Responding to Crimes against Humanity: Prevention, Deployment, and Localization

National First Place Winner
Sophia Sanchez
Ladue Horton Watkins High School
St. Louis, Missouri
Coordinator: Megan McCorkle

“Never again” has long been the somber declaration of those victimized by crimes against humanity. It bears with it the hope that the international community can learn from past atrocities and, in the words of the United Nations Charter, “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”1 However, a lack of cohesive international action has meant that genocide, torture, and other such acts continue to occur. Based on lessons learned from case studies of Somalia and Rwanda, the international community should prevent escalation of conflict by addressing its socioeconomic root causes, maintain a long-term peacekeeping force that utilizes a multilateral approach, and establish a localized administration system bolstered by a structure of accountability.
The Somali conflict stemmed from decades of political and ethnic unrest, which was intensified by the regime of Siad Barre. The northern Issaq clan resented Siad Barre’s 1969 seizure of power, which established an ethnically Marehan government.2 In 1988, the Somali National Movement (SNM), a primarily northern endeavor, began an insurrection against the Barre regime.3 On January 27, 1991, Siad Barre fled the capital to escape the northern assault, causing a power struggle between the former United Somali Congress members.4
By the end of 1992, over 300,000 Somalis had died from the conflict.5 Human Rights Watch expressed its outrage at seeing Somali refugees “undergoing traumatic suffering with apparently no end in sight.”6 The United Nations later labeled the systematic rape, displacement, and torture by rival clans in Somalia as crimes against humanity as defined in Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.7
While rhetoric was in no short supply among global actors, the humanitarian response to the crisis proved inadequate. Relief efforts were complicated by the loss of 60 percent of Somalia’s infrastructure and insufficient peacekeeping forces.8 From October to December of 1992, the World Food Programme anticipated sending 100,000 metric tons of food to Somalia, but only distributed 18,900 metric tons.9 UNOSOM (United Nations Operations in Somalia) concentrated its forces in Mogadishu while leaving positions in smaller settlements unfilled, effectively cutting off assistance to certain regions of Somalia.10
As the atrocities mounted, international actors began to withdraw altogether from Somalia. On October 3 and 4, 1993, eighteen American soldiers were killed during the Battle of Mogadishu.11 Faction leader Mohammad Aideed used these deaths to increase foreign discontent with the Somali operations and rid the country of peacekeeping forces.12 By March 31, 1994, all United States forces had evacuated Somalia.13 Lacking support, UNOSOM disbanded one year later, and Somalia became the epitome of a failed state and a failed international intervention.14
The violence in Rwanda resulted from prolonged ethnic tension that erupted after the assassination of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana. After Hutus overthrew the Tutsi king in 1959, displaced Tutsis formed the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) in Uganda.15 The RPF invaded Rwanda in 1990, marking the beginning of the civil war.16 Radio stations broadcast propaganda, urging Hutus to “exterminate the Tutsi cockroaches.”17 On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, an act the Hutus blamed on the Tutsis, and three months of genocide began.18
From April 6 to July 4, 1994, approximately 800,000 Rwandans were systematically murdered.19 Two million Rwandans fled to neighboring countries, where many ended up in disease-ridden refugee camps.20 On May 17, 1994, a UN Security Council resolution stated that “acts of genocide may have been committed,” but refrained from definitively labeling the Rwandan conflict “genocide.”21 As Vince Kern, director for African affairs and head of the Rwanda Task Force at the Pentagon, explained, “Genocide finding could commit [governments] to actually ‘do something.’ ”22 The genocide ended on July 4, 1994, when the RPF captured the capital city of Kigali, but Rwanda was left in ruins.23
Despite the international community’s knowledge of these atrocities, its response to the conflict in Rwanda proved woefully insufficient. A CIA report issued 20 days before Habyarimana’s assassination stated that 300,000 to 500,000 people could be killed if hostilities intensified.24 Clearly, the international community knew of the danger, but lacked a plan of action. Matters worsened when Hutu extremists murdered ten Belgians on April 7, 1994, prompting an international outcry.25 The United States closed its embassy, while the United Nations withdrew all but 270 UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda) peacekeeping troops for the duration of the genocide.26
