Does it work?
Where did it come from?
After the Cold War (1947-1991) there were some serious human rights violations going on during the 1990s, like the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. This hit the world hard. Before this, people and countries worshipped ‘state sovereignty’ – which means not interfering in other countries’ affairs, and minding your own business. But with massacres happening that were killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, the world could not longer ignore it. Suddenly, we felt obliged to help people in other nations.
What is humanitarian intervention?
This produced a pretty new idea: humanitarian intervention. Where states use military force in another country in order to protect the people against mass atrocities.
Why is it an issue?
It sounds pretty reasonable, right? The issue is this: people question whether violating state sovereignty is a good thing when many ‘humanitarian interventions’ of the past have not worked very well.
Why hasn’t it worked?
These people often look at the following: the invasion of Iraq (2003), and the intervention in Libya (2011). You’ve probably heard some crazy things about these – and they didn’t run very smoothly, to say the least. People often use these cases as evidence that humanitarian intervention simply cannot work at all.
But when you look at these cases closely, and compare it to other cases like the invasions of Kosovo and East Timor (1999), you can see that the problem is the way countries intervene – the problem isn’t intervention itself!
The ingredients you need
Before the war
- Just cause + right intention – to intervene in a country using military force, a country must genuinely want to defend the human rights and wellbeing of the people. It won’t work if what you really want is power or wealth!
- Firstly – there needs to be a human rights catastrophe taking place, or about to take place
- Secondly – the country must genuinely be intervening purely to stop the problem and protect the countries’ citizens
- Potential for success – it is dangerous and foolish to engage in military action if there is no chance of success. This would just make things worse! There needs to be a chance it’ll work.
- Reasonable proportions – If there’s something bad going on in a country, it doesn’t necessarily mean another country can go in and wreak absolute destructive havoc that’s 10x worse.
- Firstly, there needs to be a legitimate human rights catastrophe taking place or about to take place.
- Secondly, the response taken needs to be proportional to the situation. You can’t go in with the weaponry and force to obliterate the entire country, its people, its nature….
- Last resort – we can all agree that peace is better. Countries should try to prevent human rights disasters + solve them as peacefully as possible before heading in with military.
During the war
- Justified actions and conduct – the principles above need to be present in all major acts of war. e.g. there may be just cause invade and target rebels, however there might not be just cause to overthrow an entire regime straight out.
- Assessment and sensitivity – strategy and actions in war aren’t black and white. They must take into consideration the different culture and nature of the nation they are in, to ensure successful protection instead of just imposing their own idea of protection!
After the war
- Peace building – if you want to prevent destruction and conflict in the future, you can’t abandon a country in tatters. You need to help rebuild & recover to prevent future catastrophes.
Putting it into practice
| Country | What worked? | What didn’t work? | What this means |
| Kosovo 1999 | Just cause. There was an impending humanitarian catastrophe against the separatist movement that was building – looking to shape up to the atrocities of Srebrenica and Rwanda | Probability of success. It is pointed out that that the intervention did not adequately consider the geopolitical relations of the major powers. Many of the actions taken were therefore ineffective and inconsistent. | Highlights the importance of assessing the specific circumstances of the situation and the specific actions taken during intervention. Even with just cause, military intervention is messy and complicated – you need to think carefully about your actions. |
| East Timor 1999 | Just cause. The Indonesia-backed militia had begun avaging the country of East Timor who voted in favour of indeendence. Within a few days, est. 1,000 died. The UN Security Council authorized force given the mass scale of the catastrophe.Conduct of war. The Australian forces in East Timor that intervened did not do things that weren’t legally and morally justified.Peacebuilding. After the war was officially over, Australian forces remained to help East Timor transition to independence and rebuild the new, independent state. | This illustrates that while humanitarian intervention may be morally justified, all the actions taken during intervention must also be morally justified + forces must help to rebuild countries – two elements required for any success of peace and human rights. | |
| Iraq 2003 | No just cause or right intention. Disproportionate Response. Since the war, the United States has justified their intervention on the basis that Iraqi citizens needed to be protected against weapons of mass destruction and an unstable Middle East. But they had no evidence that such weapons existed. And compared to the events of Rwanda, there were no human rights violations of this scale occurring. Therefore, many argue that the United States was just trying to grow its own power! | Humanitarian intervention is only ‘humanitarian’ if the forces are genuinely trying to protect human rights. If they aren’t aiming for this, it’s very unlikely they will achieve this!Further, responding with military force is serious – and therefore can’t be used for smaller-scale issues that should be addressed in other ways | |
| Libya 2011 | Just cause. There were indeed a serious human rights catastrophe impending. Muammer Gaddafi announced that his army was ready to ‘’cleanse’ the city of Benghazi with ‘no mercy’ and at this state est. 1,000-10,000 people had been killed. The UN Security Council therefore authorized military intervention – under Resolution 1973. | Unjustified conduct. The forces could initially justify the military intervention by legal and moral principles. However they couldn’t morally justify the complete change of state regime that they eventually instigated. Many argue that the way they left the just principles of humanitarian intervention is the reason why they were never able to properly defend the human rights of the Libyan people. | Military intervention may be morally justified to begin with, but the actions taken by the interveners also need to be justified by the principles explained above. Many people now look at the case of LIbya and think military intervention with humanitarian goals isn’t possible. But we need to remember why it didn’t work! |
Conclusion
It’s easy to look at the past and feel pessimistic – can we ever defend human rights?
But we’re suggesting this: let’s look at the reasons we’ve had these setbacks in the past, and let them guide us to greater success in defending human rights in the future! Let’s not just believe all the cynics and self-interested leaders. Let’s challenge them!
Eleanor Scott.
Sources
Books
Evans, Gareth. The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008.
Orford, Anna. Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Weiss, Thomas G. ‘Humanitarian Intervention.’ In An Introduction to International Relations, edited by Richard Devetak, 426-429. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Government sources
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Saddam Hussein: Crimes and Human Rights Abuses. United Kingdom, 2003.
Journal Articles
Eliens, Marco. ‘Review: Humanitarian Intervention After Kosovo. Iraq, Darfur, and the Record of Global Civil Society.’ Amsterdam Law Forum 1, no. 2 (2009): 101-104.
Johnson, James Turner. ‘Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: Just War and International Law Perspectives.’ Journal of Military Ethics 5, no. 2 (2006): 115-116, doi: 10.1080/15027570600707706.
Pattison, James. ‘The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention in Libya.’ Ethics and International Affairs 25, no. 3 (2011): 271-273.
Wheeler, Nicholas and Dunne, Tim. ‘East Timor and the new humanitarian interventionism.’ International Affairs 77, no. 4 (2001): 805-827.
Wheeler, Nicholas. ‘Humanitarian intervention after Kosovo: emergent norm, moral duty or the coming anarchy?’ International Affairs 77, no. 1 (2001): 113-128.
News Sources
Greenlees, Don, and Garran, Robert. ‘Marching into tragedy.’ The Australian, 8 September, 1999.
News Middle East. ‘Iraq War in Figures.’ BBC, 14 December, 2011, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11107739
Tripoli. ‘Gaddafi tells Benghazi his army is coming tonight.’ Al Arabiya News, 17 March, 2011, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/03/2011317645549498.html.
Websites
‘East Timor peacekeeping mission to conclude.’ Army.gov.au. Accessed 21 September, 2014. http://www.army.gov.au/Our-work/News-and-media/News-and-media-2012/News-and-media-December-2012/East-Timor-peacekeeping-mission-to-conclude.
Social Catalysts 