

14 14 Human Rights Research to do. For instance, assuming that John cannot reasonably disclaim intending the children s deaths, a Kantian will surely hold that John s moral responsibility for those deaths is in no way lessened by the fact that Bill failed to intervene in a way that, John alleges, would have caused him to act differently. If, on the other hand, John s presumed claim not to intend the children s deaths can be sustained, then some Kantians may try to invoke the doctrine of double effect (DDE), morally distinguishing consequences that are intended from those that are (merely) foreseeable. Specifically, some Kantians will be tempted to claim that John cannot be blamed for the children s deaths since he does not intend them, even if they can be reliably foreseen. Now, DDE is a controversial doctrine to begin with; many philosophers reject it altogether. However, any minimally plausible version of DDE will include what Michael Walzer has called a double intention requirement: not only must an agent not intend the foreseeable bad or evil effect, he must seek to minimize it, accepting costs to himself. 28 And it is clear that John s behaviour fails to meet this requirement, for reasons essentially the same as those we encountered in the commonsense argument above. Even if John s aim is legitimate and achievable, there are other ways of resolving his dispute with Bill that do not involve lethally harming Bill s step children; hence John fails to minimise the foreseeable evil effects of his action. Again, an analogous claim applies to the actions of the UNSC with respect to the sanctions caused deaths of Iraqi children, for reasons essentially similar to those provided in the rights utilitarian argument in Section 2. Even if the UNSC s aims in imposing sanctions are legitimate, there are clearly other means of achieving those aims that are/have been available and that do not involve causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. If so, the UNSC s actions fail to meet Walzer s double intention requirement, and cannot be justified by DDE. 28 Michael Walzer Just and Unjust Wars (Basic Books, New York, 1977) 155. The double intention requirement for DDE is much stronger than the more familiar proportionality requirement, which holds (merely) that an act s foreseeable bad effect must not be disproportionate to its intended good effect. It is clear that the former requirement is much more in keeping with the spirit of a Kantian moral framework one that is usually taken, after all, to prohibit the using of others as mere means than the latter requirement, which provides no more protection to innocents than does utilitarianism, and is, in fact, a much weaker requirement overall.

15 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 15 Regarding Bill s moral responsibility, this is perhaps more difficult for a Kantian to determine. At the very least, he has some manner of imperfect or discretionary duty in respect of his foster children s welfare. Yet it seems clear that whatever Bill s responsibility, it is not as serious as John s, regardless, as we have just seen, of whether John intends the children s deaths or not. Analogously, whatever a Kantian would say about Saddam s moral responsibility for the deaths of Iraqi children, it is pretty clearly less serious than the UNSC s, again, regardless of its intentions concerning those deaths. On a Kantian analysis, in short, a strong case can be made that the UNSC bears primary responsibility for the sanctions caused deaths of Iraqi children regardless of how the question of intention is settled. What, then, would a consequentialist say about this case? She will, of course, offer a different evaluation of Bill s behaviour, and likewise about Saddam s with respect to the UNSC weapons inspectors, given our assumptions. On standard interpretations of consequentialism, an agent is responsible not only for what he (actually) does, but for what he could do but fails to do. If Bill could save his step children by agreeing to John s terms, then he is morally responsible for their deaths if he does not agree. Likewise, if Saddam could end the suffering of his people by fully complying with the UNSC weapons inspectors, then he is morally responsible for their suffering to the extent that he does not comply. Arguably, this constitutes an important difference from the Kantian approach when considering this example. However, a consequentialist is highly unlikely to hold John or the UNSC any less morally responsible for their respective acts. The consequence of John s persisting in his threat to kill Bill, until Bill capitulates, is that Bill s foster children will continue to starve to death. The consequence after twelve years of evidence of the UNSC maintaining comprehensive sanctions against Iraq is that thousands of children will continue to die each month. From a consequentialist standpoint, these are the relevant moral facts for John and the UNSC. Thus, given our assumptions a consequentialist would likely hold both the UNSC and Saddam responsible for the death and suffering of Iraqi children. Admittedly, in considering this particular argument it is only from a Kantian perspective that there seems to be a clear basis for saying that the UNSC bears primary responsibility for the deaths of Iraqi children. From a consequentialist perspective the question of apportioning responsibility turns on complicated empirical considerations (consequentialists are generally not very interested in this sort of question anyway), and from the standpoint of

