HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal Lecture INCHING TOWARDS PEACE: A New International Humanitarian Order ROYAL SOCIETY

OF EDINBURGH Edinburgh, Scotland 17th November, 2009

Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, Fellows, Distinguished Guests, Dear Friends, We live in a world where violence and disaster, natural and man-made, are daily news. So frequent are they that our natural feelings of sympathy and outrage are in danger of being blunted. What can we, as individuals, do to prevent them, or at least mitigate their effects? How can we get at the roots of what goes wrong, and if possible change the evil produce that grows from them? We can all point to causes: the growth of world population, in part due to the successes of modern medical science; the destruction of natural resources, animal, vegetable and mineral, due to the need to provide food for all these new mouths; our increasing dependence on diminishing resources of fossil fuels, and the parallel growth of green house gases from their emissions and other sources; the imbalance between wealth and poverty, all over the world; and, most present of all these evils, the violence that springs from perceived needs to defend or assert political or racial boundaries, or, still worse, religious faith. All these problems need to be surveyed from what I have called a humanitarian perspective. That is, we need to see them from a standpoint that takes in the needs and aspirations of the whole human race, to do what we can to put right what is wrong, not only with the environment alone, but with humanity as a whole. I have come to this belief over almost thirty years of reflection and action, going back to the early 1980s when I co-chaired with Sadruddin Aga Khan the UN Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues. The report that we issued, following the General Assemblys endorsement of our work, was called Winning the Human Race? In this we set out the challenges, described the plight of the victims, and ended with our hopes and recommendations. We pointed to the need for human solidarity, faced with the global issues of population, environment, poverty and development, militarization, terrorism and drugs. We noted the forces of new changes at work, new nations, peoples

movements, women, youth, the rapidity of technological development, trans-nationals and newly international communications media. Against this, we explored the threats to the victims, the results of armed violence, the still new concept of weapons of mass destruction, the nature of communal conflicts and despite them the need for humanitarian norms. We identified three main groups of victims: the young in need of protection, especially street children, the creation of increasingly urban society; the uprooted, refugees, the stateless, and those subjected to mass expulsion; and the neglected, the indigenous peoples faced with the destruction of their natural habitat, and others threatened with extinction by inimical surroundings. In particular, we examined the contemporary food crises, famines, desertification and deforestation, and those entirely man-made, nuclear power, genetic engineering and industrial disasters. Carefully distinguishing natural from man-made disasters, we recommended that the United Nations should set out a legal, administrative, financial and operational code for disaster management, to assist national governments to set up their own bodies for dealing with international support, education and communications, and to create programmes of welfare and rehabilitation, to restore human dignity and the balance between survival and the preservation of natural resources. We emphasised the need for building a global consensus on this and strengthening multilateralism. We recommended the need to set up an Independent Bureau for Humanitarian Issues, to supervise the protection of human rights, the law of peace, and the exchange of human knowledge. We welcomed the growth of NGOs, particularly at grass-roots level, and the special need for them in the underprivileged and threatened parts of the southern hemisphere. As a result the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues was set up, whose existence was welcomed in 1983 by the UN General Assembly, which by further resolution in 1987 lent its support to the current and future activities of the Commission. From that resolution a series of initiatives have followed, by the UN itself and by individual countries and institutions, aimed at strengthening the links between emergency assistance and development aid and between humanitarian issues and human rights. These initiatives have also contributed towards the development of an agenda for humanitarian action and for the identification of practical measures by which such an agenda might be implemented with the assistance of Governments and non-governmental organizations. I see the present need for the humanitarian perspective from eight points of view. First and foremost of these is the need for human solidarity: respect for human life, recognition of human dignity and a sense of responsibility for future generations, all values intrinsic to the collective consciousness of mankind. Then there is the need for dialogue between all the main world religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam which have so much in common. These commonalities inspire people of diverse faiths, as well as non-believers. It is in this belief that I founded the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies in Amman in 1994 and in 1999 jointly the Geneva-based Foundation for Inter-religious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue. Practical focus for interfaith work is through the World Conference of Religions for Peace, of which I am now President Emeritus. We work to create multi-religious partnerships, mobilising moral and social resources of

