Military Intervention and Human Rights - Essay Example

?Military Intervention and Human Rights Military intervention for the protection of human rights becomes inevitable under certain circumstances because when the government of a country is responsible for the violation of human rights military action is the only possible way of saving the people from the oppression being committed against them. Defining humanitarian intervention is very difficult because it is comprehended in different ways under different spectra of social sciences. The legality of humanitarian intervention is also an issue of great debate in the contemporary world and various mechanisms have been presented to decide the legality of military action against a state for the protection of human rights. However, a general consensus has been developed about the basic idea behind humanitarian intervention; Humanitarian intervention is essentially an armed effort in which a state or a group of states intervene in the internal affairs of another state and it often involves the violation of international borders or airspace of that particular state. Moreover, the state against which the humanitarian intervention is being conducted does not necessarily pose a threat to the peace or security of other states therefore the military action is taken solely on humanitarian grounds for the protection of human rights. Humanitarian intervention is a matter of great debate today because it involves two of the fundamental pillars of the United Nations system; one of them being state sovereignty and other is the protection of human rights; and unfortunately the scenario of a humanitarian intervention involves dealing with very complex circumstances in which one of the two pillars mentioned have to be compromised for the greater good (Jokic, 2003). The proponents of humanitarian intervention argue that it is imperative in certain circumstances to conduct military operations in states where the people are being opressed by the government, particularly in states which are ruled by dictators because in such states the change of government is not possible without intervention from outside. However, the critics of humanitarian intervention argue that it can be used as a pretext for a military action for the achievement of the vested interests of strong actors in the international political scenario. The issue of humanitarian intervention is also important because of the fact that there are a large number of lives associated with a military action taken against a state. In this paper an analysis based on the scenarios in various countries various military intervention for the protection of human rights have been carried out has been done and it will be proved that in most of the situations humanitarian intervention leads to the protection of human rights; if the situation is judged in a broader spectrum (Heise, 2005). It is very important to find out the factors responsible for the military intervention to take place. States are forbidden to use armed forces against the territorial integrity of another state except for self-defense however there are situations when intervention is justified in order to save the innocent people from the injustices and oppression being committed against them. United Nations authorization has effectively been working as a framework for testing the legality or illegality of such military actions, however during recent times notable voices in various regions of the world have been raised against the role of the United Nations in such scenarios and many of them argue that the decisions of the United States are biased to favor greater political actors of the world. Moreover the right of veto given to the five most powerful nations of the world has also been marked as unjustified in situations related to peace and national security of states. In such a situation there is a need of a framework to check whether the humanitarian intervention is necessary or not in certain situations (Murphy, 1996). While deciding about a military intervention, future implications including the possibility of anarchic situation in the country should be kept in mind. In this essay the humanitarian grounds required for a military action against another state are analyzed and the effectiveness and legitimacy of humanitarian interventions has been judged (Talentino, 2005). Military intervention is always aimed at halting massive violations of human rights. Ethical obligations should override the norms of sovereignty and political interests of a country because provision of basic human rights is the most important thing for which the state, the international agencies and the international community is supposed to strive (Keohane and Holzgrefe, 2003). The idea of common morality provides the strongest and the most comprehensive moral grounds for humanitarian intervention. All the human beings living on this planet are a part of a human community and by virtue of this they are bound to protect other human beings and this binding supersedes all other legal and moral bindings present in this world. This establishes a link between morality and intervention; as civilized human beings believe things to be moral and immoral on the basis of their effects on human beings, therefore they are bound to intervene in situations where immoral acts are being committed against human beings in order to eradicate oppression from the society. People who argue against the use of military force for the protection of human rights are not aware of the urgency of situation in conflicted areas. It is true that humanitarian intervention undermines state sovereignty but before deciding about the legality of humanitarian intervention on the basis of state sovereignty, we must keep in mind the purpose of a state and a political system (Simm and Trim, 2011). A state, a political system, a government of representatives and a state mechanism is devised for the well