After the conflict ended, the international community implemented a tiered judicial system that worked toward lasting peace. An international tribunal presided over high-profile cases, while the localized Gacaca court system handled less serious offenders.27 The courts held trials in each village to not only prosecute defendants accused of genocide, but also to promote reconciliation through dialogue and community service.28 Such localized reintegration programs may be the key to quelling ethnic tension. For example, after the Gacaca system was implemented in Sovu, Rwanda, only 2 percent of residents agreed with the statement “I prefer to buy things from a shopkeeper of my own ethnicity.”29 The Gacaca approach was one of the successes of the Rwandan intervention, although much work remains to be done.
With the atrocities committed in Somalia and Rwanda in mind, international actors should subdue conflict by addressing socioeconomic root causes. On a financial level, the international community should work to stabilize depressed economies in at-risk nations. One way this might be achieved is through microfinancing, a small-scale investment program that effectively stimulated post-war Rwandan farming.30 The international community should also address social tensions by targeting hate radio, which was a large factor in escalating ethnic resentment in both Somalia and Rwanda.31 International law should permit the destruction of hate-radio transmitters when an agreed-upon code of conduct is broken.32 The global community must address economic and social root causes of conflict if it hopes to effectively prevent mass atrocities from occurring.
On the national level, governments such as the United States should establish an interagency Atrocities Prevention Committee (APC), as outlined by the Genocide Prevention Task Force.33 The APC should work with the United Nations, subregional organizations, NGOs, and individual nations to coordinate information concerning at-risk nations. The committee should establish a tiered warning system, based on factors such as institutional racism, history of conflict, media propaganda, and leadership instability. Reports such as the one that predicted 300,000 to 500,000 deaths in Rwanda should immediately trigger an ad hoc meeting at the presidential level to discuss policy options. With mass atrocities like the Rwandan genocide occurring in the time span of 100 days, it is imperative that international actors be prepared to take quick and decisive action to prevent their occurrence.
Should the conflict reach a point where preventive measures are no longer possible, international peacekeeping forces should commit themselves to rapid deployment and long-term stationing. The United Nations should plan for troop deployment in at-risk nations within 30 days of a Security Council resolution.34 In order to supply sufficient peacekeeping forces, international organizations should capitalize on subregional offers of assistance and support a civilian police force within war-torn countries. The key is to create a multilateral coalition that reflects global sentiments, not to establish western imperialism. These measures can work to drastically decrease response time and increase long-term peacekeeping capabilities by involving troops at the international, regional, and national levels.
Finally, the United Nations, United States, and other international actors should rely on a decentralized peacekeeping approach, rather than focusing on an urban headquarters. In order to increase dissemination of aid, staffing small towns should be a greater priority than establishing a headquarters in the capital.35 Global actors can garner local support by admitting regional leaders into intervention discussions. In northern Somalia, UNOSOM incorporated local elders into policy meetings, which increased clan willingness to cooperate with the United Nations in dismantling anarchistic factions.36 Placing a priority on local intervention personnel leads to better distribution of aid and more effective peace negotiations.
The judicial system for crimes against humanity should likewise be localized. The system should be modeled on the Rwandan Gacacas, assigning a court to each village. As more criminals are brought to justice, localized court systems demonstrate that war crimes will be punished. Dialogue between the accused and the victimized and a sentence involving community service should be key facets of the courts. A system of accountability similar to the one in Rwanda, in which 90 percent of the electorate voted for Gacaca judges, would ensure that local judges have the consent of the people and are not arbitrarily appointed.37 Moreover, the international community should establish sentencing guidelines, which would standardize punishments and guarantee a focus on reintegration, not retribution. By utilizing a localized judicial system, the international community can transition from a goal of short-term peace to long-term stability.
In the wake of the atrocities in Somalia and Rwanda, it is critical that the international community learn to better protect against crimes against humanity. By addressing the root causes of conflict, rapidly deploying a long-term peacekeeping force, and shifting to a localized administration approach, international actors can convert rhetoric into results. The process will not happen overnight, but by implementing these policies, the international community can begin to make “never again” a reality.

