Challenges for Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Adverse Effects ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Member States ◽  
Ulterior Motives

An enduring concern about armed humanitarian intervention, and the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine that advocates its use under certain circumstances, is that such interventions are liable to be employed as a foreign policy instrument by powerful states pursuing geopolitical interests. This collection of essays critically investigates the causes and consequences, as well as the uses and abuses, of armed humanitarian intervention. Some of the chapters interrogate how the presence of ulterior motives impact on the moral credentials of armed humanitarian intervention. Others shine a light on the potential adverse effects of such interventions, even where they are motivated primarily by humanitarian concern. While some of these unwanted consequences will be familiar to readers, others have been largely neglected in the scholarship. The volume also tracks the evolution of the R2P norm, and draws attention to how it has evolved, for better or for worse, since UN member states unanimously accepted it over a decade ago. In some respects, the norm has been distorted to yield prescriptions, and to impose constraint, fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the R2P idea. This gives us all the more reason to be cautious of unwarranted optimism about humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect.

UN General Assembly Dialogues on the Responsibility to Protect and the Use of Force for Humanitarian Purposes

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-332
Author(s):  
Pınar Gözen Ercan
Keyword(s):  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
First Century ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Future ◽  
Un General Assembly ◽  
Twenty First Century

Bringing into focus the two formal debates on the Responsibility to Protect that took place in 2009 and 2018, this article identifies the approaches of member states towards the humanitarian use of force by locating it in the UN’s deliberations on R2P. To this end, the article compares and contrasts country statements in order to trace states’ general approach towards humanitarian intervention on the basis of their reflections on R2P. Following from this, the article examines whether or not states’ approaches to humanitarian intervention have been transforming in the twenty-first century, and evaluates how the humanitarian use of force is perceived in relation to the R2P framework that was embraced by the member states of the UN General Assembly in 2005, and how this affects the future of R2P.

scholarly journals Ethno-National Instrumentalization of the Ukrainian-Russian Conflict in the Light of Modification and Hybridization of Russian Foreign, Security and Military Policy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Izhnin ◽  
Kostiantyn Polishchuk ◽  
Oksana Shamborovska
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Ethnic Background ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
Factors Influencing

This article examines the main characteristics of the nowadays conflict in the eastern part of Ukraine from the point of its ethnic background, allowing to understand its ethnic implications as well as contradictions. The contexts of the modern international relations system and internal Ukrainian situation are used. Factors influencing the process of ethnic instrumentalization and internationalization of the conflict are revealed. The brief analysis of the current updates and modifications of fundamental Russian doctrines in foreign, security and military policy is provided. The article proposes the possible variants of the outcomes of internationalization of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. Key words: ethnic conflict; ethnic identity; «greed versus grievance» theory; instrumentalization and internationalization of the conflict; hybridization of foreign policy; humanitarian intervention; responsibility to protect.

The Responsibility to Protect: The First Decade

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward C. Luck
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Member States ◽  
Political Clout ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Mixed Blessing

AbstractIt is early for definitive assessments of RtoP's future as a policy instrument. Like a maturing child, we know more about its talents and aptitudes than about how they will be nurtured or stunted in the years ahead. The generally positive dialogue in the General Assembly in July 2011 suggests that the Member States understand the difference between a principle and the tactics to implement it. Building on conceptual and political progress, the United Nations is applying RtoP perspectives to a growing number of situations. In five of these, it appears to have helped save lives. Big challenges and uncertainties lie ahead, however. Perceptions of RtoP's political clout are proving to be a mixed blessing, while questions of selectivity, sovereignty, and possible misuse remain. Five near-term priorities are identified.

scholarly journals China, Responsibility to Protect, and the Case of Syria

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-402
Author(s):  
Catherine Gegout ◽  
Shogo Suzuki
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Humanitarian Crisis ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Rise Of China ◽  
The Rise Of China ◽  
Party State

Abstract Will the rise of China, an authoritarian, party-state with a poor record of protecting its citizens’ human rights, undermine humanitarian intervention? This question has been particularly pertinent since China’s “assertive turn” in foreign policy. Drawing on the case of Chinese reactions to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, this article argues that China’s attitude toward humanitarian intervention remains ambiguous and contradictory. While China has at times prevented the UN Security Council from threatening sanctions on Syria, it has not necessarily denied that a humanitarian crisis exists. The article shows that the People’s Republic of China is beginning to act more as a norm maker than norm taker, and is offering its own vision of humanitarian intervention, coined as “responsible protection.”

scholarly journals NATO Aggression Against Yugoslavia: International-Legal, Military Strategic and Geopolitical Consequences

