Why Intervention Is A Fundamental Principle Of Sovereignty

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?

In A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Samantha Powers writes that the US is “extremely slow to muster the imagination needed to reckon with evil.” Powers’ comments are particularly relevant to U.S. policy during the turbulent 1990s and more recently in Syria when the U.S. policymakers chose not to deploy military capability to prevent mass atrocities. Since Powers’ seminal work, the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College (CGSC) located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has taken on the challenge to educate military officers with 10 to 12 years of military experience in the prevention of and response to mass atrocities (MARO). My paper will discuss how international agreements such as the Responsibility to Protect, the Genocide

American involvement in humanitarian intervention is one of the most controversial issues in contemporary US foreign policy. The definition of humanitarian intervention is a military intervention; entering into a country for the purposes of saving lives and protecting citizens from the violation of their human rights. As in all debates, there are always two sides. One side disputes that military force should only be applied when, in the words of former Secretary of Defense Weinberger, ‘a vital national interest is at stake.’ ¹ The opposing side disputes that the US should apply military force to mediate when in the words of former president Clinton, “someone comes after innocent civilians…and it is in our power to stop it, we will stop

For many years people have argued whether or not the U.S. should intervene in situations where people are suffering. Some people say we should be cautious of intervening in foreign countries. While some people say intervention could help change the world. After reading multiple sources, it is evident that the U.S. should intervene in situations where people in other countries are suffering, even if it means going to war. The U.S. should intervene in these situations because it can help influence our principles of democracy and it will overall help all of humanity.

Section one deals with the debates that surround the issues of humanitarian intervention and just war theory on the basis of international scale. One article by Holzgrefe is completely focused on the debate, stating the many ethical theories of many different theorists: from "utilitarianism; natural law; social contractrianism; communitarianism; and legal postivism" (7). Holzgrefe goes on to define what each ethical theorist is and their understanding of the debate on humanitarian intervention. However, there is the idea of when it is right to intervene and when intervention is unfavorable. The most interesting part was the third section of the article.

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

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

Should the slightest abuse in human rights give the right for states to “intervene”. Who decides those human rights? The West? The U.S invaded Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction and because of the horrible man Saddam Hussein was. However, when he gassed his own people, there was no invasion of the country. The world may not be able to agree on all human rights issues; however they should realize that everyone has the right to live. When there is systematic killing of an ethnic civilian group, genocide is occurring. There are no acts of genocides, there is just

In fact, many still attribute the instability and poverty of the Great Lakes region directly to the Rwandan genocide and the long-lasting scars it has left. Thus, the importance of intervention in events of the genre of the Rwandan genocide is clear. The impacts of mass atrocities, like genocide or war crimes extend beyond just the people being targeted, but rather, affect the whole country, the whole region, the whole world. The ripple effects of a genocide are far-reaching and catastrophic, making it essential that intervention occurs before such events are allowed to run their devastating course. Along with our moral responsibility to ensure that sovereign states do not use their sovereignty with impunity, the interconnectedness of our globalized world make it essential that the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, a policy of interventionism for humanitarian purposes with clear parameters, is used to avert future Rwanda's, Congo’s and Burundi’s from

In the spring and summer of 1994, Rwanda experienced a genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. After seeing the tragedies that took place in Nazi Germany, one would expect the international community to respond quickly and effectively in the case of the Rwandan genocide. However, the killings were largely pushed aside or ignored by the rest of the world, begging the question of when states have the right or duty to betray another state’s sovereignty. There are different methods of intervening to protect human rights, but they are much debated and there have been many times that intervention has made a situation worse. However, there is a moral obligation that we all have to protect others when we can, whether they are part of our nation or not. If human rights are being abused in a state, other states have the duty to take multilateral actions to stop killings and provide aid.

The purpose of intervention should be the protection and promotion of human rights. “Armed interventions have a substantial likelihood of imposing disproportionate risks upon individuals, even when there are severe rights violations within a possible target state. Yet, nonviolent strategies will often be insufficient to stop such violations.” Then, the decision to intervene is dependent on a great number of factors that are taken into account before any action is taken. In spite of that, lives are on danger when these decisions are being discussed. Just as intervention is not justified by any suspicion of violation, it is erroneous to stop any attempt to intervene because of the inexistence of violations of genocidal proportions. If governments

In this paper, I will argue that Luban’s critique of Walzer conception of legitimacy is misguided. I will first present Walzer’s argument for interventions using the “legalist paradigm,” in particular his conception of self-determination and how the principle of non-intervention may be set aside in exceptional circumstances. I will then present Luban’s critique of Walzer and his argument for developing an account of Just War directly in terms of human rights, before concluding with my own critique of Luban’s argument.

However, it can be argued that the motives behind intervention are not as important as the interventions themselves – the moral function of humanitarian intervention is to save lives and this can be achieved with or without altruistic motives. To this a possible reply is that seemingly unjust intervention may aggravate the receiving state, more so perhaps in military interventions than economic, political or social. A threatened state is arguably more likely to initiate a backlash. However, such an argument cannot be made against a UN-sanctioned intervention, where it can be agreed that the intervention is legitimate and in the interests of the global community. The issue of marginalising state sovereignty completely ignores the fact that sovereignty is granted by the international community , . The arguments that states such as China may put forward, that state sovereignty is absolute and deserving of unadulterated respect, rests on the idea that states grant themselves sovereignty, which upon reflection, one finds to be untrue. State sovereignty can only be realised if it is acknowledged by the global society of states. To this a realist might argue that theoretical sovereignty is separate from actual sovereignty, and that states will defend their sovereignty regardless of its

Much recent discourse surrounding humanitarian intervention has focused on the responsibility to protect (R2P). Prevention is a key component for good international relations and few would say it is not important, but as evidence to date would show prevention is very ineffective, the legality of military intervention still needs to be debated, as to date there is no consensus. For any intervention to be legitimate, whether unilateral or multilateral, it must comply with international law. So as not to cause any confusion, any situation in which an “intervention” is done with the permission or by request of the state being intervened, should be considered humanitarian assistance as state sovereignty is not breached. This paper will

Over centuries the international community has witnessed the deadly harm of sovereign states that have demonstrated acts of colossal inhumanity, such as the atrocities of the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge and Rwanda. All these episodes have contributed of an introduction to a new paradigm of international of law, The Responsibly to Protect (R2P). This was adopted unanimously in 2005 by United Nations General assembly World Summit. The R2P doctrine is based on 3 pillars of responsibility: 1. Each nation state is obligated to protect its populace from crimes such as “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. 2.The international community has to encourage states to uphold their role in ensuring R2P is adequately met. 3. If the nation state fails to protect its populace from these crimes, it therefore it becomes an implication for the international community to collectively take action. Notably this must be in accordance to article 39 of the United Nations Charter. Hence, academic scholar Bellamy reinforces this; “R2P offers the best change in our own time to build an international community that is less tolerant of mass atrocities and more predisposed to preventing them”. However it must be noted that the doctrine of R2P is not legally binding.