In recent times there has been a growth in states experiencing gross violations of basic human rights towards its people. Instances of this include the genocide in Rwanda, and the gross demonstrations performed by ISIS. As a result of this there has been a debate as to should the international community react? Should we take action and intervene to bring an end to these horrific displays, and if action is taken to intervene how exactly should we intervene? Should the international community conduct a military intervention such as what was done in Libya and Iraq, or should we take a more conservative route and attempt to intervene through negotiations? Another question is should we respect a state 's own sovereignty and independence and not …show more content…
The sheer cost of funding an intervention, specifically a military intervention, is ridiculous. According to one recent calculation, armed humanitarian interventions have spent from one hundred and fifty-thousand to a million dollars per life saved. By contrast, disaster relief and medical aid can save lives at less than 1% that amount, with fewer moral and political costs as well.(Rocheleau)The high cost to fund these interventions also comes with another cost which is money is taken from other areas of government fundings such as education and social welfare and used to fund military interventions. This rearrangement of funding weakens the overall strength of the nation, and in the long term effects the economy. The cost of a military intervention also includes another, more valuable aspect: human lives. Because both victims and oppressors in civil conflicts normally live in close quarters, and battles often occur within communities, the harm to noncombatants is especially likely.(Rocheleau) In addition to having a very high cost, to intervene in all cases of human rights abuse can also be seen as being reminiscent of …show more content…
Thus the act of sending in a country 's military into another country, thus violating their territorial integrity, can be seen as forcing one 's own beliefs and ideas into another country. The danger of this is that just because something might work very well for one country, such as democracy in America, might not work as well somewhere else with a completely different culture. A similar example is imagine if England, who has historically gained much of its income through the shipment of goods overseas by boat, tried to help a landlocked country grow a better economy by building up its nonexistent shipping industry. It simply wouldn 't work. This goes to show that just because one practice is successful in one country, won’t always be successful in another. Another potential problem with getting involved with every potential violation of human rights is that it can become expected for you to
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 rights 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.
The issue of human rights has arisen only in the post-cold war whereby it was addressed by an international institution that is the United Nation. In the United Nation’s preamble stated that human rights are given to all humans and that there is equality for everyone. There will not be any sovereign states to diminish its people from taking these rights. The globalization of capitalism after the Cold War makes the issue of human rights seems admirable as there were sufferings in other parts of the world. This is because it is perceived that the western states are the champion of democracy which therefore provides a perfect body to carry out human rights activities. Such human sufferings occur in a sovereign state humanitarian intervention led by the international institution will be carried out to end the menace.
... another state with the mindset of hopefully improving the overall atmosphere. Although intervention will always be in question, whether or not intervention is just an excuse to invade, with the creation of this resolution and the topic in discussion, most likely intervention will result it positive outcomes. One of the biggest contribution to successful interventions is the intention the state has going in. If the intention is to hopefully resolve conflicts and to intervene peacefully, meaning an unlikely possibility of military enforcement, intervention will be successful.
“Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, language or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, independent, and indivisible.” (Webster Online Dictionary) These rights are taken away during genocide. Throughout history genocides have taken place time and time again from the Armenian genocide of 1915, to the Darfur genocide starting in 2003, and is still in progress today. Genocide is a barbaric practice that dehumanizes people and takes away their basic human rights ; American Foreign policy should be to intervene in foreign affairs when human rights violations are evident.
Next, I am going to discuss the person-centred interventions I exercised through the therapeutic process with my client in session four. Within this I am going to explore how these interventions impacted my client’s responses and how I could improve my skills in future sessions.
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
Since this is true, states are less restrained by the potential risk of humanitarian consequences of their actions. However, global human rights norms do make a difference, but to what extent? This article explains that the U.S violated the fundamental norm to not target civilians on multiple occasions during the Iraq war, however it was not blatantly done; the targeting was done indirectly, and more secretive. The ability for the United States to commit these international crimes discretely, without repercussions displays the level of influence the United Nations has. However, when civilian targeting is discovered this is the point where international humanitarian norms come into play; states fear being shamed or illegitimated. Since the establishment of an international court there has been a reduction in this type of crimes against humanity. Actions such as torture during war has been significantly reduced because of its
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
... the recent past, the idea of global security has been used as a reason for war. For example, the USA engagement in war against Afghanistan and Iraq was based on the argument of promoting peace in the name of democracy. This is a perfect example of how the interpretation of democracy can lead to hostility among nations.
The concept of humanitarian intervention is highly contested but it is defined by Wise to be the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or a group of states) aimed at preventing widespread and grave violations of fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied.
The United States is one of the leading suppliers of Foreign Aid in the world, and even though the US gives billions, European countries give aid money to the same countries, this causes many areas of the Middle East, Africa, and Asia to be almost fully dependent on foreign aid. This means that without aid from other countries, they would not be able to support themselves at all. Foreign aid is meant to help countries that are struggling with civil unrest, disease, or natural disasters, it is not meant to help keep the country out of debt, but that is where more and more of the US and The EU’s foreign aid budget is going. The question is, does all this money actually go where it is intended? It should be going towards the government and to help the people, but in many cases, the countries government does not have the resources to properly track the flow of money. The countries in most cases have poor infrastructure and corrupt or oppressive leaders, not always at a national level, but in the towns and cities. So this means there is almost no way to oversee the flow of foreign aid through the country, all we can see is that their situations aren't getting any better and the countries are still impoverished. If this is the case, where are the millions of dollars going? Countries like Afghanistan and Iraq receive the most money from American foreign aid and European aid, yet they are still under oppressive governmental rule and there is still an extreme difference between the rich and poor. Garrett Harding’s theory of “Lifeboat Ethics” exemplifies how not giving aid to others will allow the strongest of society to thrive, while teaching the impoverished to help themselves. He believes that giving aid to poor countries will only make ...
Various schools of thought exist as to why genocide continues at this deplorable rate and what must be done in order to uphold our promise. There are those who believe it is inaction by the international community which allows for massacres and tragedies to occur - equating apathy or neutrality with complicity to evil. Although other nations may play a part in the solution to genocide, the absolute reliance on others is part of the problem. No one nation or group of nations can be given such a respo...
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
In the article How Much Does It Cost to Liberate a Country? Tom Engelhardt explores some of the uses of taxpayer money in the post-war Middle East, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan. There have been many projects to repair local infrastructure that have cost significantly more than they should and have been unsuccessful in helping these countries. One example is a “$75 million dollar police academy” that was said to be critical to making the handoff of security from the US to Iraq successful. The building ended up being so poorly built that it was a “health hazard” (Engelhardt). On slightly less systematic scale during the war, American soldiers siphoned off $15 million dollars of fuel imported to Afghanistan to run machines and sold it to locals (Engelhardt). In the modern era “’reconstruction’ and ‘war’ have really been euphemisms for […] a massive system of corruption” (Engelhardt). The question I have about these after reading this article is similar to the one I have at the end of Keller’s speech: what can the American people realistically do about this? How do you get a population to question the sacred place our military has in society enough to realize that their work is exploited? Once again the number of people that would be needed to create the amount of pressure to actually make a change seems