Notes


1. Goodrich, Leland Matthew, and Edvard Isak Hambro. Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents. London: World Peace Foundation, 1949.
2. Sahnoun, Mohamed. Somalia: The Missed Opportunities. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1994.
3. Brown, Michael E., and Richard N. Rosecrance. The Cost of Conflict: Prevention and Cure in the Global Arena. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.
4. Sahnoun. Somalia.
5. Bush, George. “Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia.” Lettter from President Bush to the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate. Washington, DC, December 10, 1992.
6. "Human Rights Watch World Report 1993—Somalia." Human Rights Watch. January 1, 1993. Accessed January 20, 2009. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/467fca601e.html
7. Rishmawi, Mona. "Situation of Human Rights in Somalia." UN Commission on Human Rights, Geneva. April 22, 1999.
8. "Somalia—UNOSOM I." United Nations Operations in Somalia I . March 21, 1997. Accessed 23 January 2009. http://www.un.org/Depts/DPKO/Missions/unosomi.htm
9. Sahnoun. Somalia.10. Ibid.
11. Smith, Michael. Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team. New York: St. Martin's, 2007.
12. Kaempf, Sebastian. “Somalia and General Aideed's Strategic Response to U.S. Intervention: Invoking America's Experiences in Lebanon and Vietnam.” Paper presented at the nnual meeting of the International Studies Association, Chicago, IL, 2007.
13. Copson, Raymond W. Africa's Wars and Prospects for Peace. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.
14. Peterson, Scott. Me against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda. New York: Routledge, 2000.
15. Cohen, Jared. One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
16. Ibid.
17. Sutton, Barbara, Sandra Morgen, and Julie Novkov. Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008.
18. Khan, Shaharyar M., and Mary Robinson. The Shallow Graves of Rwanda. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000.
19. Barnett, Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002.
20. "Rwanda: Accountability for War Crimes and Genocide." Special Report, January 1995. United States Institute of Peace. Accessed January 20, 2009.
http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/early/rwanda1.html
21. "Timeline: 100 Days of Genocide." BBC News, April 6, 2004. AccessedJanuary 21, 2009.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3580247.stm
22. Kern, Vince. Discussion paper. Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East/Africa Region. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 18, 1998.
23. Cohen, Jared. One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield,2007.
24. Ibid.
25. Barnett, Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.
26. Ibid.
27. Drumbl, Mark A. Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
28. Ibid.
29. Rettig, Max. "Gacaca: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Postconflict Rwanda?" African Studies Review 51 (2008): 25¬–50.
30. Wilson, Tamsin. "Microfinance during and after Armed Conflict: Lessons from Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, and Rwanda.” Concern Worldwide and the Springfield Centre for Business in Development. March 2002. AccessedJanuary 22 2009. http://www.microfinancegateway.org/files/14563_14563.pdf
31. Adelman, Howard, and Astri Suhrke. The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2000.
32. As suggested in Allan Thompson and Kofi Annan. The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto, 2007.
33. Albright, Madeleine K., and William S. Cohen, co-chairs. Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers. Genocide Prevention Task Force. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Academy of Diplomacy, and United States Institute of Peace. 2008. Accessed January 21, 2009. http://www.usip.org/genocide_taskforce/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
34. As suggested in Lakhdar Brahimi, chairman. Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. New York: United Nations, 2000.
35. Sahnoun. Somalia.
36. Ibid.
37. Brown, Jane. "Rwanda—Gacaca." Center for Communication Programs, John Hopkins University. 2005. Accessed January 19, 2009.
http://www.jhuccp.org/africa/rwanda/gacaca.shtml

Bibliography

Print Sources

Adelman, Howard, and Astri Suhrke. The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2000.

Barnett, Michael. Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002.

Brahimi, Lakhdar, chairman. Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations. New York: United Nations, 2000.

Brown, Michael E., and Richard N. Rosecrance. The Cost of Conflict: Prevention and Cure in the Global Arena. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield , 1999.

Bush, George. “Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia.” Lettter from President Bush to the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate. Washington, DC, December 10, 1992.

Cohen, Jared. One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

Copson, Raymond W. Africa's Wars and Prospects for Peace. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994.

