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International relations humanitarian intervention
Should humanitarian intervention be allowed essay
There is no such thing as humanitarian intervention
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The International Community has a Right to Intervene in Sovereign States in order to end Serious Human Rights Abuses? Discuss.
Humanitarian intervention is definitely one of the most controversial subjects of the recent decades- among states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academia. The centre of the debate is the clash of traditional principles of state sovereignty and new adopted norms on use of force for humanitarian purposes. Despite the political controversies between the countries, humanitarian intervention is now an international norm which calls for action anytime there are serious mass life threatening occurrences in any country.
In 2001, ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty) - supported by the Canadian Government - introduced a report which would advance Humanitarian Intervention concept to a "Responsibility to Protect" (or “R2P). ICISS Report referred to the "right of humanitarian intervention" as a "coercive - and in particular military - action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state" (ICISS, 2001, p. vii).
Lack of political will, disagreement in the international community, or over-rationality about the costs of intervention has caused terrible atrocities - which have taken forms of genocide or ethnic cleansing - that have cost lives of millions (Power, 2011; J. Bajorja & R. McMahon, 2013). Humanitarian Intervention's new doctrine "Responsibility to Protect" is embraced by United Nations as a necessary means to prevent and punish atrocities. Yet, there are state actors as China and Russia which challenge its implementation.
I argue that it is very important to save Humanitarian Inter...
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Power, S. (2011). Bystanders to Genocide. The Atlantic Monthly , 84-108.
Roth, K. (2004). War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention. Human Rights Watch .
S. N. Macfarlane, C. J Thielking & T. G Weiss. (2004). The Responsibility to Protect: Is anyone interested in human intervention? Third World Quarterly , 977-992.
Secretary-General, U. (2002, February 15). Secretary-General Addresses International Peace Academy Seminar on The Responsability to Protect. UN document SG/SM/8125 .
Selfa, L. (2002). A new colonial "age of empire"? International Socialist Review .
Traub, J. (2012, February 18). The End of American Intervention . New York Times .
(1648). Treaty of Westphalia. International Relations and Security Network.
United Nations Secretary-General. (1999). Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organisation, A/54/1. United Nations.
Genocide is a pressing issue with a multitude of questions and debates surrounding it. It is the opinion of many people that the United Nations should not get involved with or try to stop ongoing genocide because of costs or impositions on the rights of a country, but what about the rights of an individual? The UN should get involved in human rights crimes that may lead to genocide to prevent millions of deaths, save money on humanitarian aid and clean up, and fulfill their responsibilities to stop such crimes. It is preferable to stop genocide before it occurs through diplomacy, but if necessary, military force may be used as a last resort. Navi Pillay, Human Rights High Commissioner, stated, “Concerted efforts by the international community at critical moments in time could prevent the escalation of violence into genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing.”
There have been many humanitarians that strive to help countries suffering with human right abuses. People think that the help from IGOs and NGOs will be enough to stop human rights violations. However, it hasn’t been effective. Every day, more and more human rights violations happen. The problem is escalating. People, including children, are still being forced to work to death, innocent civilians are still suffering the consequences of war, and families are struggling to stay firm together. Despite the efforts from the people, IGOs, and NGOs, In the year 2100, human rights abuse will not end.
The idea of intervention is either favoured or in question due to multiple circumstances where intervening in other states has had positive or negative outcomes. The General Assembly was arguing the right of a state to intervene with the knowledge that that state has purpose for intervention and has a plan to put forth when trying to resolve conflicts with the state in question. The GA argues this because intervention is necessary. This resolution focuses solely on the basis of protection of Human Rights. The General Assembly recognizes that countries who are not super powers eventually need intervening. They do not want states to do nothing because the state in question for intervening will continue to fall in the hands of corruption while nothing gets done. The GA opposed foreign intervention, but with our topic it points out that intervention is a necessity when the outcome could potentially solve conflicts and issues. In many cases intervention is necessary to protect Human Rights. For instance; several governments around the world do not privilege their citizens with basic Human Rights. These citizens in turn rely on the inter...
...2009): 8-9. United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review. Web. 8 Apr. 2014. .
