scholarly journals 32. Humanitarian intervention in world politics

Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy ◽  
Nicholas J. Wheeler

This chapter examines the role of humanitarian intervention in world politics. It considers how we should resolve tensions when valued principles such as order, sovereignty, and self-determination come into conflict with human rights; and how international thought and practice has evolved with respect to humanitarian intervention. The chapter discusses the case for and against humanitarian intervention and looks at humanitarian activism during the 1990s. It also analyses the responsibility to protect principle and the use of force to achieve its protection goals in Libya in 2011. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with humanitarian intervention in Darfur and the other with the role of Middle Eastern governments in Operation Unified Protector in Libya in 2011. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether the West should intervene in Syria to protect people there from the Islamic State (ISIS).

Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy ◽  
Nicholas J. Wheeler

This chapter examines the role of humanitarian intervention in world politics. It considers how we should resolve tensions when valued principles such as order, sovereignty, and self-determination come into conflict with human rights; and how international thought and practice has evolved with respect to humanitarian intervention. The chapter discusses the case for and against humanitarian intervention and looks at humanitarian activism during the 1990s. It also analyses the responsibility to protect principle and the use of force to achieve its protection goals in Libya in 2011. Two case studies are presented, one dealing with humanitarian intervention in Darfur and the other with the role of Middle Eastern governments in Operation Unified Protector in Libya in 2011. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether the West should intervene in Syria to protect people there from the Islamic State (ISIS).


1998 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 81-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oliver P. Ramsbotham

At a time when some informed Muslims believe Islam to be “set on a collision course with the West” and some Christians warn of a “perhaps irrational but surely historical reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage,” it may be helpful to ask what both traditions teach about current issues of joint concern. One of the most urgent of these issues is the question of forcible humanitarian intervention. Setting aside broader questions of interpretation, such as the extent to which Islam can be identified with political radicalism and Christianity with Western political interests, this essay compares Muslim and Christian teachings on this issue. Both traditions have had to confront questions of political violence, suffering, and war since at least the time of the conversion of Constantine in one case (1,600 years ago) and the founding of the first Islamic state at Medina in the other (1,300 years ago). The central argument in this essay is that there is a surprising measure of agreement between the two traditions on the question of forcible humanitarian intervention, enough to provide the basis for a shared doctrine.


Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
S. J. Blodgett-Ford

The phenomenon and ethics of “voting” will be explored in the context of human enhancements. “Voting” will be examined for enhanced humans with moderate and extreme enhancements. Existing patterns of discrimination in voting around the globe could continue substantially “as is” for those with moderate enhancements. For extreme enhancements, voting rights could be challenged if the very humanity of the enhanced was in doubt. Humans who were not enhanced could also be disenfranchised if certain enhancements become prevalent. Voting will be examined using a theory of engagement articulated by Professor Sophie Loidolt that emphasizes the importance of legitimization and justification by “facing the appeal of the other” to determine what is “right” from a phenomenological first-person perspective. Seeking inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948, voting rights and responsibilities will be re-framed from a foundational working hypothesis that all enhanced and non-enhanced humans should have a right to vote directly. Representative voting will be considered as an admittedly imperfect alternative or additional option. The framework in which voting occurs, as well as the processes, temporal cadence, and role of voting, requires the participation from as diverse a group of humans as possible. Voting rights delivered by fiat to enhanced or non-enhanced humans who were excluded from participation in the design and ratification of the governance structure is not legitimate. Applying and extending Loidolt’s framework, we must recognize the urgency that demands the impossible, with openness to that universality in progress (or universality to come) that keeps being constituted from the outside.


2009 ◽  
Vol 37 (108) ◽  
pp. 92-111
Author(s):  
Hans Lauge Hansen

Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Europe in Antonio Muñoz Molina:How does a modern European society like the Spanish one reflect upon the experience of having dead bodies of illegal immigrants washed up on the nice clean beaches prepared for English, German and Danish tourists? How do such experiences affect the dominant national discourse, which identifies itself with the EU as a global centre of modernity? How do these experiences affect the Spanish citizen’s understanding of the character of this modernity? And what kind of narratives does it take to bridge the gap between the image of the democratic, open and human-rights oriented European Community created by official discourse and these traumatizing experiences? Taking its point of departure in two books written by one of Spain’s greatest novelists, Antonio Muñoz Molina, the article aims to investigate the role of literature as an actor in the creation and negotiation of cultural identities. The hypothesis is that literary discourse has got the unique capacity to offer the reader the image of him- or herself as another and to present the other as a self through its aesthetic strategy, thereby contributing to the reader’s appropriation of textual experiences as his or her own. In this process, the different aspects of reality, the dark and brighter sides of European history and the rise of modern, globalized society become mediated and dialogized.


