The International Community and Responsibility to Protect

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The International Community has a Right to Intervene in Sovereign States in order to end Serious Human Rights Abuses? Discuss.

Humanitarian intervention is definitely one of the most controversial subjects of the recent decades- among states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and academia. The centre of the debate is the clash of traditional principles of state sovereignty and new adopted norms on use of force for humanitarian purposes. Despite the political controversies between the countries, humanitarian intervention is now an international norm which calls for action anytime there are serious mass life threatening occurrences in any country.

In 2001, ICISS (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty) - supported by the Canadian Government - introduced a report which would advance Humanitarian Intervention concept to a "Responsibility to Protect" (or “R2P). ICISS Report referred to the "right of humanitarian intervention" as a "coercive - and in particular military - action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state" (ICISS, 2001, p. vii).

Lack of political will, disagreement in the international community, or over-rationality about the costs of intervention has caused terrible atrocities - which have taken forms of genocide or ethnic cleansing - that have cost lives of millions (Power, 2011; J. Bajorja & R. McMahon, 2013). Humanitarian Intervention's new doctrine "Responsibility to Protect" is embraced by United Nations as a necessary means to prevent and punish atrocities. Yet, there are state actors as China and Russia which challenge its implementation.

I argue that it is very important to save Humanitarian Inter...

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...reviews .

Power, S. (2011). Bystanders to Genocide. The Atlantic Monthly , 84-108.

Roth, K. (2004). War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention. Human Rights Watch .

S. N. Macfarlane, C. J Thielking & T. G Weiss. (2004). The Responsibility to Protect: Is anyone interested in human intervention? Third World Quarterly , 977-992.

Secretary-General, U. (2002, February 15). Secretary-General Addresses International Peace Academy Seminar on The Responsability to Protect. UN document SG/SM/8125 .

Selfa, L. (2002). A new colonial "age of empire"? International Socialist Review .

Traub, J. (2012, February 18). The End of American Intervention . New York Times .

(1648). Treaty of Westphalia. International Relations and Security Network.

United Nations Secretary-General. (1999). Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organisation, A/54/1. United Nations.

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