Drumbl, Mark A. Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Goodrich, Leland Matthew, and Edvard Isak Hambro. Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents. London: World Peace Foundation, 1949.

Kaempf, Sebastian. “Somalia and General Aideed's Strategic Response to U.S. Intervention: Invoking Americas Experiences in Lebanon and Vietnam.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association. Chicago, IL, 2007.

Kern, Vince. Discussion paper. Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East/Africa Region. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 18, 1998.

Khan, Shaharyar M., and Mary Robinson. The Shallow Graves of Rwanda. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000.

Peterson, Scott. Me against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Rettig, Max. "Gacaca: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation in Postconflict Rwanda?" African Studies Review 51 (2008): 25–50.

Rishmawi, Mona. "Situation of Human Rights in Somalia." UN Commission on Human Rights, Geneva. April 22, 1999.

Sahnoun, Mohamed. Somalia: The Missed Opportunities. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1994.

Smith, Michael. Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team. New York: St. Martin's, 2007.

Sutton, Barbara, Sandra Morgen, and Julie Novkov. Security Disarmed: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Race, and Militarization.

Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008.

Thompson, Allan, and Kofi Annan. The Media and the Rwanda Genocide. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto, 2007.

Internet Sources

Albright, Madeleine K., and William S. Cohen, co-chairs. Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers. Genocide Prevention Task Force. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, American Academy of Diplomacy, and United States Institute of Peace. 2008. Accessed January 21, 2009. http://www.usip.org/genocide_taskforce/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf

Brown, Jane. "Rwanda—Gacaca." Center for Communication Programs, John Hopkins University. 2005. Accessed January 19, 2009. http://www.jhuccp.org/africa/rwanda/gacaca.shtml

"Human Rights Watch World Report 1993—Somalia." January 1, 1993. Human Rights Watch. Accessed January 20, 2009. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/467fca601e.html

"Rwanda: Accountability for War Crimes and Genocide." Special Report, January 1995. United States Institute of Peace. Accessed January 20, 2009. http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/early/rwanda1.html

"Somalia—UNOSOM I." United Nations Operations in Somalia I. March 21, 1997. Accessed January 23, 2009. http://www.un.org/Depts/DPKO/Missions/unosomi.htm

"Timeline: 100 Days of Genocide," BBC News, April 6, 2004. Accessed January 21, 2009.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3580247.stm

Wilson, Tamsin. "Microfinance during and after Armed Conflict: Lessons from Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique and Rwanda.” Concern Worldwide and the Springfield Centre for Business in Development. March 2002. Accessed January 22, 2009. http://www.microfinancegateway.org/files/14563_14563.pdf

Escaping the Greenhouse Gas Prisoner's Dilemma: A Government Solution

By François de Soete

When dealing with a problem like greenhouse gas emissions, individuals and industries alike can help. Only governments, however, can make sure that individuals and industries do help. That is, individuals and companies can decide to collectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but without mechanisms that ensure compliance, this type of collective action becomes a prisoner’s dilemma and some will inevitably “free ride” on the emission cutting efforts of others. The federal government, in consultation with key industries and provincial governments, must therefore take the greatest responsibility for reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by not only implementing an emission reduction strategy that protects Canada’s international competitive advantages, but also by ensuring domestic compliance.

Placing the heaviest burden of responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions on individuals seems at first glance appropriate, given that greenhouse gas emissions are a staple of personal consumption and industries to a large extent respond to demand. This line of thinking suggests that we are collectively responsible for changing our consumption patterns, which would ideally also force industries to reduce output. While we must all do our share to reduce emissions, such efforts can only come to fruition when government-enforced compliance mechanisms are put in place. Without enforcement, collective efforts lead to a prisoner’s dilemma, where each of us is better off by reaping the benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions without contributing to the reduction process.

The international arena illustrates just how problematic collective action is without effective enforcement mechanisms. Despite existing international environmental regulations, a handful of “pollution havens” (states that deliberately minimize environmental regulations within their borders to entice foreign capital) spur a “race to the bottom.” That is, the absence of a supranational government enables individual states to host foreign-based high-pollution production facilities. Not only do such states contribute nothing to broader international pollution reduction efforts, but they also gain a competitive advantage in terms of international capital flow. This leads other states to reduce their own environmental standards in order to attract foreign capital, and a race to the bottom thus ensues.