religious people to address their shared problems; a recent example being when as Moderator, I brokered dialogue between Iraqi religious leaders in the post-Saddam era. Partners in Humanity and the US NGO Search for Common Ground pursue similar actions and goals. Next to dialogue comes security. This is genuinely achieved only by winning hearts, rather than through restrictive action. We cannot banish the spectre of perpetual conflict without first helping the poor, the alienated and marginalised. Political, social, economic, technological, environmental, psychological and cultural challenges can none of them be addressed in isolation, hence the holistic approach of the Club of Rome and the Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy, two initiatives that I support. The Helsinki Process also deals with my fourth point, economy, energy and the human environment. It is time that these common issues were addressed together, rather than bilaterally. Investment must come through partnership, promoting the common good long-term, giving priority to initiatives that provide inclusive employment over those that offer only short-term profit. Global partnerships, like the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Co-operation, can have a measurable impact on sustainable development and point the way to safe and equitable energy production. This too provides a blue-print for my fifth point, multilateralism. This works only when all parties share a common code of conduct on security, economy and human development. Issues like arms control, reconciliation after conflict, and joint action over social productivity, labour migration and the environment depend on such a code. This too will provide the basis for an equitable policy on democracy and civil society, in which people at all levels feel empowered and in control of their own destiny. True democracy only exists when the silent majority is enabled to participate, thereby achieving a sense of solidarity and civic affinity. Another aspect of such a policy must be a similar approach to culture and education. A truly democratic society is not restricted to political representation, but must provide the reassurance of a unitary community in other ways. Modern technology and communications give us instant knowledge about other societies than our own, but they must also give us understanding, drawing strength from diversity. How else can societies with diverse traditions move fully into the 21st century without losing cultural authenticity? All these aspirations could be summed up in my eighth point, the present need for universal consciousness. Our time is characterised variously as the age of knowledge, the age of energy and the age of globalisation. However, I like to think of globalisation not just as the spread of capitalism or deeper economic and political ties, but rather as the emergence of a common global consciousness. This universal approach implies compassion and altruism, whereby an injury to one is an injury to all. Our understanding of globalisation must respect different civilisations and pay equal attention to contrary voices. We neglect the principle of the Global Commons at our peril. Over the centuries resources and common spaces that transcend state boundaries have been the staple of their inhabitants. Increasingly, they have been enclosed, commodified and degraded. Regenerating them is essential to human survival. It needs the popular will to ensure open access, sustainability and human security to find powerful expression. I am chairing the Integrity Council, the advisory body of the Coalition of Global Commons, to focus attention on this

problem. It needs a renewal of political respect, responsibility and a measure of altruism to bring it about. To speak of shared values like respect, responsibility and altruism, which have helped to ensure humanitys survival and well-being from time immemorial, brings me back to where we started: an ethic of human solidarity. The turn of the 20th century saw a change in human conflict from the earlier wars between established nations to racial or other internal wars. Genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia, as well as crimes against humanity in Kosovo, East Timor and Darfur, have shown how incapable the international community is to prevent such atrocities. It was against this background that the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was founded in 2001 in response to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annans inquiry as to when the international community must intervene to protect humanity. The events of September 11, 2001, followed by the invasion of Iraq in 2003, changed the focus of the debate from genocide towards the pre-emption and prevention of terrorism and the risk from weapons of mass destruction. The Right to Protect was defined by the Commission as the point where sovereignty, a fundamental principle of international law, must yield to Hersch Lauterpachts law of peace whereby human life must be saved from inhuman violation, such as genocide or ethnic cleansing. In September 2003 Kofi Annan called on UN member states to develop better ways of protecting human rights. After consultation, the Secretary-General issued his own report, In Larger Freedom, emphasising the need for action and calling on governments to endorse Responsibility to Protect. This principle was enshrined in the founding charter of the African Union in 2000, and given specific force in the 2005 Ezulwini Consensus at the 7th Extraordinary Session of the AU Council. This led to the World Summit in 2005, at which it was agreed that every state has a duty to protect its population from crimes against humanity and that the international community must assist them to do so. It also accepted that when a state fails in this duty, the international community may intervene, using collective force if necessary. When Ban Ki-moon succeeded as Secretary-General, he continued to press for the implementation of Responsibility to Protect, appointing special advisers on the prevention of genocide and the responsibility to protect populations under threat. Despite some opposition from member states, two Security Council resolutions, 1674 providing for the protection of civilians and 1706 setting up the UN peace-keeping force in Darfur, backed the principle. This culminated on 12 January 2009 with the publication of Ban Ki-moons report, Implementing the Responsibility to Protect, which laid down the three-pillar approach: 1. States have the primary responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. 2. The international community must provide assistance to States in building capacity to provide such protection, and to assist those under stress before crises and conflicts break out.