being of the people living in the state therefore protection of human rights is the ultimate objective of the establishment of a state. However when the state and the state agencies and institutions in a particular region of the world fail to safeguard basic human rights of its subject, the whole purpose of state dies out and the principle of state sovereignty becomes meaningless. In such situations intervention becomes mandatory, for the betterment of the people living in the state and for the establishment of an effective system of state. Now the whole issue about the protection of human rights through the humanitarian intervention is based on the role of the intervening agency. According to the realist theories of international relations, the intervening agency always has some vested interests in the whole process of humanitarian intervention and that is the actual reason of the military action taken against a state. The realist theory puts forward a simple explanation of this argument. With the immense technological advancements in warfare and scarcity of resources, the cost of war has increased manifold in the contemporary world; moreover the deteriorating economic conditions in the world have put economic pressure on even the strongest economies in the world. Therefore in such a scenario one cannot expect the powerful states of the world to intervene in the affairs of other state and spend huge sums of money just for the sake of protection of human rights; thus there are always some hidden interests associated with humanitarian intervention. Some scholars classify these hidden interests in three classes, the first one is the most broad classification in which the interest of the intervening agencies are defined as global peace and security. In such a scenario, the intervening agency whether it’s a single state or a group of states tend to intervene in the internal affairs of the state with military action because they consider the activities going on in a particular state against the international peace and security. The motive behind intervention is the protection of human rights, however this protection is not only for the subjects of that particular state but for the people of the whole world. An example of this situation is the current political confrontation between the United States and Iran. According to the United States, Iran is pursuing a nuclear program which is a threat to the global peace and security and therefore it is the responsibility of the global community to intervene by the use of force against Iran. While maintaining stance against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States also argue that intervention is also necessary for the liberation of the progressive people of Iran who are currently being opressed by the extremist Islamist government of the country, and as a proof the recent protests against the government and the gross bans on freedom of expression are mentioned. Such an intervention, if conducted will certainly involve the fulfillment of the strategic and political interests of the United States because Iran has emerged out as a state which openly criticizes the United States policies in the global politics and declares it as an opressor. The second class discusses the national security interests of a country, Afghanistan is an example in this regard. Al Qaeda was declared as responsible for the most unfortunate incident which occurred in the recent history, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon. The Afghanistan government was not directly involved in it but it has given refuge to Al Qaeda leadership. United States argued that removing Taliban from Afghan government is important because they have not only given refuge to terrorist organizations but are also involved in gross human rights violations in their country (Moseley and Norman, 2002). That is why the attack on Afghanistan is termed as the humanitarian intervention by a number of scholars whereas in effect it was a war waged by the United States against a rogue state. The US claim that the Taliban government was involved in gross human rights violations ultimately turned out to be true, however no one can deny the fact that United States had a whole lot of strategic interests associated with this humanitarian intervention; as China is emerging as an economic superpower and Pakistan is known to be a land from where all the fundamental and extremist terrorist organizations originate, United States wanted to ensure its presence in the region and Afghanistan provided it with a very good opportunity in this regard. The third class deals with purely geostrategic and political interests of a country with no mention of global or national peace and security. A recent example in this regard is the military intervention in Lybia. The international forces belonging to a number of Western countries conducted military operations in Lybia on grounds of liberating the Lybian people from the tyrannic rule of a dictator. The account of attrocities commited by Qaddafi legitimized the action, however again no one can deny the presence of geostrategic interests of the Western powers behind the attack. With the pro-islamic governments emerging in the region, the international community wanted to ensure its presence in the region in order to protect it from becoming another base people with extremist ideologies. The motives behind the intervention were humanitarian in nature, however there were political interests associated with it as well. The United Nations framework in this regard is very weak, we have seen that the interests of the intervening agencies were quite evident in all of the above mentioned instances, however all these interventions had received positive signs from the UN. Another example is the case of East Pakistan where India intervened without the permission or authorization of the United Nations, the West Pakistan’s army was involved in opression and