Author(s):  
Ulrike Gut

This chapter describes the history, role, and structural properties of English in the West African countries the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, the anglophone part of Cameroon, and the island of Saint Helena. It provides an overview of the historical phases of trading contact, British colonization and missionary activities and describes the current role of English in these multilingual countries. Further, it outlines the commonalities and differences in the vocabulary, phonology, morphology, and syntax of the varieties of English spoken in anglophone West Africa. It shows that Liberian Settler English and Saint Helenian English have distinct phonological and morphosyntactic features compared to the other West African Englishes. While some phonological areal features shared by several West African Englishes can be identified, an areal profile does not seem to exist on the level of morphosyntax.


Author(s):  
Alex J. Bellamy ◽  
Stephen McLoughlin

This chapter examines the implications of humanitarian intervention for international security. It considers the debate between those who argue that the protection of civilians from genocide and mass atrocities is far more important than the principle of non-intervention in certain circumstances and those who oppose this proposition. This has become a particular problem in the post-Cold War world where the commission of atrocities in places like Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur prompted calls for international society to step in to protect the victims with military force if necessary. Humanitarian intervention causes problems for international security by potentially weakening the rules governing the use of force in world politics. The chapter first considers the case against humanitarian intervention before discussing the principle known as ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P).


Author(s):  
Tarak Barkawi

This chapter examines how war fits into the study of international relations and the ways it affects world politics. It begins with an analysis of the work of the leading philosopher of war, Carl von Clausewitz, to highlight the essential nature of war, the main types of war, and the idea of strategy. It then considers some important developments in the history of warfare, both in the West and elsewhere, with particular emphasis on interrelationships between the modern state, armed force, and war in the West and in the global South. Two case studies are presented, one focusing on war and Eurocentrism during the Second World War, and the other on the impact of war on society by looking at France, Vietnam, and the United States. There is also an Opposing Opinions box that asks whether democracy creates peace among states.


1984 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lane

The paper is in four parts. The first outlines the debate that has occurred in the West about whether human rights, and about what human rights, are desirable and possible in socialist states. In the second it is contended that the normative approach to rights in socialist states has been influenced but not determined by the theory and practice of the USSR. Human rights under Marxism–Leninism are ambiguously defined: there is an unresolved tension between individual (and group) rights, on the one hand, and class and collective rights on the other. Socialist states, it is claimed, have different units, types of claims and priorities of rights. In the third section, it is argued that the Soviet model of rights has a particular correspondence with Russian culture. Its impact on other socialist countries (Poland is considered, as an illustration) depends on the internal social structure (the strength of interest groups) and the degree of legitimacy of the state. Finally, some prognostications are offered concerning the dynamics and likely developments of rights claims under socialism.


2006 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
TARAK BARKAWI ◽  
MARK LAFFEY

In this article, we critique the Eurocentric character of security studies as it has developed since World War II. The taken-for-granted historical geographies that underpin security studies systematically misrepresent the role of the global South in security relations and lead to a distorted view of Europe and the West in world politics. Understanding security relations, past and present, requires acknowledging the mutual constitution of European and non-European worlds and their joint role in making history. The politics of Eurocentric security studies, those of the powerful, prevent adequate understanding of the nature or legitimacy of the armed resistance of the weak. Through analysis of the explanatory and political problems Eurocentrism generates, this article lays the groundwork for the development of a non-Eurocentric security studies.


2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Leuenberger

Abstract This article was presented at the workshop on “Borders and Human Rights,” College of Law & Business, Ramat Gan, Israel.Notions of human rights as enshrined in international law have become the “idea of our time”; a “dominant moral narrative by which world politics” is organized; and a powerful “discourse of public persuasion.”Tony Evans, International Human Rights Law as Power/Knowledge, 27 (3) HUM. RTS. Q. 1046 (2005); Meg McLagan, Human Rights, Testimony, and Transnational Publicity, 2 (1) SCHOLAR & FEMINIST ONLINE 1 (2003), available at http://www.barnard.edu/ps/printmmc.htm; Wendy S. Hesford, Human Rights Rhetoric of Recognition, 41 (3) RHETORIC SOC. Q. 282 (2011). With the rise of human rights discourse, we need to ask, how do protagonists make human rights claims? What sort of resources, techniques, and strategies do they use in order to publicize information about human rights abuses and stipulations set out in international law? With the democratization of mapping practices, various individuals, organizations, and governments are increasingly using maps in order to put forth certain social and political claims. This article draws on the sociology of knowledge, science studies, critical cartography, cultural studies, and anthropological studies of law in order to analyze how various international, Palestinian, and Israeli organizations design maps of the West Bank Barrier in accord with assumptions embedded within international law as part of their political and new media activism. Qualitative sociological methods, such as in-depth interviewing, ethnography, and the collection of cartographic material pertaining to the West Bank Barrier, provide the empirical tools to do so. The maps examined here exemplify how universalistic notions of international law and human rights become a powerful rhetorical tool to make various and often incommensurable social and political claims across different maps. At the same time, international human rights law, rather than dictating local mapping practices, becomes inevitably “vernacularized” and combined with local understandings, cultural preferences, and political concerns.


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