3. The international community has the responsibility to take timely and decisive action to prevent and halt genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity when a State is manifestly failing to protect its populations. We must hope that these principles will be embodied in a future UN Resolution. So far I have spoken of the supra-national aspects of the universal search for peace. You would not expect me to end without reference to the regional aspects, in particular the region from which I come, a third world country that is my first world country, the fertile (at times apparently futile) crescent that embraces Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Israel and Saudi Arabia, with Jordan in its midst. Jordan has survived; its links spreading beyond its immediate neighbours to Turkey, Pakistan and India, and also Egypt. Our region is threatened not merely by the all too familiar crises, such as that at Gaza at the turn of last year, but also by the pressure on its carrying capacity, its human, natural and economic resources. It has a high proportion of migrants, stateless and displaced persons, most recently from Iraq. We are told that there will be an expected loss of 25 million jobs in the OECD by the end of 2010, but in our region of West Asia North Africa (WANA) we need to create 100 million new jobs by 2020 according to the World Bank, just to meet the natural growth of the labour force. In a dry land the first requirement is a secure water supply, and I have urged the creation of a supra-national Water and Energy Community, like the coal and steel community out of which the European Economic Community (EEC) grew. This proposal was presented and approved at the joint meeting of Centro International de Toledo para la paz (CITpax) and the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) in May. The UN Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor bridges the gap between the politics and laws of our countries and the realities of our peoples lives. The Commission presents the world with a new perspective. Co-chaired by Madeleine Albright and Hernando de Soto and comprised of analysts, jurists, and former government officials from across the world, the panel asserts that the poor must be guaranteed essential legal rights to realize their full potential for development. The commission, which undertook consultations in 22 countries, is calling for greater access to judicial systems, new worker protections, property ownership rights, business rights and the rule of law. It believes that particular emphasis must be given to the rights of women, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups. The Commissions report, Making the Law Work for Everyone, calls for a new legal identity for the worlds poor. I have established the Regional Human Security Centre in Jordan to link the work of the Commission with the UN Responsibility to Protect initiative. As the regions problems are shared by the countries of the southern Mediterranean, in particular Egypt, I have also launched the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) Forum, to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas on our common social, environmental and economic challenges. In particular, I have called for the greening of WANA, and the need for a Regional Cohesion Fund to establish mechanisms for investing funds that would benefit the whole region in the long term, and not just during times of conflict. Such a fund would nourish its carrying 5

capacity, using the available resources to sustain the present population, without degrading the environment for future generations. To sum up, I stand committed to a regional peace process based on the Helsinki model, whose objectives are threefold: economic, human and cultural. Economy is a word that covers great issues like the future of oil and ever more expensive weapons and others of which we are too ashamed to speak openly, the drug traffic, child-prostitution and the sale of body parts. But Responsibility to Protect exists in peace as well as in war. I would like to see an Economic Council and a Social Council established throughout the region. A West Asian consensus, balancing the Euro-Atlantic and Asia-Pacific interests, would stabilise the global community. Such agreement, stretching from the Caucasus to the Straits of Hormuz, would relieve the tension at the vulnerable choke points of the oil economy. Paul Volckers proposed Middle East Development Bank offers an asymmetric approach, focusing on empowerment, not only of the poor, but democracy itself. This would take the edge off the economic threat of these choke-points, and even off the Arab-Israeli conflict that has too long taken the political foreground to the exclusion of the far larger economic landscape. Human Security is dependent on preventative diplomacy, on the lines of the Lysen Declaration (1998) by Canada and Norway, which established a framework for consultation and concerted action on matters of joint interest and international concern. The International Centre for Democratic Transition (of which I am a Board member) builds on the European experience of rehabilitating the countries of the Eastern bloc within the EEC, where it is recognised that Eurasian stability depends on the empowerment of the people of the West Asian rim. Over the next 20 years the number of people displaced by climate change may treble, and in the opinion of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antnio Guterres, will become increasingly difficult to categorise people as displaced by conflict, economic, environmental or climate change, or any other factor, since their fate will be due to combination of any or all of them. The traditional national labels Israeli, Palestinian, Lebanese, Jordanian are obsolescent. What we need instead is an honest and fair commitment of resources from our governments, providing for the right to return. What I envisage is a citizens charter, a fund to promote cohesion, which will lead to a general energy charter. Jordan is a signatory to the European Energy Charter that unites 51 Eurasian countries (accounting for 51% of global GDP), and is currently in the process of accession to the Energy Charter Treaty. Culture is a short word to cover a range of issues, from poverty to climate change. The Global Humanitarian Forum, with which I am associated, has issued its Human Impact Report on Climate Change. This recommends human warning as an antidote to global warming. There is a great deal to do and not much time in which to do it. Increased emissions induce rising temperatures and sea levels, accelerating species decline, making land uncultivable and creating deserts an increased threat of flooding and climate refugees. Nutrition and health will both suffer, and poverty increase. Human warning requires a global consensus on the control of water, on agricultural priorities and on health, and policies for the containment of migration, if poverty is not to increase.

Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to squander any of our endangered assets on unproductive conflicts and war. What we need is, first, an unofficial, nonrepresentative, but expert group, drawn from both private and public sectors, as well as civil society as a whole, remote from the vested interests whose historical and juridical concerns have held too much sway, to discuss and determine the agenda. Then an official Conference for Security and Cooperation in WANA could follow, whose remit would be to hammer out the essential methodologies by which each country in concert with others can confront this silent crisis. These would stretch from a common policy on water control to an equally robust composite security that would prevent terrorism or insurgency and wasteful expenditure on defence. Only thus will the rule of humanitarian international law have substance; only thus will we build a template for peace in WANA. If we are to separate politics from religion, or rather, to elevate religion to where it rightly belongs, we must offer encouragement through foundations to relieve poverty, rather than letting the Israeli prediction of 100 years of war become a selffulfilling prophecy. We need a moral authority that can achieve, through consensus, universal standards of civil liberties, equity and equal opportunity. If current predictions of 50 million Arabs unemployed by 2050 are right, we should start teaching them now, with the help of the European and Atlantic regions, how to contribute to an economic advancement in which we can all share, and with it the means to benefit from an equitable society. Two world wars and the cold war that followed have left the rest of the world unable to grasp the fact that the problems of West Asia, from Eurasia to the Gulf, are common to all its nations. External powers may influence the control of oil and water resources, forgetting its other resources, mineral and, above all, human. We cannot. To us, human dignity is what counts. We have just been celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and with it the peaceful transition from a divided to a united nation and the evolution of a democracy. Will it take us another thirty years to resolve the problems still unsolved after almost a century? I hope it may be sooner. For now, looking back over the last thirty years, I can discern at least some progress world-wide towards a new humanitarian order, despite many setbacks, man-made and natural. Not the least is the realisation that this distinction itself is a false one: our selfish acts have precipitated the natural cataclysm that we now dread. But our progress has been small and slow. Inch by inch we have crawled forward. Unless we expand the scope of our efforts and increase the pace, we may be too late. Common understanding of these facts is now shared between the nations of the world, but we need to turn understanding into action, here, there, and everywhere. Here I can, perhaps, invite your help. Your Society was founded for the advancement of learning and useful knowledge. West Asia is in desperate need of such support. I see in the list of your present activities Organising lectures, debates and conferences on topical issues of lasting importance, many of which are free and open to all, Conducting independent inquiries on matters of national and international importance and Facilitating two-way international exchange to enhance Scotlands international collaboration in research and enterprise. I should like to see both lectures and debates here in Edinburgh on the practical means of realising some of the goals for West Asia that I have described. An independent enquiry into any of them, we would all agree, must be of national and international 7

importance. Both our countries could benefit from an international exchange of research and enterprise. Let me end by thanking you for the patience with which you have listened to me today. I look forward to further cooperation between your Society and any of the bodies, national and international, with which I am associated. It is only by spreading learning and knowledge of the facts and needs that we can hope to win the battle for peoples minds by which a resolution of present problems, in which we all have an interest, can be achieved.