Humanitarian Intervention Research Paper

Pol: 108 Introduction to Global Politics
Essay Plan and Annotated Bibliography

Essay Question 8- Is humanitarian intervention inconsistent with notions of international order?
Thesis Statement:
Humanitarian intervention challenges traditional notions of international order, however when circumstances in a state threatens human rights norms or international peace and security intervention may be necessary to maintain order. The legality of intervention has increased as global bodies have created greater legal capability to impede on a state’s sovereignty when severe human rights abuses are occurring. The global impact of these atrocities is unavoidable, thereby requiring a level of international involvement. However, intervention can be used

as a pretext for other motivations or to spread hegemonic influence. Global governing bodies must remain in control in to maintain international order and ensure humanitarian intervention is used only when necessary and unlikely to exacerbate circumstances.
Essay Plan:
Argument 1:
The evolution of sovereignty and human rights norms is creating a legal framework allowing humanitarian intervention as part of international order.

1. Significant tensions between intervention and order arise when the perpetrator of abuse is the state itself.
2. Non-interference is crucial under the Westphalian System; however, the ‘responsibility to protect’(R2P), an outcome of the United Nation’s (UN) Millennium Summit, reflects the increased importance of human rights. It agrees states must protect its populations from severe human rights violations and if the state is inflicting the abuses the international community is to take collective action against the perpetrator
3. In this situation, the sovereign authority is incapable and sovereignty is transferred to the population of the state, thereby avoiding a declaration of intervention against a member of the UN and retaining international order
Argument 2:
Severe human rights abuses within states are rarely self-contained and have regional and international effect, thereby humanitarian intervention can maintain international order.
1. According to the R2P the human rights atrocities that could trigger intervention are crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing. All four of these have such devastating effects that they will have a global

impact.
2. Instability within a state has effects on the surrounding states such as mass migrations and refugee crises, spread of extremist ideas and militant parties as well as political pressures from public awareness such issues. When an unstable state fails, it has additional economic and social impacts within its region and internationally.
3. In these circumstances, humanitarian intervention protects the population of the state as well as reduces impact of these atrocities on the international community.
Argument 3:
Whilst humanitarian intervention can maintain international order, there is an inherent irony and risk when powerful states using military force against another in the name of peace
1. Critics of intervention site that it is a hegemonic tool that may be implemented in response to a state’s normative beliefs rather than protecting populations
2. It can also make circumstances worse and has contributed to decades of humanitarian crises
3. The decision to intervene must be made by international communities to maintain a balance of interests, provide the means to respond to changing circumstances and ensure intervention serves solely to protect populations and international order
Annotated Bibliography
Source 1:
Booth Walling, C.

2015. Human Rights Norms, State Sovereignty, and Humanitarian Intervention. Human Rights Quarterly, 37(2), pp.383-413
In this journal article, Booth Walling examines the evolution of the UNSC’s discussions and actions regarding humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty from the 1990s to the modern day. She examines the increasing importance of human rights over time and identifies the incorporation of human rights protection as part of sovereign expectations. The article provides a succinct history of humanitarian intervention in the last three decades, the reasoning for changing global perceptions on intervention and sovereignty as well as multiple countries positions and statements regarding the shift. However, as the source is confined to discussions made by the UNSC it does not explore the results of intervention or a lack thereof. Additionally, it only provides an understanding of authorised interventions in recent history and does not critique the long-term consequences and failings of some interventions. Booth Walling concludes that in the future UNSC’s debates will focus on what determines a sovereign as legitimate, rather than issues of non-interference. This article provides a background for the current position of intervention in relation to international order and a basis for its future values. It will be useful in discussing how shifting norms within the international community allows humanitarian intervention to be consistent within

the international order.
Source 2:
Thakur, R., 2013. The Use of International Force to Prevent of Halt Atrocities: From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect. The Oxford Handbook of International Human Rights Law, accessed at: http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com.simsrad.net.ocs.mq.edu.au/view/10.1093/law/9780199640133.001.0001/law-9780199640133-e-35#notes.
Thakur’s chapter critiques the circumstances, motivations and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention and questions whether intervention does more harm to populations and cause irreparable damage. He has concerns regarding contradicting standards by the UN that may promote unauthorised intervention and the use of intervention as a hegemonic tool. Thakur uses the findings of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty to provide a balance between critiques and supporters of intervention. He effectively summarises the complexity of intervention’s militaristic nature and the difficulty in external states using violence to protect populations. However, this chapter is not dismissive of intervention itself rather highlights the need for international involvement within these decisions. He argues a philosophy of “do the least harm” may be more important than intervening in every human rights atrocity. Thakur expresses strong opinions, asking multiple rhetorical questions to convey his argument, this fails to fully explore all his concerns and instead leaves some of his concerns unexplored. This chapter is useful in its questioning of humanitarian intervention and its clear display of conflicting values and norms globally. It provides a method for examining the international order and whether intervention protects or impedes upon it, depending on each states’ values.
Source 3:
United Nations, General Assembly, Implementing the responsibility to protect: report of the Secretary-General, (12/1/2009) available from http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/63/677
This report, by Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki-Moon, outlines the strategies to implement the 2005 World Summit Outcome of implementing the “responsibility to protect.” This agreement had three parts, first, that individual states had the responsibility to protect their people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Second, other states should assist them in achieving this and thirdly, if they are “manifestly failing” to do so, the international community would take collective action through the Security Council and the Charter of the United Nations to rectify that failing. This report lists and justifies the agreements made throughout the summit. It explores the motivators for the R2P arising from brutal events throughout the twentieth century that lead to the UN questioning its responsibilities and authority to protect the security of people within states. This report provides the basis of the UN’s beliefs about humanitarian intervention going into the twenty-first century and explains the requirements of states when facing severe human rights abuses. However, the report is limited in that it outlines how states ought to act, whereas in reality situations are far more complicated. Examining this report in comparison to contemporary events regarding humanitarian intervention, such as the conflict in Syria, would produce a number of distinctions which can be used to question whether R2P does protect sovereignty and international order.