Essay Humanitarian Intervention

A situation in which humanitarian intervention may seem appropriate, is to protect a nation from tyranny. The barbarians were accused of having tyrannical leaders and oppressive laws that included slavery and human sacrifice. To justify humanitarian intervention, Vitoria brings up the point that God has

Humanitarian Intervention is military intervention that is carried out in pursuit of humanitarian rather than strategic objectives. This term is controversial and therefore often debated, as it is an evaluative and subjective term. The common use of the term itself is the desire to come in help to other people, however according to some other opinions, it is the outcome of the intervention that defines it. Firstly, it is essential to define what is meant by the word abandoned in this context. As HI has been happening throughout history, abandoned would imply an on-going lack or diminishing numbers of interventions.

Humanitarian action is what the world turns to in case there is a crisis in any part of the world. But as David Rieff suggests in his book, “A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis,” there is a crisis in the humanitarian world and space. He draws from first personal experience in places like Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo to tell how some of the challenges humanitarian organizations face; including their struggle to be neutral and apolitical.

Humanitarian interference positions a hard trial for an international society constructed on the doctrines of sovereignty, intervention, and the use of force. Directly after the holocaust, the society of states recognized the laws prohibiting genocide, forbidding the exploitation of civilians, and identifying plain human rights. These humanitarian values often clash with doctrines of sovereignty. Sovereign states are required to perform as protectors of their citizens’ security, but what happens if states act as villains towards their own people, treating power as a pass to kill? Should dictatorial states be recognized as valid members of international society and permitted the protection afforded by the intervention norm? Or else, most states loss their sovereign rights and be exposed to reasonable intervention if they aggressively abuse or fail to protect their citizens? Connected to this, what responsibilities do other states or organizations have to enforce human rights standards against governments that vastly violate them?

To understand the impact of humanitarian crises and how international politics play a role, a common definition of such crises must be understood. In his book “Humanitarian Crises and the International

When a country encounters a catastrophic situation where human rights are being violated, it is the state’s responsibility to protect its nation. Frequently state’s shift from humanitarian intervention to responsibility to protect as a solution to human rights violations. Humanitarian intervention has been defined as a states’s use of “military force against another state when the chief publicly declared aim of that military action is ending human-rights violations being perpetrated by the state against which it is directed.”1 In order for a state to successfully protect, according to Anne Orford in the article Lawful Authority and the Responsibility to Protect, they must “prevent genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.” (pg 248, Orford) A state is responsible for protecting its population, if they fail to do so the responsibility and authority to do so shifts to the international community.

Humanitarian intervention was by no means a new topic—its rhetoric has been around since the mid 1800s. However, in trying to codify the “right to intervene” there was a controversial

Humanitarian intervention can come in one of two different variations dependent on the case at hand. To put humanitarian intervention into a basic definition, it is “An armed intervention in a state, without that state’s consent, to address (the threat of) a humanitarian disaster, in particular caused by grave and large-scale violations of fundamental human rights” (Segen). Intervention can be

Humanitarian intervention is the act when states intervene in the affairs of another state because that state is violating the basic human rights of its civilians or because it is in the intervening state’s self interest to get involved. (Humanitarian, 2008) These interventions are not specifically aimed at violating the sovereignty of a state, but rather their purpose is to protect the basic human rights of civilians during civil wars and during crime against humanity. (Humanitarian, 2008) Realism explains that humanitarian intervention came about during the genocide in Bosnia but not in Rwanda because even though it might have been the correct moral action to take, intervention in Rwanda was not in the national interest of other

After the cold war humanitarian interventions has increased and since then they are more important when conducting peace operations. (Baylis, 2016, 266) Today there’s an ongoing debate on when to use military force and for what purpose. After the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo 1999 that was conducted without a mandate from the UN security council, Kofi Annan former Un security general subsidised to the debate on when to use military force. Humanitarian interventions challenges states sovereignty, when protecting civilians from harm conducted by their own state. According to a humanitarian perspective states have a responsibility to protect civilians in order to maintain justice. (Seybolt, 2007, 1) This paper will therefore examine how the use of military force can be successful or unsuccessful, by presenting a qualitative comparative case study of the humanitarian military interventions in Kosovo and Libya. Leading

(Hrea.org p132). It is in every essence different from humanitarian aid which is provided by non-governmental organizations such as Red Cross. Humanitarian aid attempts to find a way around political affiliations.

The end of the twentieth century brought with it a close to the era of mass human atrocities and a new understanding of how conflict worked. With the end of World War II and the solidification of state lines, no longer was conflict confined to border disputes. Increasingly so, conflicts occurred internally within the state’s own borders taking a greater toll on civilians and often escalating into violent wars. From Cambodia to Rwanda and Argentina to Bosnia, the second half of the twentieth century was riddled with genocide and the motto of “never again” continued to happen again. The twenty first century ushered in a new ideology to prevent and stop mass atrocities. With the realization that the doctrine of humanitarian intervention

There is hardly a universal definition of what is or should be humanitarian action, every humanitarian organization or actor uses its own. However, common core elements can be found in most definitions (Sphere Project 2011) and could be summarized as aid and action made to save lives, alleviate suffering as well as maintain and protect human dignity during and in the aftermath of man-made crises and natural disasters (Macrae and Harmer 2004). What seems to differentiate humanitarian action from other forms of foreign assistance is its commitment to be guided by a set of principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality and independence (UNOCHA 2012; Sphere Project 2011). The above-mentioned definition will be used to

The principle of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect is rooted in the belief that ought to fulfill certain standards of protection for its own citizens. When that standard is not met or the government itself poses a threat to its own people, foreign nations have a right and obligation to protect those citizens from crimes against humanity. This idea arose in the 1990s (which would later be known as the decade of humanitarian intervention) when the US was leading several humanitarian interventions around the globe, many of which were successful. This principle was solidified into a commitment by all UN member states at the 2005 World Summit. Though there have been many successful interventions rooted in the belief of a responsibility to protect, the overall idea of RtoP itself is not without flaws.

Humanitarian intervention has been defined as a state's use of "military force against another state when the chief publicly declared aim of that military action is ending human-rights violations being perpetrated by the state against which it is directed". It is seen as a more comprehensive challenge to the sovereign state than either the idea of human rights or the expansion of international law, as it involves the invasion of sovereign territory using military force.