Macfarlane Et Al's View on the Case That Humanitarian Intervention Is an Unacceptable Assault on Sovereignty

As far as morals are concerned, humans have this undying need to help everyone, and the United States in particular has been thrusted into this role of the world’s “police,” and “savior,” but at what cost? Millions of refugees from Syria and Libya are pouring into neighboring countries seeking asylum. The only problem is that those countries’ economies, infrastructure, and resources cannot handle the influx of people, which is why the United States should help those countries out, financially, as to protect those refugees and protect those countries that don’t want the refugees to enter their borders.

In “On the American Indians” Vitoria argues that there are few situations that justify a country to use humanitarian intervention. Humanitarian intervention is defined as a military force, publicly stated to end the violation of human rights, against another state. Vitoria discredits the justification of humanitarian intervention in every case, unless one is intervening for an ally or a friend. In this paper, I will argue that his view is more plausible than it may at first appear.

The debate of humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect have been discussed in international relations discourse more seriously within the last 60 years. The major historical developments which have led to an increase in the intensity of these debates have had beneficial and detrimental effects on Earth within the last 20 years. Several factors have contributed to this including; globalization, the rise in international accountability, an increase humanitarian consciousness to prevent major atrocities from occurring, the expansion of territorial to global responsibility of the western world, and the realization of the western world that regional sovereignty no longer accounts for national security. To develop an opinion

An understanding of where the Syrian healthcare system stood before the civil war, the toll of the fighting and intentional targeting of medical personnel/infrastructure, ongoing humanitarian efforts, and America’s actions to date enable an informed evaluation of whether or not to use American military forces in a humanitarian assistance role in Syria. This context allows for an examination of the limitations of humanitarian aid, the advantages/disadvantages of plausible courses of action involving the military and the threat of mission creep. Before evaluating the merits of available courses of action the military can take to address Syria’s medical crisis, it is important to identify and understand the limitations of humanitarian assistance in general. Taylor Seybolt, Associate Professor in International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh an expert on military and humanitarian intervention, cites the following inherent limitations of humanitarian intervention: it does not provide a lasting solution to conflict; it has the potential to prolong wars; it can foster economic dependence; and it inhibits strong state development.19 When these limitations are considered in regard to Syria, military intervention for the sole purpose of providing medical humanitarian support does not make sense.

Non-intervention has always been a commonly understood principle in international relations. However, a problem arises when a nation cannot protect the wellbeing of its own citizens against either internal or external forces. That is when the question of whether our ethical duties to others transcend the community of the nation-state arises. It is indeed difficult to answer as history has shown there often is no obvious benefit that comes from humanitarian intervention. This partly has something to do with the international consensus and the guiding principles currently in place for such action.

In comparison, in his book Saving Strangers, Nicholas J. Wheeler sets out to argue for what he calls a “solidarist” view of humanitarian intervention, and attempts to dispute the arguments for the contrary “pluralist” or “realist” view. Both books are very different in composition, but both set out to answer many of the difficult questions that are brought forth in the humanitarian intervention debate. Although it is clear that Humanitarian Intervention attempts to present the reader with many different viewpoints on the subject, on many levels these arguments converge well with that of Saving Strangers in that its contributors more often discuss the need for reform in international law or a looser adherence to it in certain situations, as well as a questioning of the legal priority sovereignty has over human rights. In essence, the purpose of Holzgrefe and Keohane’s book is to allow the reader to survey a variety of arguments to formulate his or her own viewpoint on humanitarian intervention, while Wheeler’s book is an attempt to convince the reader of his “solidarist” views on the subject. Because of this, it is easier to find a clear, proposed solution from Saving Strangers than Humanitarian Intervention because of the more varied perspectives present in the latter.

This paper is an analysis of the 1991 humanitarian intervention of the USA into Somalia. The concept of the “humanitarian” mission is embedded into the analyses of the American rhetoric concerning their newfound concern for the area. The military and cultural reasons for the failure are mentioned, as well as the habitual rejection of UN guidelines for it. In fact, this is an excel;lent example of a botched program that seems destined to become the future norm.

Humanitarian interventions violate the principle of non-armed intervention provided by the United Nations. Traditionally, Western states are the ones who increasingly use this medium to give legitimacy to a security plan to protect its global economic interests. The fact invoked humanitarian grounds to intervene in domestic affairs of other countries is done to protect economic interests of interveners countries. Paradoxically states most involved are precisely those that contribute more funds to the United Nations for humanitarian action. Western nations have invoked numerous moral reasons born of natural law by which an intervention is justified as such: to penalize the wrong and protect the innocent. As Nardin (P.70) argued: “The tradition of natural law or common morality, sees humanitarian intervention as an expression of the basic moral duty to protect the innocent from the violence.” International organizations based on international law such as the United Nations, the International Red Cross, UNHCR among others, when they intervene in conflicts are always faced with a moral and ethical dilemma because their interests do not coincide with the benefit of the intervenor's countries.