16 16 Human Rights Research commonsense morality it depends on intuitions that are likely to differ. For what it s worth, my intuition is that John bears primary responsibility for the deaths of Bill s step children by virtue of not pursuing other readily available and less deadly means of resolving their dispute. And I am inclined to say something similar with respect to the UNSC s imposition of comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq. 29 In any case, I hope to have shown that the argument from Saddam s alleged failure to comply with UN weapons inspectors provides no apparent basis, either philosophical or in commonsense, for the common claim that Saddam and not the UNSC is morally responsible for the deaths of Iraqi children. Finally, bear in mind that this important conclusion follows even granting the questionable assumption that the sanctions would indeed end if Saddam would fully comply with the UNSC weapons inspectors. Absent that assumption, arguments that attempt to morally excuse the UNSC by pointing to Iraqi recalcitrance on the weapons issue simply collapse. 3.2 Saddam and the oil for food program A second argument used by those who maintain that Saddam Hussein, not (primarily) the UNSC, is morally responsible for the human rights violations of Iraqi children is that although the UNSC has made provisions for the Iraqi people through its oil for food program, Saddam has deliberately blocked the program for propaganda purposes. Allegedly, he has done this by intentionally stockpiling food and medicine intended for Iraqi civilians; the implication is that without such obstruction civilian suffering would largely cease. 30 Again, this claim is widely believed. Its significance is also clear. If, indeed, the UNSC has tried in good faith to implement a humanitarian program that would eliminate human rights violations caused by the imposition of sanctions in Iraq only to be blocked by a recalcitrant Iraqi dictator then it would appear to be exempt from serious moral criticism. 29 Granted, there is a clear sense in which Iraq was the main belligerent as regards its invasion of Kuwait. Remember, however, that the argument under consideration does not rest on concerns about that invasion which no one thinks could justify twelve years of comprehensive sanctions, particularly after the Gulf War but on Saddam s alleged obstruction of the United Nations weapons inspectors. 30 The United States State Department makes this claim in a recent report: United States Department of State Saddam Hussein s Iraq (September 1999, updated March 2000) < obstruction> (last accessed 8 September 2003).

17 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 17 Likewise, if Saddam has deliberately blocked the implementation of the program, either out of malice or for cynical propaganda purposes, then he would seem to bear primary moral responsibility for the human rights violations of Iraqi civilians. I shall now argue that a close look at the evidence reveals that the allegation that the Iraqi government has deliberately blocked the oil for food program simply cannot be sustained. Granted, as with the issue of WMD, this is ultimately an empirical issue that cannot be settled definitively. In this case, however, the information that comes from the most knowledgeable observers on the ground leaves very little room for doubt. In particular, I shall rely heavily on the testimony of two recent coordinators of the oil for food program itself, both of whom resigned in protest. One is Denis Halliday, who was with the UN for thirty four years, rising to the position of Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, until he resigned in February Upon his resignation, he stated: We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and as terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral. Halliday s successor, Hans von Sponeck, resigned two years later, explaining that he could no longer be associated with a program that prolonged the suffering of the Iraqi people and that had no chance of meeting even the basic needs of the civilian population. 31 I turn now to the specific allegations of obstruction. The chief complainant that Iraq has deliberately withheld food from its people is the US State Department, in a report released in September The report apparently bases its claim (it contains no formal references) on data from a UN report on child health and nutrition in Iraq, released the previous month. 33 In particular, it seizes on a discrepancy in infant mortality rates between the three northern governances of Iraq, where the UN administers the oil for 31 Two days after Hans von Sponeck resigned, Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Program in Iraq, also resigned, stating I fully support what Mr von Sponeck is saying : Marc Bossuyt The Adverse Consequences of Economic Sanctions on the Enjoyment of Human Rights (UN Sub Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, June 2000) < (last accessed 8 September 2003). 32 United States Department of State, above. 33 United Nations UNICEF Report of the Results of the 1999 Iraq Child and Maternal Mortality Surveys (1999) < htm> (last accessed 8 September 2003).

