How Humanitarian Intervention Has Become an International Norm - Coursework Example

HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION By Humanitarian Intervention Introduction Humanitarian intervention has been defined in different ways by various authors, but all have a common argument in their definitions. According to Roberts (1993) humanitarian intervention refers to the military intervention of one state on another without the states permission with the aim of preventing killings of citizens. On the other hand, Knudsen (1996), defines humanitarian intervention as a coercive intrusion of a state into another state motivated by humanitarian concerns. Finally, Finnemore (2008) describes humanitarian intervention as intruding into another country`s internal affairs with a purpose of giving the civilians protection. From the definitions, it is evident the three authors had a common perspective on humanitarian intervention, which leads to a general and succinct definition of human intervention as the use of military power to end the violation of human rights of the civilians in a particular state without its approval (Kardas, 2001). Many states around the globe have embraced humanitarian intervention. They have been on the far front line to offer humanitarian intervention to countries across the globe facing the threats of civil wars: from America, Africa to Asia. Thus, this means humanitarian intervention is an international norm that every state is embracing globally. Whenever a situation that needs humanitarian intervention arises, many states offer to intervene, signifying it has become the standard of behaviour globally. Every state expects to be viewed positively as powerful, and thus has to participate in humanitarian intervention to some extent. This essay discusses how humanitarian intervention has become an international norm, a standard behaviour and a guide to behaviour for every state. Humanitarian intervention has become a global standard behaviour and norm, which many states from all continents such as America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia are willing or have to participate in. Various interventions that have happened globally indicate why humanitarian intervention is becoming an international norm. Many states are participating whenever situations of war crimes occur in other countries. Countries such as India, United States, Britain, Vietnam, Uganda, Kenya and Russia have intervened, in various civil wars, to offer humanitarian intervention. For instance, from 1964 to 2014, there have been a number of humanitarian interventions involving various states around the globe. For example, in 1964, there was the United Nations operation in Congo (Abi-saab, 1978); in 1971, there was the Indian intervention in East Pakistan (Ganguly, 2013); in 1992, there was the United Task Force that targeted Somali (Mabry, 2000); in 2000, there was the British Military intervention in the Sierra Leone civil war (Williams, 2001). The others are the NATO invention in Libya in 2011, and the 2014 Military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Kenya intervention in Somalia. These interventions result in an international norm where every state believes it has the manpower to end or prevent the continuation and the violation of the rights of civilians. Critically, many of these states do not offer humanitarian intervention because they are capable, but because humanitarian intervention has become an international norm since it is only a few of these cases that have been successful while others are ongoing to date. For instance, Somali is still faced with civil and terrorist induced wars despite humanitarian intervention of 1992, which has escalated and spread into neighbouring states such as Kenya; thus prompting a military intervention from the Kenyan government to safeguard its citizens and boundaries. Conversely, Congo has never stabilised despite the many and vigorous international humanitarian interventions that happened in the country (Abi-Saab, 1978). To date, there are severe fights between the Congolese government and rebel groups such as the M23 rebellion of 2012. Thus, this illustrates the fact that many states practice humanitarian intervention just because it is an international norm, even though, they are not capable of ending crimes against humanity or wars happening in the affected states. Thus, they participate to satisfy the law of nature, that is, humanitarian intervention as a norm internationally. Furthermore, human rights protection has made humanitarian intervention become an international norm (Lang, 2009). Internationally, every state feels obligated to preserve and safeguard life by protecting and upholding the rights of civilians. For this reason, states have initiated unilateral humanitarian interventions to safeguard human rights. For instance, the U.S. decided to attack the Islamic states of Iraq and Afghanistan to fight for the innocent civilian`s rights but with the aim of fighting international terrorism. Thus, this prompted other countries such as the UK to join to execute these international obligations in the name of providing humanitarian intervention. Conversely, in 1992, states joined hands to cease the Somali civil war, which to date has never ended to demonstrate the need to protect human rights. Therefore, it is evident that humanitarian intervention is a new