violation of basic human rights, if India, who had political interests associated with the intervention, had waited for the United Nations to decide about intervention, the liberation of East Pakistanis and the creation of Bangladesh would not have been made possible because the United States and China were against the creation of Bangladesh (Sisson and Rose, 1991). This proves that the current United Nations framework is very weak in this regard and cannot be followed in all situations. This discussion proves that in most of the cases of intervention, there was a lack of provision of human rights however the vested interests of the intervening agency were also present in all the cases. In the following paragraphs the effectiveness and consequences of humanitarian intervention are discussed after which a conclusion will be drawn. The war in Iraq is a good scenario for judging the effectiveness of military intervention for the protection of human rights. In the post war era, people in Iraq were subjected to gross human rights violations by the dictator Saddam Hussein and his militant political party which had an army much stronger than the state police force. This personal army of Saddam Hussein was involved in secret police torture, murders, rape, abductions, deportations, forced disappearances, assassinations, destruction of fields and killings on racial and ethnic basis (Weiss, Crahan and Goering, 2004). These incidents very frequent and were committed to prolong the rule of the dictator therefore no one in Iraq could say a word against his rule. In the post war scenario, human rights abuses are also being reported however there are marked differences between the two situations. Most important difference between the prewar and postwar era is the fact that human rights abuses during Saddam Hussein’s regime were state sponsored however the military action conducted by the United States has successfully established a government of actual representatives of Iraq which is not sponsoring human rights violations. Moreover, previously there were no human rights maintaining organizations in the country nor were independent observers allowed in the country for reporting the situation of human rights, but today even if the invading army, the new government or any other state agency is involved in human rights abuses the incidents are reported in international media and proper action can be taken against it. Another important change is the fact that the newly established government is ethnically much more diverse than the dictator’s government and therefore there are lesser incidents of ethnic and sectarian killings which were sponsored by the state previously. The situation in Afghanistan is much better, particularly with respect to women rights. Afghanistan was a country where women were not treated equally and were deprived of their right to learn and excel in life. Women were not allowed to leave their homes, there were no educational institutions for women and thus a large segment of the society was deprived off the most basic human rights (Gearon, 2002). The situation today has improved a great deal as women in Afghanistan are excelling in education because there are much better opportunities for them in the country now. During the days of Taliban, a common Afghani was deprived of the right to develop himself and excel in life because the economy of the country was too fragile and international isolation only contributed to it. Today economic progress in Afghanistan is the focus of the world and a large number of international organizations are working in Afghanistan for restoring stability and for the well being of the people. So the creation of opportunities to excel in life is one great achievement of war in itself (Weiss, 2012). So it can be concluded that the use of military force for the protection and restoration of human rights is justified in all situations because the principle behind such an action is undoubtedly favorable for the betterment of humanity. It is true that war always promotes instability and there are chances that the bad elements in the intervening agencies will get themselves involved in human rights abuses moreover it is also true that military action taken in the world today always has associated interests with it but still analyzing the various examples of humanitarian intervention in recent past, it can be commented that military intervention has been proved to be an effective mechanism for the restoration of human rights in certain regions of the world. Despite some issues, the overall impact of the military interventions in the conflict areas can be termed as positive and productive with regards to the protection of human rights. References Gearon, L. (2002) Human Rights and Religion, Sussex Academic Press. General Books (2010) Human Rights in Iraq, General Books LLC. General Books (2010) Human Rights in Afghanistan, General Books LLC. Heise, J. (2005) Humanitarian Intervention, GRIN Verlag. Jokic, A. (2003) Humanitarian Intervention: Moral and Philosophical Issues, Broadview Press. Keohane, R. and Holzgrefe, J. (2003) Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dillemas, Cambridge University Press. Murphy, S. (1996) Humanitarian Intervention: United Nations in an evolving world order, University of Pennsylvania Press. Moseley, A. and Norman, R. (2002) Human Rights and Military Intervention, Ashgate Publication Co. Simm, B. and Trim, D. (2011) Humanitarian Intervention: A history, Cambridge University Press. Sisson, R. and Rose, L. (1991) War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh, University of California Press. Talentino, A. (2005) Military Intervention after the Cold War: the evolution of theory and practice, Ohio University Press. Weiss, T. (2012) Humanitarian Intervention, Polity. Weiss, T., Crahan, M. and Goering, J. (2004) War on Terrorism and Iraq: Human Rights, Unilateralism and US Foreign Policy, Routledge. Read More