Humanitarian intervention can be defined as the right or duty of the international community to intervene in states with certain causes. The causes can be that the state has suffered a large scale loss of life or genocide due to intentional actions by its government or even because of the collapse of governance (Baylis, Owens, Smith 480). One of the main arguments in the article was president Obamas decision not to bomb Syria after many of his Allies and people believed he would’ve after making so many plans and decision to carry out the bombing. Obamas decision can be expressing in some of the key objections to humanitarian intervention. For example, the first key is that states do not intervene for primarily humanitarian reasons. This means that humanitarian intervention would be unwise if it does not serve the states national interests. President Obama did not want to risk taking a shot while there were United Nations inspectors on the ground completing work (Goldberg
With peace and sanctity of mankind as the primary driver, a set of ethical standards must be established to ensure the governing of the global system. In order for this to occur, general ethical standards should be agreed upon by all sovereign governments. But one might ask, what are these ethical standards? The ethical standards are relative to the method of intervention a nation or international agency may pursue if a nation is believed to be denying basic human rights from its citizens. These basic human rights are to be determined by an international agency such as the United Nations, to be ratified by its member sovereign nations. For this to be possible, these standards must be broad in order to encompass all people without bias
Throughout history there has been a power struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, which can be identified by the historic process of imperialism. Imperialism once thought of being a heinous action carried out by the oppressors or in other words the powerful, wealthy, and influential states. These countries venture out and try to colonize other underdeveloped countries so that they can extract resources, labor, and wealth. The oppressed are forced to abide by the rules of the powerful minority. These are things of the past, the international community has moved past barbaric imperialism. But does Imperialism still exist? Is there still hope or salvation for humanitarian intervention in today’s world? I believe that imperialism does not exist in the world today and that humanitarian intervention is still possible. To make this argument, this paper will begin with a brief explanation of the Kosovo precedent and its justification towards actions in Syria and Ukraine. I then move to an analysis offered from Liberals on the questions of imperialism and humanitarian intervention in Syria and Ukraine then will use Realist and Marxists ideology to engage in arguments. I will conclude with a brief overview and conclusion of the analysis to make a lasting impression of my feelings toward imperialism and humanitarian intervention.
First of all, the R2P clearly states that: i) the State has the primary responsibility to protect its population from heinous human rights abuses such as genocide, war crimes, crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing; ii) the international community has the responsibility to assist States in fulfilling their primary responsibility as indicated in point i) and as such, it should use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to protect populations from those crimes; iii) however, when a State fails to protect its own populations or is the actual perpetrator of such crimes against its populations, the international community must be prepared to ta...
Whenever any human rights issue breaks out, there are differing opinions on the appropriate course of action. The difference in the case of ethnic cleansing is that this issue is much more critical than almost any other human rights issue. In the case of ethnic cleansing, the United States' approach to intervention could determine the fates of thousands of people. In cases of extreme ethnic cleansing, intervention can take place on an international level, with many nations cooperating in an attempt to br...
One of most crucial aspects of humanitarian intervention is the lack of proper motives. As noted by Bush, Martiniello, and Mercer, in the case of Libya and Côte d’Ivoire the Western nations were pursuing their own economic imperial interests under the guise of humanitarian intervention (Bush). The lack of pure motives to help decrease crimes against humanity resulted in an increased number of human rights violations in both Libya and Côte d’Ivoire (Bush). In order
When considering the concepts of human rights and state sovereignty, the potential for conflict between the two is evident. Any humanitarian intervention by other actors within the international system would effectively constitute a violation of the traditional sovereign rights of states to govern their own domestic affairs. Thus, the answer to this question lies in an examination of the legitimacy and morality of humanitarian intervention. While traditionally, the Westphalian concept of sovereignty and non-intervention has prevailed, in the period since the Cold War, the view of human rights as principles universally entitled to humanity, and the norm of enforcing them, has developed. This has led to the 1990’s being described as a ‘golden
Kegley, Charles W., and Gregory A. Raymond. The Global Future: A Brief Introduction to World Politics. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2011. Print.
Smith M. J. 1999, Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues, in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Philosophy of Human Rights, Paragon House, United States, pp. 478-500
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is seen as the law in which provides basic human rights in time of armed conflict. The use of IHL in a modern scenario is needed now more then ever with the increase of entities that wish to disrupt the peace by ignoring basic human rights. Organisations and treaties have been created to help govern the IHL; which will need to be analysed to provide insight into IHLs. This essay aims to critically analyse IHL and outline how it can be improved. To gain an understanding IHL will first be defined.
The UN has made strides toward and continues to fight for world peace, but this however is not the only function of the agency. Environmental protection, Human rights, health and medical research, alleviation of poverty and economic development, emergency and disaster relief, and labor and workers' rights are just a sample of what the UN continues to battle as the year 2000 approaches.