Humanitarian Intervention and International Law - Essay Example

116400 Humanitarian intervention and the demand for it had been steadily increasing in the recent years, due to friction and conflict around the world, where the totalitarian regimes, dictatorships and sometimes, inner struggles lead to horrifying genocides. This also can happen due to natural calamities where either the Government is too helpless, or unwilling to assist its own people. Sticking to the stiff law of non-intervention is found to be inadequate and there had been many arguments that international law should be modified with an additional clause of humanitarian intervention because while forming the international law, it could not foresee every situation and intervention on humanitarian grounds has become imperative owing to evil regimes and dictatorships around the world, especially in African countries. If accepted, another haunting question arises: is it possible for the institution of humanitarian intervention to justify unauthorised actions? Should powerful States take it upon themselves and judge the situation and take individualistic actions against the erring state? Where will be the end to it? This is a highly intriguing and frustrating situation, especially when genocide is going on, like that of Rwanda’s. But it is difficult to justify the war over Iraq, even though United Kingdom and United States tried hard to wrap it up in various colour package, saying that it was imperative because of human rights violation, dictatorship, establishing democracy, better the lives of Iraqis etc. and this theory has found no takers. The genocide that happened in Rwanda will go down in history as one of the worst of its kind and the question still remains as to how the international community can stop this horrendous killing from continuing further or happening somewhere else. The United Nations and its Security Council has a ‘responsibility to protect’ the innocent people all around the world, irrespective of their nationality, race and creed. Some international law makers argue that Security Council should be given more power to intervene; but if given, could that power be mismanaged and misused by the powerful few? These questions had been haunting the world leaders for a long time now. How to empower a humanitarian intervention under impossibly difficult situations? Is it possible for the world body to handle such a situation, without getting influenced by super powers? Sovereignty of the country should not be violated by another country, even though it has violated human rights, according to rights of sovereignty. The Government of any country cannot be prosecuted, unless it subjects itself willingly to the jurisdiction of an international court. It is not possible to get a government convicted for its crimes against its own citizens and it is equally impossible to carry out the sentence, even if convicted. International community can bring economic and political pressures on the country; but again, the citizens will suffer as much or even more than the Government. So having an army to supervise these evil regimes would not work. “Sovereignty has proved incompatible with the existence of a kind of worldwide “international police force,” http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_08/uk/ethique/txt1.htm Also the fact remains that the doctrine of “the right to intervene” undermines the sovereignty. Another argument is that the states should give up certain amount of their sovereignty so that external help could reach the citizens under extremely difficult conditions. “The power of the state, it says, must yield to a “principle of extreme urgency”–the need for a minimum protection of human rights”, (Ibid). Even though it is always been pointed out that it is unethical to intervene taking advantage of an unfortunate situation, it happened many times. Usually bigger nations have some other hidden agenda like grabbing more territory, attaining geo-strategic advantage or getting their hands on some natural resources unavailable in their own country, or is in short supply. High morality is usually shown as reason for intervention, in terms of justice, human rights and liberty and they always have some endearing slogans similar to ‘white man’s burden’ which implies that the work is done under duress, as part of their duty, even though it is distasteful to them. Sometimes, the political mendacity is referred to humanitarian intervention. Tony Blair has called the attack on Iraq a humanitarian intervention, despite the disbelief of almost the entire world. In a genuinely distressing situation, like that of Bangla desh genoside in 1972, when India, after requesting all the powers in the world to assist her to stop the genocide and Nixon administration refusing to do so, in spite of millions of refugees pouring into Indian territory, had to intervene with military strength to liberate the eastern part of Pakistan and create Bangla Desh. In such terrifying situations, scholars argue that there should be some way of intervening at times of dire need. “Some legal scholars have maintained, and rightly so, that international lawyers and policymakers must seek some outside source of philosophical guidance to aid them in resolving these difficult problems of legal interpretation that also involve ethical issues,” http://law.unl.edu/Forms/Transcript_p30.pdf Security council has many times used its powers to intervene to prevent ordinary people from getting butchered. “The Security Council, in recent years, has used its powers under Chapter VII expansively to mandate international action to cope with humanitarian emergencies within a state notably resulting from gross and massive violations of human rights or international humanitarian law,” http://www.dupi.dk/webtxt/humint/chp5.pdf Still, action by individual states is frowned upon. The legality and legitimacy