In the Canadian context, then, individuals and industries may collectively aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the strategic challenges in collective action efforts place an onerous burden on Canadians without any guarantee that everyone will do their share. Further complicating matters is the fact that reduced greenhouse gas emissions would constitute a public good that cannot exclude those who do not contribute to it—and this type of public good can emerge without the cooperation of any one individual’s efforts. As such, free riding becomes the most profitable course of action.

Government intervention is the only way to eliminate this kind of collective action dilemma. Government intervention must, however, strike a fine balance. On the one hand, weak regulations and oversight can instigate defection and free riding, thereby rendering Canadian emission reduction efforts ineffective. On the other hand, excessive regulations can motivate Canadian industries to relocate abroad to countries with less stringent environmental regulations, thereby only reducing greenhouse gas emissions produced in Canada while actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions produced by Canada.

Government regulations must therefore neutralize the threat of free riding by subjecting individuals and industries to appropriately proportional restrictions, while not impinging upon Canada’s competitive advantage in the international arena. The federal government is obviously the only Canadian institution capable of achieving this balance since it not only can pass legislation that applies to all provinces, but more importantly, it can negotiate international regulations that will reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions in proportion to reduction efforts by other countries.

Placing the burden of responsibility on the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions does not, however, preclude individual responsibility. Each of us can reduce personal consumption patterns and thereby contribute directly by reducing greenhouse gases and indirectly by motivating a corresponding decrease in production. More importantly, however, since the government response is so critical for implementing effective reduction strategies, each of us can provide our government with the necessary mandate to implement appropriate regulations and oversight by making it clear that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is in fact a priority.

Given that greenhouse gas emissions have implications for issues that range from Canadian healthcare to national sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is without a doubt one of Canada’s most pressing issues—our government must take responsibility, for it alone can lead us out of the greenhouse gas prisoner’s dilemma.

Francois de Soete completed a Master of Arts degree in Political Science. Francois is now a Ph.D. Candidate at The University of British Columbia, where his academic interests focus on environmental ethics and political philosophy.

The Crucial Role of Government in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Hoping for the Best but Planning for the Same

By Tyler Bryant

Wishful thinking is not a sound foundation upon which to address one of the most important environmental, political, social, economic and technological challenges in human history. Unfortunately, emissions abatement strategy in Canada has heavily emphasized wishful thinking as a policy option. Hoping for individuals and businesses to change their actions and use less energy from fossil fuels has been a policy failure and is clear evidence that wishful thinking will not work.

Canadian emissions have been rising since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and show few signs of leveling-off, let alone falling. Federal and provincial policies to reduce emissions concentrate on insignificant incentives, idle threats of regulation and voluntary programs like the One-Tonne Challenge. These policies provide no certainty and only hope that individuals and businesses change their actions. Predictably, this lack of leadership and off-loading of responsibility to businesses and individuals has not had any real impact upon emissions abatement and clearly demonstrates that government must be the leader in implementing emissions reduction programs.

Some would suggest that because individuals and businesses produce and consume fossil fuels, they should be responsible for the environmental damage of their actions. Making the polluters responsible for their emissions makes the most moral sense but, so far, the polluters aren’t paying. The reason they are not paying is because there is no framework to do so. Real polices are the only way to implement a framework where the polluters are responsible for their emissions. Otherwise, it is unfair to criticize individuals and businesses for behaving in ways that are independently advantageous within our current legal and social framework. It is nice to think of a world in which individuals behave with more environmental altruism and businesses attempt to maximize social benefits instead of profits. Unfortunately, we cannot hope for this to happen with an impending crisis that will have significant short, medium and long-term costs.

Individuals and business have failed to reduce their emissions for many reasons that they should not be blamed for. It is wrong to assume that the average person will have even a basic understanding of energy and waste flows in our economy. I don’t think that individuals should be responsible for failing to understand that turning on an extra light potentially contributes, in some small way, to more fossil fuels being combusted. We have designed a system where the outputs of our consumption are removed from the inputs. Nobody wants a coal plant burning in the middle of the city so political institutions and markets have helped to shield us from our waste. Similarly, it is a stretch to assume that individuals will understand abstract concepts like tonnes of carbon emitted from their automobiles. As a result, individuals are, for the most part, disconnected from the visual and environmental consequences of their energy consumption.