18 18 Human Rights Research food program, and fifteen central and southern governances, where Iraq administers it. Apparently, the argument is that Iraq alone is to blame for the comparatively high rates of infant and child mortality in the central and southern parts of the country, since oil for food is evidently working in the northern parts. The argument is sound just in case the explanation for the discrepancy is in fact what the State Department says it is, namely, Iraqi intransigence. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise: there are alternative and more plausible explanations for the discrepancy that undermines the State Department argument. At least, this appears to be the consensus judgement of those working on the ground in Iraq, either with nongovernmental organisations or with the UN itself. 34 The alternative explanations have been outlined by Peter Pellett, who served on three UN Food and Agriculture Organisation missions to Iraq. First, infrastructure for electricity and water sanitation in the south/central governances was destroyed by Gulf War bombing, and Iraq lacks the resources to rebuild it. In the three northern governances, however, such infrastructure was not destroyed during the Gulf War and remains largely intact. Most of the children dying in Iraq today are dying of contaminated water borne diseases such as simple diarrhea and typhoid, not actual starvation. 35 Second, the northern parts of the country, although comprising only about nine percent of the population, contain forty eight percent of Iraq s arable land. Insofar as lack of food has been a factor in increased child mortality in the south/centre, the relevance of this fact is fairly obvious. Third, evading sanctions is easier in the north simply because its borders are more porous. Finally, international donor support has always been much greater in the north. 34 See Peter L Pellett Sanctions, Food, Nutrition, and Health in Iraq in Anthony Arnove (ed) Iraq Under Siege (South End Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2000); Peter L Pellett Voices in the Wilderness Myths and Realities Regarding Iraq and Sanctions in Anthony Arnove (ed) Iraq Under Siege (South End Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2000); Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck A New Iraq Policy: What About International Law and Compassion? (May 2001) < halliday.htm> (last accessed 8 September 2003). Significantly, the United Nations Report on which the State Department s claim is supposedly based does not itself endorse or support the claim. See United Nations UNICEF, above. 35 See Interview with Denis Halliday (March 2002) Salon Magazine < (last accessed 8 September 2003). As noted, the United States knew about these effects as early as 1991.

19 Human Rights and Economic Sanctions in Iraq 19 Pellett cites data from September 1996 as typical. In that month, UNICEFprocured supplies amounted to US$528,063 [in the north], with only US$212,527 delivered in south central Iraq. Given the population disparity of 2.9 million in the north versus 17.7 million in the south, this amounts to a per capita aid difference of US$0.18 versus US$0.01: on average, a person living in the northern governances received eighteen times as much aid as one living in the southern and central governances. 36 These points are emphasised by those who have run oil for food, who make it clear, quite generally, that there is no good evidence that the Iraqi government has systematically withheld UN food shipments from its people. According to Halliday, The Secretary General [of the UN, Kofi Annan] has reported repeatedly that there is no evidence that food is being diverted by the government in Baghdad. 37 It is worth noting in this connection that in the years before oil for food, and continuing since then, the Iraqi government was/is distributing food to its population. In 1995, a UN Food and Agriculture Report stated: The food basket supplied through the rationing system is a life saving nutritional benefit which also represents a very substantial income subsidy to Iraqi households. 38 In short, the claim that the Iraqi government has deliberately obstructed food shipments from the UN to the Iraqi people appears to be groundless. Turning to drugs and medical supplies, the situation is only slightly more complicated. Stockpiling of such goods does occur, and is heavily monitored by the UN. However, it is crucially important to understand why this is happening before drawing moral conclusions. Evidently, the Iraqi government cannot be blamed for such stockpiling if it is due to factors beyond its control. Yet this seems to be precisely the case, again, according to the most informed monitors on the ground. According to von Sponeck, such stockpiling as occurs can be traced directly to logistical problems caused by a combination of the destruction from the Gulf War and the 36 See Pellett, above, David Edwards Half a Million Children are Dead and Dying in Iraq Who is Responsible? An Interview with Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations (March 2000) Z Magazine. 38 Peter L Pellett Voices in the Wilderness, 'Myths and Realities Regarding Iraq and Sanctions' in Anthony Arnove (ed) Iraq Under Siege (South End Press, Cambridge (Mass), 2000)