2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. G. Ponomareva ◽  
A. V. Frolov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Central Element ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Legal Consequences

On March 24, 1999, on the pretext of protecting human rights NATO began its aggression against a sovereign European state – the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Historically, it was the first military strike against a sovereign state in response not to external aggression, but to internal conflict. The escalation of the Kosovo conflict to the scale of a «humanitarian intervention» raised a sharp question about not only the contours and principles of the 21st century world system, but also about the limits of the functionality of supranational (first and foremost force) structures. The NATO aggression had both short-term and long-term consequences. The article analyzes three groups of consequences: international-legal, military strategic and geopolitical. In the analysis of international-legal consequences, we investigated the process of legitimation of «humanitarian intervention» and «responsibility to protect». In the analysis of military strategic consequences, the emphasis is given to the processes and procedures of the transformation of the Serbian army into a dysfunctional system and the creation of conditions for accession of the Republic to NATO. Since Serbia is the central element of the Balkan policy of Western countries and organizations, the question is extremely important. Geopolitical consequences of the aggression we analyzed through the prism of political technologies of political coups tested in Serbia in October 2000 and used later in different regions of the world. The study is preceded by a short historiographical review of the latest literature on the topic. The conducted multilevel analysis of the consequences of the NATO aggression in 1999 gives an opportunity to formulate fundamentally new conceptual foreign policy approaches of modern Russia foreign policy.

India and the Responsibility to Protect: A Tale of Ambiguity

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kudrat Virk
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
World Summit ◽  
The Past ◽  
Armed Intervention ◽  
Empirical Record ◽  
Changing World

Military intervention to halt atrocities is one of the most contentious aspects of R2P and with which India has often expressed disagreement in the past. Since the 2005 World Summit, however, there has been an apparent softening in that opposition. This article takes a close-up look at the empirical record, revealing ambiguity in Indian attitudes from the outset that militates against categorizing them as either ‘for’ or ‘against’ humanitarian intervention. The portrait that emerges is of a reactive actor driven incrementally away from a default preference for sovereignty as autonomy, whilst harbouring deep concerns about armed intervention. This article suggests that cautious and reluctant accommodation offers the best description of India’s still unresolved stance on humanitarian intervention. That fits in with a broad preference for pragmatism in foreign policy, which has struggled to balance traditional concerns with a ‘new’ ambition to acquire and sustain greater power-political influence in a changing world.

Humanitarian Intervention

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Caplan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Real Effect ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
The Way

States – Western ones, at least – have given increased weight to human rights and humanitarian norms as matters of international concern, with the authorization of legally binding enforcement measures to tackle humanitarian crises under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These concerns were also developed outside the UN Security Council framework, following Tony Blair’s Chicago speech and the contemporaneous NATO action over Kosovo. This gave rise to international commissions and resulted, among other things, in the emergence of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) doctrine. The adoption of this doctrine coincided with a period in which there appeared to be a general decline in mass atrocities. Yet R2P had little real effect – it cannot be shown to have caused the fall in mass atrocities, only to have echoed it. Thus, the promise of R2P and an age of humanitarianism failed to emerge, even if the way was paved for future development.

The Leeriness Objection to the Responsibility to Protect

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
International Order ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Just Cause

This chapter argues that even non-abusive interventions (those that are motivated purely by altruistic concern, have a just cause, are a last resort etc.) are morally problematic due to their effects on the international order. The trouble is that ‘bystander states’—those that are neither prosecuting the intervention nor targeted by it—usually do not have sufficient direct evidence that the intervention is just and properly motivated, nor can they trust the testimony of the intervening state. Thus, for all that bystander states know, any and every instance of humanitarian intervention is abusive: an act of unjust international aggression masquerading as something else. This, in turn, weakens the willingness of these bystander states to comply with the non-aggression norm themselves, since states are ‘conditional cooperators’—they abide by norms only insofar as they are reasonably assured that other states in the international arena are abiding.

Humanitarian Intervention as a Duty

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kok-Chor Tan
Keyword(s):  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
The Other ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Imperfect Duty ◽  
Humanitarian Emergencies ◽  
Personal Cost

Assuming an international commitment to intervene in severe and urgent humanitarian emergencies, as expressed by the doctrine ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, I discuss two objections that the duty to intervene is nonetheless a duty that is easily limited by other moral considerations. One objection is that this duty will exceed the reasonable limits of any obligation given the high personal cost of intervention. The other objection is that any duty to intervene will be an imperfect duty, and therefore not a duty that is ascribed to and demandable of any specific actor. I will argue that these objections do not undermine the principle of the responsibility to protect.

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