The Pros And Cons Of Humanitarian Intervention

Humanitarian intervention is often described as “using of military force in others states to halt human rights abuses or otherwise promote human rights”. This definition of human rights fails to consider the other aspects of intervention such as non-violent form of aid, such as medical supplies or food. While there are less aggressive ways that nations can intervene the issues of humanitarian intervention arise from military action. The main goal of intervention is to alleviate the suffering of the people who are suffering from abuse. A common concern with humanitarian intervention is when is it justified for other nations to ignore sovereignty and become involved in a countries domestic matters.

The United Nations was created in the aftermath

Once the United States could not find any WMDs, they attempted to justify their invasion as a humanitarian endeavor. This post-hoc justification called into question whether the Iraq War was actually a humanitarian intervention. The 2003 war represents one of the first times a group of intervening states have justified their actions citing the humanitarian outcomes that came about from non-humanitarian concerns. A major concern with the Iraq War was that the United Nation’s Security Council did not authorize the intervention, calling to question the legality of the invasion. In a pre-emptive strike the United States was able to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime but may have caused more problems as a power vacuum formed in the absence of the Iraqi leader. This unilateral action by the United States raises questions on the viability on transnational institutions, like the United Nations. If they can not stop a nation from acting against there rules what is the point of having

In this case, humanitarian intervention could be considered a secondary motive, to finding weapons of mass destruction. Once the United States could not find any they then changed the rhetoric to show a more humanitarian motive. There was no substantiated proof that the regime was committing exceptional genocide. The scope of Iraqi government killings did not meet the threshold of extreme human suffering by March of 2003. It is important that the intervention does cause more harm than it sought to stop. The coalition of forces that invaded Iraq did meet the criteria of force as a last resort because before 2003, there were many Security Council Resolutions, weapons inspectors, and displays of military threats by the United States, in an effort to get Saddam Hussein to cease human rights violations. There was a reasonable attempt to use non military force in order to stop the violation occurring in Iraq. Out of the first three criteria, the Iraq War only meets one of the