of such interventions has been questioned. The international community has denounced many American actions in recent years. Afghanistan, terrorised by Taliban, was in great need of international help, and American action was not particularly denounced; but the attack on Iraq has made US and its ally, UK, two warmongering nations. Humanitarian invention, or the lack of it, both have created a dilemma to the international community. In the 20th century, international law and international relations saw great development, mainly because of two World Wars and later to some extent, because of the Cold War and its conflicts that have left the world with the realisation that international conflicts should never be allowed to attain gigantic proportions so that they could engulf the entire universe. The UN Charter has illegalised all kinds of use of force by any individual State without being authorised by the Security Council. It had been agreed that international security and peace should be the area of United Nations and its Security Council and individual nations can do so, only when formally authorised by UNO, as The Norm of Non-Intervention says: 2.7: Sovereignty has come to signify, in the Westphalian concept, the legal identity of a state in international law. It is a concept which provides order, stability and predictability in international relations once sovereign states are regarded as equal, regardless of comparative size or wealth,” (Responsibility to Protect, p.12). There was vociferous argument that countries in West are disregarding the needs of smaller countries, suffering from epidemics, bad Governments, dictatorships, natural calamities, AIDS, TB, etc. “The first step in this process is to notice that there is a world beyond the west, namely, that great portion of the globe which is neither west European, nor North American, nor Australasian,” (Vincent, 1986, p.37). At the same time, protection of people, their rights, liberty, protecting them from dictators and conflicts, protecting their human rights, and protecting them from evil regimes should be international concern. These are not the days when nations like to live in isolation, the way American did before the First World War. There are many kinds of humanitarian emergencies like industrial havocs, natural disasters and ecological threats, for which the concerned Governments may not be doing much and the situation is crying for a external humanitarian help. “The Security Council, in recent years, has used its powers under Chapter VII expansively to mandate international action to cope with humanitarian emergencies within a state notably resulting from gross and massive violations of human rights or international humanitarian law,” http://www.dupi.dk/webtxt/humint/chp5.pdf Security Council has its legal capacity in 6.16: “Article 42 authorizes the Security Council, in the event that non-military measures prove “inadequate” to decide upon military measures “as may be necessary” “to maintain or restore international peace and security,” ( The Responsibility to Protect, 2001, p. 50). Natural calamities are other emergencies that would require immediate, almost on the spot decisions and aid. Martin Griffiths, Director, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, said, “These humanitarian contributions – and they should be humanitarian, as we have been reminded today, not a cover for political work – these humanitarian contributions need to be put in a context of building peace,” (The Humanitarian Decade, Vol. 1, p. 57). Security Council becomes absolutely impotent when the veto is used by any of the Permanent Members, leading to Security Council not authorising any action, or pass any resolution. At the same time, it is almost impossible sometimes to evaluate a situation from external eyes. “The major difficulty in evaluating the legal status of humanitarian intervention in this period is that a large number of writers put the question outside the realm of international law entirely,” (Chesterman, 2001, p. 39). There is no doubt that any kind of external intervention is a blow to the sovereignty of that country, and to a large extent, however bad the regime was, cannot be fully justified. “Because humanitarian intervention is prima facie an assault on state sovereignty, it is legitimised by being integrated into a natural law theory which envisages an enveloping human society,” (Tsagourias, 2000, p.15). World community has to find a way of collective action, where none of the countries get any benefit out of the disaster, but the citizens are provided protection. “With history stubbornly refusing to end, there will always be a conflict between what is possible and what is right. But if the right to democratic governance means anything, it is that its content and the manner of its expression must be determined by the people in whom it vests,” (Chesterman, p.111). BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Chesterman, Simon (2001), Just War or Just Peace? Oxford University Press. 2. Tsagourias, Nikolaos (2000), Jurisprudence of International Law, Juris Publishing, Manchester University Press. 3. The Responsibility to Protect, (2001), The International Development Research Centre, Ottawa. 4. The Humanitarian Decade, Volume I, (2002), General Assembly Resolution 46/182, United Nations, New York. 5. The Humanitarian Decade, Volume II (2004), General Assembly Resolution 46/182, United Nations. 6. Vincent, R.J. (1986), Human Rights and International Relations, Cambridge University Press. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://law.unl.edu/Forms/Transcript_p30.pdf 2. http://www.dupi.dk/webtxt/humint/chp5.pdf 3. http://www.unesco.org/courier/1999_08/uk/ethique/txt1.htm 4. http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol13/No1/br1-01.html 5. http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/0199267219/toc.html Read More