Week 6 - Humanitarian Intervention

Examples of HI

1991 Iraqi no-fly zone, 1999 Kosovo, Libya 2011, Syria

What separates successful HI examples from unsuccessful?

Well, the argument here is supposed to be the implementation of “constitutions and parliaments” - Bush, but that is varied and is based on consent

Why is HI controversial?

Often political, violates sovereignty, and breeds instability

Philosophical justification of HI

Human rights maintenance

What about the preservation of sovereignty?

Argument that the right is ceded when responsibility of citizens is not cared for

Walzer

Communal integrity: institutions reflect the culture of the people, and thus non-democratic systems cannot be justification for HI

Teson

Intervention can be justified through anarchy, tyranny etc. and argues that human rights takes priority

Syria

350-550k dead, 11 million displaced, refugee crisis

Status of HI in IL

Conflicting, as Article 2 states sovereignty is supreme but Article 39-42 permits action from UNSC

R2P

Responsibility to protect, broken down into responsibility to prevent, react and rebuild

Just war

Just cause, right intention, proportionality and change of success

HI is a…

Legal grey zone, both legal and illegal

What UN Article permits self-defence?

Article 51

Theories of legality for HI

Formal, norms-into-law and contingent sovereignty

Desuetude

Legal decay

Contingent sovereignty

Respecting human rights a condition for sovereignty

Teson

Liberal political theory justifies HI, protection of human rights and states core actors responsible

ICISS

R2P document, responsibility ro prevent react and rebuild

UNGA Uniting for Peace

Korean War intervention

2005 UN World Summit

Formal endorsement of R2P

Hamid

Libya intervention was a success as a genocide was denied. Consequentialist logic is silly