In a presentation made at a meeting in Leipzig, Germany, some eight years ago but still relevant today, Dr Daniel Thurer discussed the question of a failed state. Referring to chaotic power struggles going all the way back to the Thirty Years’ War in seventeenth century Europe and coming in more recent times to Somalia, Liberia and the Congo he said that failing states were invariably the product of a collapse of the power structures providing political support for law and order, a process generally triggered by `anarchic’ forms of internal violence. He referred to a statement by the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros Ghali, who said “A feature of such conflicts is the collapse of state institutions, especially the police and judiciary, with resulting paralysis of governance, a breakdown of law and order, and general banditry and chaos. Not only are the functions of government suspended, but its assets are destroyed or looted and experienced officials are killed or flee the country. This is rarely the case in inter-state wars. It means that international intervention must extend beyond military and humanitarian tasks and must include the promotion of international reconciliation and the re-establishment of effective government.”

Dr Thurer says the term “failed state” serves as a broad label for a phenomenon which can be interpreted in various ways. He considers it from a political and legal, historical and developmental and sociological perspective.

From the political and legal perspective, he says, there is the geographical and territorial aspect, namely the fact that “failed states” are essentially associated with internal problems, an implosion of the structures of power and authority, the disintegration of states rather than their dismemberment. There is the political aspect, namely the near total breakdown of structures guaranteeing law and order rather than the fragmentation of state authority seen in civil wars where clearly identified military or paramilitary rebels fight to strengthen their position within the state or break away from it. And the functional aspect, namely the absence of bodies capable of representing the state at an international level or of being influenced by the outside world.

From the historical and developmental perspective he says that the countries now in this category are developing countries affected by the end of the cold war which kept shallow-rooted regimes in power as potential allies through supplies of arms or through ideology based structures which kept the unity of the state intact by force. He referred to the heritage of colonial regimes which had lasted long enough to destroy traditional social structures but not long enough to replace them with Western constitutional structures and an effective identity as a new state, and the general processes of modernisation which encouraged social and geographical mobility but were not counterbalanced by nation-building processes capable of placing the state on a firm foundation.

He suggested that these disintegrating forces leading to anomie and anarchy could become quite widespread.

From the sociological perspective, he suggested the failed state can be seen as an elemental phenomenon which though then acute in only a few countries, remained latent throughout the world. This is characterised by the collapse of the core of government, namely the monopoly of power traditionally exercised by the state through the police, the judiciary and other bodies. Another feature was the brutality and intensity of the violence used. Eyewitness reports from Liberia, for example, had spoken of the whole society falling into the grip of a collective insanity following the breakdown of state institutions.

Dr Thurer goes on to discuss the interest of the United Nations and the international community in such failed states and circumstances in which there might be a right of intervention. The issues of protection of the human rights of citizens and the role of the Security Council in such situations have been extensively discussed in recent times.

Though the concept of a failed state is perhaps a useful one in some cases, even the barest outline of the topic suggests that it is a category that should not be readily used. At various times one might have said the Lebanon or Cambodia or Rwanda were failed states. Is Papua New Guinea a failed or a failing state, what about the Congo? Similar questions could be asked of several other countries.

There have been all kinds of proposals put forward as to how to handle the problem of failed states ranging from peacekeeping forces to the transfer of the responsibility for such states under a new mandate to the U.N. Trusteeship Council pursuant to an amendment to the U.N. Charter. The ideal solution is obviously to strengthen the institutions of the state within the framework of the constitution and to seek political and constitutional solutions to threats of disintegration before it is too late.