Alex Bellamy's Humanitarian Intervention

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In “Ethics and Intervention: The ‘Humanitarian Exception’ and the Problem of Abuse in the Case of Iraq, Alex Bellamy argues that war is only justified in exceptional cases where “supreme humanitarian intervention” is genuinely required (Bellamy, p. 137). Bellamy discusses the ethics of intervention and the decision of the US to invade Iraq. He provides the argument that international law does not provide moral reasoning on the issues of war. However, he acknowledges that it does provide an important foundation on the issue of legitimacy of war. He discusses two legal justifications for war, which include implied UN authorization and pre-emptive self-defense of that state. Neither of these is the case in Iraq, although the government may say …show more content…

Moreover, “It uses the case of Iraq to assess whether conservative interpretations of positive international law can be overridden by moral right to uphold elements of natural law that are knowable to all” (p.132). Bellamy ultimately poses a moral question of whether there is a moral “humanitarian exceptions to this rule grounded in the “just war” theory. Bellamy sets out his argument in two aspects to determine whether war has been used for a humanitarian case. He discusses the “holy war” tradition and the classical just war thinking based on natural law and comes to the conclusion that the holy war is problematic. I also agree that the holy war tradition is problematic as no proper set of rules have been set out. It is solely based on mere …show more content…

However, he acknowledges that they about abuse the use of force. Consequently, the natural law and legal positivism arguments should be understood as complementary school of thoughts and not “as separate traditions” (p.132). In sum, Bellamy provides that natural law provides justification for the invasion of Iraq on humanitarian terms, whereas legal positivism does not consider the human rights violations and leaves states to abuse the use of force, as in the case of Iraq. I agree with Bellamy when he asserts that the humanitarian exception in Iraq’s case resulted in abuse when he provides “Abuse refers to the case where moral argument are used to justify a war that not primarily motivated by the moral concerns espoused, but by the short-term interests of those instigating violence” (p 132). Moreover, Bellamy outlines the problems with international law. He sets out that international law has no single authoritative lawmaker in international; there is no judge above the sovereign; that customs are difficult to interpret objectively; that positive law is underdeveloped and doesn’t address the necessary aspects of law keeping; and that there is no defined community-based moral framework in place, thereby making it impossible to establish ethics (p.133). The UN Resolution of 687 that is discussed by Bellamy in the case of Iraq illustrates how it is arguable whether the use of

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