international norm, standard of behaviour and a guiding principle through which nations are fighting international terrorism and protecting human rights. Internationally, human rights have to be protected through the use of military actions by any willing state even without the consent of the affected country. For this reason, many states have, therefore, been deploying their military organs to war-affected countries to safeguard and protect the civilians’ rights (Holzgrefe & Keohane, 2003). Today, the Kenyan army and the AMISOM are in the Somali state trying to protect the civilians’ rights and restoring peace in the nation. In addition, the Ugandan army has been in Congo for some time now to enforce the rule of law and to protect the citizens from the rebels that disregard human rights. Moreover, the UN Security Council called all willing peacekeepers to assist in protecting Libyan’s rights from a regime that disregarded human rights by exposing citizens to parallel governments that killed and executed innocent civilians (Morris, 2013). This move by the UN Security Council and other states postulates humanitarian intervention as a standard of behaviour and international norm through international bodies and nations are pursuing to bring peace in war-torn nations. Use of force by humanitarian interventionists has created an international norm and standard of behaviour that the use of force is the only sure way of restoring and maintaining peace in war-torn countries. Initially, humanitarian intervention did not involve the use of force but was a peaceful mediation among the warring parties; however, this has since changed. The parties that initiate civil wars have been regarded has enemies of peace according to the humanitarian interventionist states; thus, necessitating their elimination and execution. A good example was the situation in the states of Iraq, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Libya where the use of force was the order of events, which culminated in the execution of the country’s presidents and other leaders (Bellamy and Williams, 2011). The UN Security Council called upon the willing states to use force to help Libya to end Muammar Al Gaddafi`s regime. The use of force translates to mass killings of innocent civilians in the affected state as governments and rebel groups fight to retain power (Chesterman, 2011). The use of force has been characterised by paralysis and insurgency of stronger rebel groups, which has often resulted in high-intensity fights and wars. For example, to date, Congo has never been peaceful. The use of force by the intervening countries enabled the rebels to acquire sophisticated weapons they have used over time to commit atrocities (Gegout, 2005). For this reason, the use of force as humanitarian intervention to promote and restore peace has become an international norm, standard of behaviour as well as a guiding principle that powerful states such as the U.S. have attempted to use to bring peace, protect human rights and fight international terrorism in countries such as the Afghanistan. Humanitarian intervention has also become a standard behaviour among many states globally. States have adopted a behaviour of humanitarian intervention that is not motivated, by the willingness, to protect but rather as means to gaining access and control over resources of other countries. The behaviour has been noted in situations where States, with interests in other states, use humanitarian intervention approaches to serving, further and protect their interests. For instance, there have been claims that the numerous humanitarian interventions that have occurred in Congo, are motivated by the desire to gaining access and control over the country`s natural resources such as minerals and gems, gold, cobalt, copper and diamonds (Gegout, 2005). The series of civil wars such as Ituri conflict in 2007, the 2013 Kivu conflict and the 2013 M23 rebellion have all been instigated, by the need, to have access and control over the natural resources. It is believed the civil wars are masterminded by states with interests in the Congo`s natural resources. Thus, the states have resorted to the idea of providing humanitarian intervention that, however, is aimed at creating avenues for the concerned states to have access and control over the Congo’s natural resources (Bellamy, 2008). In Iraq, it is believed that the war planners had interests in the oil reserves and not solely to bring peace and stability to the country. Thus, to gain entry and access to the resources, the countries offered humanitarian support to solve the conflict and protect civilian lives. Therefore, this shows a kind of behaviour that was created by the whole idea of offering humanitarian intervention in the country. It is evident, therefore, that many interventions are not genuine but rather carry some hidden agenda, which serves to benefit the intervening states (Roth, 2006). Therefore, from the above scenarios it is evident that humanitarian intervention has become a standard of behaviour through which nations are attempting to further and protect their interests in other states. Another standard behaviour that is being demonstrated by humanitarian interventions is the overthrowing of regimes of the ruling governments. This has been the current trend in many interventions where states that intervene aim at destabilising and overthrowing the