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Humanitarian Intervention (R2P (Bellamy & Williams (2011) - 4…
Humanitarian Intervention
R2P
Classic conditions: Needs to be under the UN treaty + Article 51 (permits a state to use force) (Chomsky, youtube)
Evans version - released in 2001
Regional organizations can intervene into a country without UNSC authorization, if that will be granted later
Conflict between global North vs South
How should we then respond to atrocities worldwide?
When a state is not able to look after its citizens, the principle of non-interference yields to the R2P b
Sovereignty and human rights - prior to R2P
WW2 + Holocaust shifted the notion of security towards securing human rights
Article 2 (7) + Article 2 (4)
Bellamy & Williams (2011) - 4 principles challenges relating to Libyan case
Resolving contestation about how to interpret mandates
Moreal questions regarding infliction of civilian casualties by armed forces mandated to protect civilians
Relationship between human protection and regime change in situations where regime constitutes the principle threat to civilians
Questions about the military means used to protect civilians and especially about the limits of air power which provides only indirect protection and may come at unintended additional harm to civilians
Arose from the context of the failed international response towards Rwanda & Yugoslavia
Produced by one of the largest gatherings of heads of state ever seen - 150 states at the 2005 World Summit
Outcome document specifically points to the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity
The Outcome document points to the kinds of tools, actors, and procedures that could form the basis for operationalizing the R2P
Sovereignty
Westphalian soveriegnty rests on the assumption that sovereign states provide the best avenue for protecting human security and the international security is dependent on rules that prohibit states from interfering in one another's affairs
However, many states have committed genocide on their own citizens
Humanitarian intervention challenges Westphalian sovereignty
The case for humanitarian intervention
Mass atrocities
Liberalism + cosmopolitanism - external actors have a
duty
as well as a
right
to intervene to halt genocide
Liberalists such as Wheeler argue that there is agreement in the international society that cases of genocide, mass killing and ethnic cleansing constitute grave humanitarian crises warranting intervention
However
, not everybody agrees with this proposition -
Firstly, it is not self-evident that individuals have universal and fundamental human rights - as liberalism is rejected in many parts of the world, it can't serve as a basis for intervention
Realists also argue that only
power*
can make rights meaningful, because power will help back them up
When states fail in their duties towards their citizens, they lose their sovereign right to
non-interference
Political leaders may argue that the world is so globalized and interconnected that human rights violations in one place has an effect on other areas
Developed in the post-Cold war context
The case against humanitarian intervention
By and large, most countries that oppose intervention focuses on
who can authorize
intervention and
in what circumstances
The opposition also argues that the world is made up of a large number of independent societies - democratic (social, market, authoritarian), theocracies, monarchies, dictatorships and communist states
It is also very open to abuse - Hitler in -39 (Czechslovakia), Iraq war in 2003, Russia in Georgia 2008
Case study - Russia in Georgia
Russia claimed that Georgians committed genocide in South Ossetia, but analysts have been able to discard this claim, as it is clear that Russia, Georgia and South Ossetian forces all committed crimes. Furthermore, Russia's use of force was exaggerated and they entered areas that were not South Ossetia. Thirdly,
It also opens the door to violation of self-determination which is in line with the
Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations
Finally, intervention creates unstable peace and prolongs wars - war is a mechanism that in the end balances the situation in favor of the party with the most
power
However, there are problems with these propositions
Not all states protect the rights of their citizens
sovereignty does not, in practice, equal to responsibilities as all of the cases have shown
The fear of abuse is exaggerated
Intervention is not permitted without the authorization of the UN Security Council - absence of this eradicates principles of non-aggression and the right to self-determination