Humanitarian Military Intervention in the recent years has been creating a lot of controversies and debates all over the world. It has become one of the most debated concepts in the field of international relations. To be able to justify the so-called HMIs is a highly problematic issue at hand. Before we go any further into the debate of HMI, let us first try and understand what the concept actually means. One very interesting and exhaustive view (in my personal regard) about the concept of HMI that I came across is found in the book ‘Encyclopedia of Global Justice’. “Humanitarian Military Intervention is the violation of the strict sovereignty of a state, defined as humanitarian by its aim of remedying or preventing human rights violations. The humanitarian aim is necessary for distinguishing the intervention from other various acts of military aggression that are strictly prohibited by international law and convention. Humanitarian military intervention is often understood to constitute a noteworthy application of Just War Theory, and, on many accounts represents an exception to the prohibition on the use of military force in international relations. Within the Just War tradition, humanitarian intervention is distinguished from wars of conquest by its humanitarian aims, and from humanitarian assistance by virtue of forcefully violating state sovereignty.” This definition, in my view, demonstrates the complexity of

The 1999 Kosovan War is a controversial event, usually used as a shining example of when humanitarian intervention has worked; unfortunately, when examined, it is unclear whether the international campaign for peace was an actual success or not. NATO justified their involvement by labelling Kosovo a ‘humanitarian war’ after diplomatic negotiations ground to a halt in March 1999 (Wood, 2007). A wide range of sources supported the war in Kosovo, such as David Clark in 2009, with ‘Every member of NATO, every EU country, and most of Yugoslavia's neighbours, supported military action’ (Clark, 2009). Leaders from the US and the UK respectively also stated ‘upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause of peace’ (Clinton, 1999), and ‘to avert what would otherwise be a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo’ (Blair, 1999). However, it was not only ambassadors and high-profile politicians that took this stance; scholars and intellectuals were also vocal about their support for the war (Mellon, 2001). This implies that not only did the foreign western powers believe that a

are “legitimate,” to use the familiar term. Without this assumption that intervening states are “legitimate,” (and, hence, represent no serious danger to their own subjects), the debate surrounding humanitarian intervention would be considerably altered. If, instead, all states were conceived to pose an extremely dangerous threat to their own subjects, (an argument I intend to make below), it seems unlikely that philosophers would so readily endorse the moral permissibility of state humanitarian

USA declared it strongly that it will not interfere in a sovereign country If the USA sees no greater benefit or motive for their nation “(4)”. Thus it is a contradiction by USA as a member of global community which exhibits little concern for human rights or moral case, they only care about state’s profit and that motivates the USA to interfere in a state by the means of military force, economic sanctions, politically isolating or ostracizing a sovereign state. Such intention leaves an impression that the humanitarian intervention could be used as concealment for a particular state’s self-interest.

Although non-militant humanitarian intervention holds many superior traits to military intervention, sometimes global powers have no alternative except to demonstrate military force. Humanitarian military intervention must only be utilized in a limited set of circumstances. First, global powers must only employ military force to combat extreme catastrophes such as ethnic cleansing, genocide, and crimes against humanity. Second, global powers may use military intervention as a last resort, having exhausted all other non-militant options. Finally, interventions who meet the first two criteria must only respond to the situation with a proportionate response. In his article, “Humanitarian Intervention: Loose Ends ,” Fernando Tesón describes this

The key objections to humanitarian intervention include the conflict of interests with the self-interested state and sovereignty, the difficulty of internal legitimacy, the problematical Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, and the debate over legality of intervention. The issue of morality stands as an overarching issue which touches on all of these. Overall, one finds that despite a moral imperative to intervene, humanitarian intervention should not occur but is perhaps the lesser of a series of evils.

The international relations theory that best explains Operation Provide Comfort would be the constructivist theory. However, Turkey’s involvement in the operation may also be explained through subaltern realism. The fact that the nations that comprised the coalition, save for Turkey, conducting Operation Provide Comfort went through the official channel of the UN shows that the intention was to act within the norms of the international community for conducting humanitarian interventions. Had the US decided to act unilaterally, without permission from the other states involved or the UN, it strongly indicate that the US self-interests superseded those of the global community. Furthermore, the coalition of western powers respected Turkey’s sovereignty by keeping the refugees at the border and providing aid in refugee camps there. Respecting a nations sovereignty, or giving reasonable cause for violating it, is an essential portion of constructivism as it indicates that states respect the artificially implemented restraints on themselves that they have set up.