ruling regimes, which they perceive to be unsupportive and hostile to their interests. Libya was one of the countries where the interventionists destroyed the government and executed the country’s sitting president, Muammar Gaddafi, even though, the nation was one of the best performing economies in Africa after the international community’s intervention (Holzgrefe & Keohane, 2003). The NATO and UNSG used the humanitarian intervention to destroy the whole regime a resemblance of the Iraq intervention that resulted in the execution of Saddam Hussein. The opponents of the war argue that the intervention by the then U.S. president, George W. Bush was meant to further and protect the interests of the U.S. in the Islamic country because the Saddam administration seemed not to bow to the Bush administration. Therefore, from these wars it is evident that many humanitarian interventions are form of standard behaviour and international norm through which powerful states further and protect their interests in the regions or states that are governed by hostile regimes (Morris, 2013). Humanitarian intervention has also become a guide to new behaviour in many states. It has become prevalent norm for citizens in the affected countries to believe that their help can only come from international willing states and agencies rather than their governments. For instance, in the recent past the number of human rights societies, which call for humanitarian interventions in countries that are perceived to be unstable has been rising (Weiss, 2012). This is a new behaviour that has been created that aims at exposing the weaknesses of many governments to the international communities. For instance, Syria that has been in war with Ukraine to date, has received many calls to welcome humanitarian intervention and cease-fire by the international community (Morris, 2013). As a guide to a new set of behaviour, humanitarian intervention has closely been related to international administration. The major superpowers such as U.S. are using humanitarian intervention to gain international governance, especially among the third-world countries (Ayoob, 2004). For instance, scholars argue that the major world superpowers are brainwashing the civilians of the war-torn countries and convincing them to follow their set up governance, which happens through indirect leadership of chosen leaders that are supported by the superpowers. Cambodia, Kosovo and East Timor all testify to this intervention since their leadership was formed by the States, which intervened during their time of crisis (Weiss, 2012). Thus, it is through humanitarian intervention that, the superpowers strategically short-change the governments of the affected countries to their favour (Ayoob, 2004). However, it is unfortunate that the superpowers discriminate, among the states, they offer humanitarian intervention. This was evident in the cases of Rwanda and Sudan in Africa where the international community had to be begged to offer humanitarian intervention. Therefore, this implies that humanitarian intervention is more of a norm, standard of behaviour and a guiding principle, which powerful states use to further or protect their interest lieu of restoring stability in the war-torn countries; as evidenced in many African states where the world superpowers rule indirectly. Conclusion Humanitarian intervention is a necessary tool for bringing stability in war-torn states or regions. However, humanitarian intervention has become an international norm, a standard of behaviour and a new guide to behaviour that every state follows. Many states have been in the front line to offer humanitarian intervention to show their military powers lieu of bringing peace to the war-torn regions and countries. This has become a norm and behaviour among many nations that have participated in humanitarian interventions. Conversely, the fight for human rights by many states and international bodies has been the force driving many human interventions globally in a bid to conserve and uphold humanity dignity. Thus, this has been an international norm necessitating many states to be committed to upholding humanity dignity by volunteering their military powers to participate in humanitarian interventions. The use of force also has become an international norm, which characterises many of the humanitarian interventions globally. Humanitarian interventions have also created a standard of behaviour that makes every state feel obligated to take part in any humanitarian intervention. In addition, the behaviour of states using humanitarian intervention to exploit the affected countries has become prevalent norm where natural resources such as gold and crude oil are exploited illegally during the time war. The overthrowing of ruling regimes has also become a standard of behaviour where the governing regimes have been toppled whenever there is humanitarian intervention. Ultimately, a new guide to behaviour has been created through humanitarian intervention whereby many states believe that the stability of a country can only be achieved through such interventions. For this reason, the civil societies that fight for human rights ask for humanitarian interventions to the war-torn countries such as Syria. Bibliography Abi-Saab, G., 1978. The United Nations Operation in the Congo, 1960-1964 (Vol. 4). 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