Businesses will not reduce their carbon emissions if it does not make economic sense for them to do so. It is unrealistic to expect business to begin adopting costly abatement measures without adequate returns for shareholders. And businesses are not moral agents. Governments have always had the responsibility to regulate businesses in order to ensure that they are not responsible for more social costs than benefits. For example, business didn’t voluntarily begin abating sulfur emissions to combat acid rain in the North-Eastern United States nor did business voluntarily decide to stop producing ozone-depleting CFCs. Government provided the regulatory leadership for firms to stop emitting pollutants. Reducing pollution became economically feasible once government implemented financial penalties for polluting.

Individual and corporate behaviour can be changed using a portfolio of various policies that regulate the most polluting behaviour and penalize carbon emissions at the margins. Imagine a policy framework where technological standards are tightened and continually evaluated to ensure that low efficiency consumer goods are phased-out quickly and high efficiency goods are adopted as soon as they become economically feasible. Making high efficiency technologies economically viable would internalize the cost of environmental damages from carbon emissions into the price of the good or service.

Regulating the most carbon intensive behaviour so that it is more environmentally benign is another crucial responsibility of government. This could mean capping emissions and using market mechanisms to efficiently ensure compliance or by simply prohibiting the most carbon intensive processes. Unsurprisingly, jurisdictions with the most pronounced emissions abatement have used various forms of regulation and taxation.

It is important not to confuse the means and the ends of climate abatement. The ends of abatement, from a policy perspective, are people and businesses behaving in ways that emit less total carbon into the atmosphere. Because we are the agents for change does not imply that we also bear the responsibility to act. We need to be bound by a useful policy framework that guides our actions; otherwise we will not behave in ways that will reduce our aggregate emissions. This framework for human behaviour may be pessimistic but it is a safer alternative to thinking wishfully that individuals will just start behaving in a more environmentally conscientious way.

Governments need to provide the right policy framework that binds actions with environmental consequences. Incorporating real policy levers like regulations and taxes is the only way to do this and government is the only institution with the legitimacy and authority to implement these measures. Therefore, the greatest responsibility to reduce emissions falls on government to design and implement a policy portfolio that promotes real changes in the way people and businesses use fossil fuels. Hoping that individuals and businesses both have the ability to understand the effects of their actions on emissions and then make a complete shift in the way they act is a model for failure and is potentially dangerous. We must not give up hope for individuals and businesses to pollute less but we must also plan for individuals and businesses to pursue a business as usual approach.

Tyler Bryant is a student of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University. He is interested in resource, climate and development policy and is finishing up his thesis on restructuring British Columbia's electrical supply sector. Tyler plans on working with the Federal Government as a policy analyst and doing development work in South Asia particularly, Bangladesh.

You Alone Can't Save the World

By Kaija Belfry

Kaija Belfry is a PhD student at the University of British Columbia. Originally from Prince Edward Island, she left home in 1999 to work as a House of Commons Page in Ottawa. As a result of that and subsequent experiences, she has had numerous opportunities to observe Canada’s political system in action and believes strongly in the role of government in finding solutions to collective problems. A 2003 Globe and Mail article describing the rate of decline in arctic ice sparked her concern about climate change. Profoundly disturbed by the evidence presented, she went on to complete a Masters degree in Development Studies at Dalhousie University with a thesis focused on Renewable Energy Policy. She now studies business-government relations on climate policy in Canada at the University of British Columbia.

When I was a little girl, my fourth grade teacher told our class that, when it came to the environment, one person could make a difference. We should recycle, avoid paper towels and turn off the tap while brushing our teeth. Some fifteen years later, now a grad student studying environmental issues, I heard this familiar refrain from the keynote speaker, Justin Trudeau, at a youth conference I attended in Toronto in May 2006. While I do not mean to disparage either Mr. Trudeau or my grade four teacher, this claim is unreasonable.

