Humanitarian Intervention and Non-Ideal Theory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramon Das
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Ideal Theory ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Target State ◽  
Target States

This chapter argues that the philosophical debate around humanitarian intervention would be improved if it were less ‘ideal-theoretic’. It identifies two ideal-theoretic assumptions. One, in target states where humanitarian intervention is being considered, there are two distinct and easily identified groups: ‘bad guys’ committing serious human rights abuses, and innocent civilians against whom the abuses are being committed. Two, external to the target state in question, there are suitably qualified ‘good guys’—prospective interveners who possess both the requisite military power and moral integrity. If the assumptions hold, the prospects for successful humanitarian intervention are much greater. As a contrast, some possible non-ideal assumptions are that (i) there are many bad guys in a civil war, and (ii) the good guy intervener is itself supporting some of the bad guys. If these non-ideal assumptions hold, prospects for successful humanitarian intervention are small.

scholarly journals Chaotic Libyan Arab Spring: A comparison with Egypt

2019 ◽  
Vol IV (II) ◽  
pp. 318-328
Author(s):  
Mufti Almas Gul
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Arab Spring ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Civil Strife

Libyan spring occurred due to many reasons which were quite similar in nature with that of the spring struck neighboring countries. Qaddafis family and tribe wealth increased many folds. Human rights abuses were normal patterns. However, Libyan spring didnt end as it did in the neighboring countries. Due to Qaddafis deposition, the power vacuum resulted. This was because of the abhorring of Institutions by Qaddafi himself. The tribal division also resulted in achaotic situation. Large reserves of oil in Libya are also one of the reasons for the never-ending civil strife. Due to high revenue, every group wants to establish hold over the reserves. Libyas rivalry with Israel is also accredited as one of the rationales behind Libyas anarchic situation. Neighboring countries are also playing a big role in the civil war. Libyan revolution resulted in chaos, while the neighboring countries got on the track of somewhat stability and peace.

scholarly journals THE DETERMINANTS OF TRANSNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS REPORTING IN ASIA

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-227
Author(s):  
Dongwook Kim
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Information Collection ◽  
Military Power ◽  
International Solidarity ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Target States ◽  
National Governments

AbstractWhy do some national governments in East and Southeast Asia receive more transnational scrutiny and pressure on their domestic human rights practices than others? This article argues that transnational human rights reporting is more likely to target states where domestic activists and victims are densely connected with human rights international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) through a local membership base. Human rights INGOs increase social demands and opportunities for transnational human rights reporting by strengthening local actors’ capabilities to leverage human rights and international solidarity as an advocacy strategy, and by mobilizing them for monitoring and information collection on the ground. Event count analyses of 25 Asian states from 1977 to 2008 find robust support for the theory, using new data on Amnesty International's human rights reporting and human rights INGOs’ local membership base, and controlling for government respect for human rights, regime type, military power, and other factors.

scholarly journals Talisman Energy, Sudan, and Corporate Social Responsibility

2001 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 237-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi Carmody
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
The South ◽  
Southern Sudan ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Oil Company

SummaryIn 1998, a Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy Incorporated of Calgary, acquired part interest in an oil concession in southern Sudan. In 1999, it began exporting oil from the region and paying royalties to the Sudanese government, some of which have been used to fund government forces engaged in a civil war against separatists in the south. The war has caused numerous human rights abuses. Talisman’s investment in Sudan therefore raises concerns about corporate operations in countries where there are serious and frequent human rights violations. What are Talisman and Canada’s obligations at this particular juncture — a point of fertile development in the field of international corporate social responsibility? This comment examines this question in light of recent events.

scholarly journals Humanitarian intervention and the protection of civilian populations

2009 ◽  
Vol 61 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-35
Author(s):  
Isiaka Badmus
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Vulnerable Populations ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Human Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Classical Approach ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
State Relations

The author interrogates the critical question of whether forcible humanitarian intervention be legitimised in spite of clear contradiction to the classical norms of inter-state relations. Classical approach puts emphasize on the principle of sovereignty when governments become the perpetrators of human rights abuses of their citizens, or if states have collapsed into civil war, chaos, and disorder. The author examines this security debate by juxtaposing the age-old doctrine of humanitarian intervention vis-?-vis the imperatives of the concept of ' Responsibility to Protect'. The author argues that humanitarian intervention, due to the ambiguities and controversies surrounding its application, has become an anachronism, which ultimately led to the conceptualisation of Responsibility to Protect vulnerable populations. This approach is based on its concerns with human security as against that of the state and its relevance as arbiter to the longstanding discord between sovereignty and intervention.

