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Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention (What is IR for? (Negative…
- Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention
A contentious subject
Although seemingly motivated by a genuine altruistic desire to protect the innocent in times of conflict, humanitarian intervention remains a highly contentious issue.
(Human) Security
Traditionally understood as a condition that applied to states, security - understood as the condition of being free from harm or threat - is now often conceptualised as human security or collective security.
Gender, Security and IR
Using gender as a lens for analysis allows us to ask different questions about the effectiveness of any particular foreign policy and address issues that may be hidden bu other conceptual approaches.
Feminism(s) and IR
Starting from a premise about a 'masculine hegemony' in IR, feminist scholars direct their attention to uncovering the experiences of people hidden by this bias and recover empirical data by asking the question 'Where are the women in international relations?'
What is IR for?
Negative freedom
Often seen as 'freedom from' or 'freedom to be', this type of freedom implies being left alone and without interference from the state or powerful agents.
Positive Freedom:
Often seen as 'freedom to do', this type of freedom implies that certain conditions (e.g. economic, social and political) need to pre-exist in order for an individual to attain his or her full potential.
Normative theories of IR suggest that the point of the discipline and subsequent practice should be 'emancipatory'
Historical Development of Human Rights
The atrocities of mid-century 'caused the West to reach into its own past for a set of terms that would adequately articulate its sense of moral outrage about what members of its own civilisation had done to one another'
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Human Rights Instruments of the UN
- The United Nations Charter (1945)
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
- International Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965)
- Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984)
- Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990)
Humanitarian Intervention
It might seem obvious that humanitarian intervention should protect and promote human rights and associated norms and values...
Gender and (Human) Security
... but analysing international relations through 'critical theories' (such as gender and post-colonialism) can suggest a differing conclusion.
Liberal Universalism
The norms and values underpinning human rights are derived from the (Western) liberal political tradition, raising the question about whether they can be considered 'universal' at all.
Anti-Slavery and Abolitionism
Although often seen as a product of the post-Cold War era, what we might understand about humanitarian intervention has a far longer history and rests on the ethical dilemma of what obligations we owe to strangers in international society
The International Committee of the Red Cross, 1864
Battle of Solferino, northern Italy
Humanitarian Intervention in the Colonial Period
Although abolitionism and humanitarian initiatives like the Red Cross constituted a form of cosmopolitanism, even in the 19th century intervention on humanitarian grounds was being used as a foil for other strategic motives.
Rwanda, 1994
The genocide in Rwanda conducted in 1994 shocked many in the international community: but so did the failure of outside forces to do anything to prevent it from happening.
Srebrenica, 1995
In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces took over a refugee camp in Srebrenica and killed over 7,000 Bosniak men and boys. The ability of (Dutch) UN forces to prevent this atrocity led to a rethink in the west about the sanctity of non-intervention that had been hardened during the Cold War.
Kosovo, 1999
The logic of humanitarian intervention reached it apogee in 1999 with NATO air strikes against Serb forces and Serbia itself.
R2P: The responsibility to protect
State sovereignty implies responsibility and the primary responsibility for the protection of its people lies with the state itself
Where a population is suffering serious harm, as a result of internal war, insurgency, repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling or unable to halt or avert it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect
Post-Colonial Critiques
For analysts and practitioners sensitised to the historical experience of imperialism, humanitarian intervention can seem like another instance of western intrusion.
'Asian Values'?
The 1993 Vienna Declaration restated the universality of human rights which led to counter claims by leaders such as Mahatir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew that there were different values in Asia given its different history and level of development compared to the West.
Iraq 2003: Neo-Imperialism?
The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified in a variety of ways, including "regime change", but ones which left many skeptical as to the true motives of the US government and its allies.
An ethical dilemma in IR
What do we owe others in international society and does the application of force produce a (lasting) solution to their problems?
Libya, 2011 and Syria, 2013 to date
Despite the success of military intervention in attaining its goals of supporting the anti-Gaddafi uprising, Libya collapsed into a 'failed state' after the UN-sanctioned intervention. The Syrian conflict saw multiple interventions, but none sanctioned by the UN.
Promoting Human Rights
The goal of attaining human rights poses a dilemma in international relations about the best way to attain that goal: by accommodation or by confrontation?
CONCLUSIONS
Rather than simply being a post-Cold War phenomenon, humanitarian intervention has a long history (and this is part of the problem)
This being said, the end of the Cold War did allow political space for a new form of international action to develop
The Responsibility to Protect (or R2P adopted in 2005), shifted emphasis away from sovereignty and onto intervention.
Stereotypes and Identity in IR
Gender scholars also highlight the way that gender identities can inform opinion in matters of international relations and shape policy decision-making horizons.