In an era when our most basic, banal activities—including driving, lighting our homes, and even eating—contribute to the substantial build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, can a single individual, or corporation for that matter, have a significant impact? Climate change is a collective problem and it will require a collective solution. Individuals and corporations cannot be expected to take on this mammoth problem, if our collective institutions—governments—fail to support us in this endeavour.

The focus on individual action by government and environmentalists suggests that there are specific things that we, as individuals, can do by ourselves to prevent climate change. This is, of course, somewhat true. Each of us has the power to decrease our own environmental impact by, for example, switching to lower energy light bulbs, choosing to take the bus when possible and turning off the lights and heat when not at home. But will this be enough? Even if most of us made a significant effort to go green, it seems illogical to suggest that we could combat climate change ourselves when so much of our society is organized around fossil fuel consumption.

My own life provides a good case in point. My grad student poverty keeps my emissions low in Vancouver (I can’t afford a car and use public transit daily). If, however, I want to visit my boyfriend in Cochrane, Alberta, I have no choice but to use high carbon transport. Normal passenger trains are unavailable from Vancouver to Cochrane, so I must fly or drive. Once I arrive in Cochrane, near Calgary, there is no public transit from Cochrane to the library at the University of Calgary, which is only half an hour away by car. Am I to blame for my high emissions during these trips? For that matter, are all the people of Cochrane derelict in their environmental duty for living away from the city where many work?

Such a suggestion seems both extreme and unfair, but it is the logical extension of the focus on individualism in climate change policy. While changing individual habits will be important in mitigating climate change, if the overall structure of society supports carbon-based activities (our governments build new highways regularly but high-speed trains remain unlikely), how can the individual be expected to decrease the country’s emissions substantially?

I cannot help but feel that corporations labour under the same paradox. Over 40% of Canada’s emissions come from “large final emitters” such as the resource extractors and electric utilities and, consequently, these organizations must decrease their emissions if Canada is going to tackle climate change. Companies must be willing to invest in new technologies and change the manner in which they do business. Some companies have already begun this process through projects such as General Electric’s Ecomagination program. These sorts of voluntary actions will undoubtedly be important in reducing emissions.

Yet, can we expect companies to act independently, out of sheer altruism, when such action often incurs greater cost? Charles Lindblom once wrote that the market was like a prison. He meant that market forces imprison the policy choices of governments due to the importance and structure of the economy in capitalist democracies. It could equally be said, however, that the market imprisons industry: generally, the company that substantially increases its costs above those of its competitors will suffer and the company’s CEO may face a shareholder revolt. Is it fair, then, for governments to rely completely upon voluntary initiatives in our quest to decrease greenhouse gases?

Lindblom argued that the economy had an inducement structure: companies respond to the inducements within the system. This could explain why, when major changes in economic activity are required, individuals and sometimes industry have turned to government to create the inducements necessary to allow all companies to adapt on an equal footing. Otherwise, we’re expecting corporations to act against their economic interest, which seems a little unfair to me.

Governments can help change the inducements within society through a number of mechanisms, including spending, voluntary programs and regulatory implements. Spending includes funding for capital projects. In many areas of Canada, greater spending on public transit, for instance, is definitely required. Government voluntary programs refer to government-led initiatives that lack any enforceable commitments, like the late One-Tonne Challenge, as well as negotiated voluntary agreements between government and industry. The latter is also often non-binding. Regulation, on the other hand, can be broadly defined as state-created rules backed by penalties and may include certain taxes. Successive Canadian governments have generally focused on voluntary initiatives, with some spending programs, preferring not to take any steps perceived as heavy-handed.

While many individuals and corporations support the government’s focus on voluntary initiatives, I argue that the state’s unwillingness to employ all the tools at its disposal has led to unfair expectations being placed on individuals and corporations. How can I decrease my carbon footprint when our transport systems are so limited? How can a corporation make serious adjustments at considerable cost, if its competitors are not forced to do the same? The structure of our society creates inducements for certain activities while penalizing others.

It is time for government—our collective voice—to begin changing those inducements and stop expecting that we should voluntarily take action that undermines our own material good. After all, climate change will penalize all of us.

I LOVE YOU BABES