Responsibility to Protect and Dilemmas Posed by Humanitarian Intervention - Essay Example

The doctrine of responsibility to protect is the enabling principle that obligates the individual states and the international community to protect their citizens from war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. The basis of the doctrine is the idea that sovereignty is a responsibility and not a privilege.
This doctrine may be viewed from three broad dimensions. That is prevention, reaction, and rebuilding (World Federalist Movement, 2001). The prevention dimension is the most important element of the responsibility to protect. In this case, effective prevention must look into the causes of things that may put the population at risk. The responsibility to react dimension stipulates that different situations compelling human needs should be answered with appropriate measures such as military intervention. Further, the responsibility to rebuild dimension requires the provision of full assistance in situations of crisis. In most cases, the undertaking of these dimensions necessitates the need for humanitarian intervention. Many human rights activists see humanitarian intervention as a good thing since it appears to enact a commitment to the emancipatory ideals of freedom from oppression, respect for human dignity and valuing of human life (Orford 2003, p.34)
However, humanitarian intervention brings in some moral and political dilemmas such as the possibility of infringement of sovereign rights of a given state and its national interest or the justification for the need for such intervention. Read More