Humanitarian Intervention And State Sovereignty
The language and practice of humanitarian intervention is far from
new. It has been the source of incessant argument by lawyers,
theologians, and philosophers for generations, even centuries. But
the recent debate has its origins in the Cold War and was motivated
by a number of controversial military actions. Three in particular
stand out: India’s intervention in the Bangladesh War of 1971;
Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia in 1978, which resulted in the
overthrow of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime; and Tanzania’s
intervention in Uganda in 1979, which ousted the dictator Idi Amin.
These interventions were all condemned throughout the world. This
criticism tended to be based on the contention that they undermined
the notion of state sovereignty enshrined in Article 51 of the
United Nations (UN) Charter. As such, these interventions offered a
fundamental challenge to the stability of the post-World War II
international system.
In the post-Cold War era, however, this conception of sovereignty
as sacrosanct came under sustained attack. It was argued that
despotic leaders should not be able to hide behind the shield of
state sovereignty and that the international community had an
obligation to intervene to stop the widespread abuse of human
rights. This contention garnered widespread support. It was an
important theme, for example, in the writings of UN
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The 1990s was a decade of
interventions: Iraqi “no-fly zones,” Somalia, Bosnia, Sierra Leone,
East Timor, and Kosovo. The Iraq War (2003–11) was classified as a
humanitarian intervention by some of its advocates, demonstrating
how wide the embrace of the term had become.
Criticisms Of Humanitarian Intervention
The doctrine of humanitarian intervention has been widely
criticized. For many detractors, it represents a mode of liberal
imperialism. Likewise, humanitarian intervention has been censured
for coercively imposing Western ideas about rights onto other
cultures. For others, humanitarianism is simply rhetorical cover
either for the implementation of traditional geopolitical policies
or for powerful economic interests. In particular, it is argued,
the failure of the Western powers to intervene during the 1994
genocide in Rwanda, where there were no obvious economic or
political interests at stake, demonstrated their hypocrisy. Indeed,
Rwanda has become a lightning rod for the debate. For critics of
interventionism, it proved that interventions were linked to
self-interest. For advocates, Rwanda was a catastrophic failure and
a spur for future action.
Legal And Practical Issues
Numerous contentious issues frame the debate. Some are theoretical,
others practical. Probably the most intractable relate to the
question of legitimacy (both legal and moral). Who is to judge an
intervention legitimate, and on what grounds? Much of the legal
debate stems from the tension between Article 51 of the UN Charter
and the provisions of Article 24(1) and Chapter VII, which grant
the Security Council powers to take whatever measures it regards as
necessary to reestablish international peace and security. If an
act is deemed to threaten peace and security, the UN can empower
agents to rectify this, as occurred in the Bosnian conflict
(1992–95). However, legal and moral obligations have clashed. In
Kosovo, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervened
without UN authorization, claiming that although such authorization
was unlikely to be granted, there was nevertheless an overwhelming
ethical imperative to act.
Aside from questions of legitimacy, there are other problems to be confronted. There is a practical issue. Even if interventions were regarded universally as legitimate, there exists no consensus about whether they actually work, or whether they delay or even exacerbate the problems they seek to resolve. The question of motivation is also problematic. Is it ever really possible to act solely for humanitarian reasons? Moreover, should motivation actually matter? This all depends on what ethical system is employed. If it is simply a matter of consequences, as a utilitarian might argue, then an intervention conducted purely in the name of national self-interest that resulted in a “humanitarian” outcome (for example, the overthrow of a genocidal leader) could be classified as a humanitarian intervention. Likewise, an intervention conducted out of concern for human rights, if it failed in its primary goal, could not be classified as such. Such issues continue to drive the debate.
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