A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO's Libya Campaign

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan J. Kuperman
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Weapons Proliferation ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Nato Intervention

NATO's 2011 humanitarian military intervention in Libya has been hailed as a model for implementing the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), on grounds that it prevented an impending bloodbath in Benghazi and facilitated the ouster of Libya's oppressive ruler, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who had targeted peaceful civilian protesters. Before the international community embraces such conclusions, however, a more rigorous assessment of the net humanitarian impact of NATO intervention in Libya is warranted. The conventional narrative is flawed in its portrayal of both the nature of the violence in Libya prior to the intervention and NATO's eventual objective of regime change. An examination of the course of violence in Libya before and after NATO's action shows that the intervention backfired. The intervention extended the war's duration about sixfold; increased its death toll approximately seven to ten times; and exacerbated human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. If it is a “model intervention,” as senior NATO officials claim, it is a model of failure. Implementation of R2P must be reformed to address these unintended negative consequences and the dynamics underlying them. Only then will R2P be able to achieve its noble objectives.

Incommensurabilities of the SADC Land Issue and Nozick's Entitlement Theory

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-325
Author(s):  
Benedict Abrahamson Chigara
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Land Reform ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Reform Programme ◽  
Entitlement Theory ◽  
Target States ◽  
Inter State

Racialised land ownership in former apartheid-governed states of the SADC remains the most divisive subject particularly between Western states and SADC states themselves. Western states have reacted to the SADC land reform programme (LRP) by imposing severe economic sanctions on target states while SADC states have, in the aftermath of the Campbell decision, suspended the very SADC Tribunal for handing down that decision, pending review of its jurisdiction. Further, SADC states have limited the jurisdiction of the Tribunal to inter-state matters only, shutting the door on individual petitions for any alleged human rights abuses. At the heart of this matter is the issue of contested title to lands that the SADC Tribunal had dealt with in the Campbell case. This article applies Nozick's entitlement theory to determine the question of entitlement as a means of illuminating the incommensurabilities around the SADC land issue. Formalist arguments that are premised on strict and purist positions on either side of these incommensurabilities are weighed under the light of entitlement theory. The article shows that because of its historically multi-layered dimensions, the SADC land issue appears ill-suited to legal formalist arguments that ignore both the historical context of colonialism and forcible expropriation of native titles without compensation.

Part VI Human Rights and General International Law, Ch.34 The Use of International Force to Prevent or Halt Atrocities: From Humanitarian Intervention to the Responsibility to Protect

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thakur Ramesh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
United Nations Security Council ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Understanding ◽  
Historical Origins

This article examines the history of the use of international force for preventing atrocities and human rights abuses. It analyses the concept of humanitarian intervention in the context of the historical origins of sovereignty and the reasons behind the shift to the use of the term responsibility to protect (R2P). It evaluates the progress of R2P from its unanimous endorsement in 2005 to its implementation in Libya in 2011. This article also discusses the role of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in implementing R2P and the General Assembly in refining the concept and building political understanding and support for the norm.

Deconstruction is Justice

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Weber
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Immigration Laws

This provocative assertion, sharply contrasting with the decades-old criticism of deconstruction as an aesthetisizing apolitical and ahistorical exercise, recapitulated in 1989 the stakes of an infinite task and responsibility that, in spite of and because of its infinity, cannot be relegated to tomorrow: “[…] justice, however unpresentable it may be, doesn't wait. It is that which must not wait.” It is in the spirit of such urgency, of a responsibility that cannot be postponed, that Jacques Derrida was an active and outspoken critic and commentator on issues such as South Africa's Apartheid, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the bloody civil war in his native Algeria, human rights abuses, French immigration laws, the death penalty, and on what Richard Falk has termed “the great terror war”.

Deconstructing Turkey’s “Open Door” Policy towards Refugees from Syria

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Togral Koca
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Security Framework ◽  
Liberal Policy ◽  
The Way

Turkey has followed an “open door” policy towards refugees from Syria since the March 2011 outbreak of the devastating civil war in Syria. This “liberal” policy has been accompanied by a “humanitarian discourse” regarding the admission and accommodation of the refugees. In such a context, it is widely claimed that Turkey has not adopted a securitization strategy in its dealings with the refugees. However, this article argues that the stated “open door” approach and its limitations have gone largely unexamined. The assertion is, here, refugees fleeing Syria have been integrated into a security framework embedding exclusionary, militarized and technologized border practices. Drawing on the critical border studies, the article deconstructs these practices and the way they are violating the principle of non-refoulement in particular and human rights of refugees in general. 

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