Humanitarian Issue - Essay Example

? Humanitarian Issue College: Introduction Humanitarianism is concerned with human rights, which are defined as the basic freedoms and rights that all human beings are entitled to. Some of these rights include right to life, freedom of expression and thought, liberty, as well as equal treatment, among others. Such rights represent individuals or groups’ entitlements and their responsibilities. Genocide is the intention of destroying in part or completely any ethnical, national, religious, or racial groups by killing all the members or causing serious mental or bodily harm to the group members. It also includes deliberating on inflicting on such a group some life conditions calculated to cause physical destruction in either part or whole, imposing measures aimed at preventing birth within such groups, or forceful transfer of their children to another group (UN ND, Para 4). Following the demise of Burundi and Rwandan presidents in an air crash attributed to a rocket attack, systematic and intense massacres of the minority Tutsi ethnic and moderate Hutus ethnic groups occurred in Rwanda over a number of weeks. Consequently, about a million people lost their lives through brutal killing while an estimated women’s figure of about 150,000 to 250,000 were raped. This has gone into records as a severe case of genocide, which shocked international community (UN ND, Para 1). The international community has been in the forefront to fight for human rights, prevention of conflict, genocides, or any other form of human gross abuse. The international community is motivated by the Rwandan case in which thousands of innocent Rwandans lost their lives in 1994. In this case, the international community could have thwarted the mass killings but this lives as a hard lesson for the whole world. Due to this, numerous international organisations as well as individual states are devoted to ensuring and fostering peace across the world and any infringement of citizen rights calls for their attention. Such efforts intensified after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the 1995 and 1999’s ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Balkans. The concern of the international community was how it could react in effective ways towards quelling of situations in which human rights are violated grossly and systematically. The issue of concern was whether nations have absolute sovereignty over their internal affairs or whether international community is entitled to employing military intervention in a nation for humanitarian purposes (UN ND, Para 3). The purpose of this paper is to review the occurrences of such ethnic conflicts, genocide, as well as gross human rights abuse and examine how the international community has succeeded in prevention of such occurrences across the world. Occurrences of Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, and Gross Human Rights Abuse Ethnic conflicts, genocides, murder, and other gross violations of human rights qualify as dehumanization acts. Dehumanization is defined as the psychological process in which opponents perceive each other less than human hence undeserving moral consideration. It involves demonizing of the foe, making them appear less than human hence unworthy of humane treatment. Such a psychological process is hailed as the chief cause of increased violence, violation of human rights, genocide, war crimes, as well as other forms of gross human rights abuse (Finnemore 2000, p. 1). Some of the leading examples of such ethnic conflicts include the perception of the Jews as inferior and less human by the Nazis in Germany and the Hutus undermining of the Tutsis in Rwanda. The Nazis killed over one million Jews through some well-established structures and concentration camps, which were supported by the Germany government under Adolf Hitler. One the other hand, Rwanda’s ethnic conflict in 1994 resulted into the famous Rwandan genocide, which saw about a million people dying within a hundred days. Other nations have had less pronounced cases especially in the African continent in which every electoral period has become a time of violence. Such nations include Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Ivory Coast to name a few. Democratic Republic of the Congo has a history of experiencing a number of crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, as well as other gross ill-treatment of human rights. The recent cases of violence and wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are specifically ruinous for her population as well as the country herself. Such contemporary conflicts were perpetuated largely on the Eastern side of the nation, and involved a number of interrelated and overlapping factors such as a weak state, ethnic strife, struggle for her rich resources, as well as regional politics (UN ND, Para 5). Another famous example is the gross violation of human rights in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, which had disastrous consequences on humanity. This war tempered the buoyant outlook that many leaders and observers had about the world following the end of the Cold War. New world order seemed much like the old or previous world order apart from the condition that superpower proxy and bipolarism wars were replaced by the ethnic conflicts’ fratricide in the failed states. Such wars proved to be more destructive compared to the old wars since battle lines were cut out between peoples as rather than the previous lines between the opposing armies. One such conflict was the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict. The Bosnian war was rooted in an additional cause, which was the kind of irredentism from the international community that was common prior to the onset of Second World War. The three cases are illustrations of protracted conflict strains in relationships, which make it hard for parties to realize that they are elements of a shared community of human beings. Such settings foster feelings of immense hatred as well as alienation among the differing parties. The psychological detachment between groups widens with the severity of the conflict. Ultimately, this leads into moral exclusion with the ones excluded being viewed as typically inferior, criminal, or even evil by their counterparts (Opotow 2000, p, 417). Humanitarian Intervention Paradoxes Explaining the humanitarian interventions’ rash, which nations have embarked on since end of cold war has masquerades huge analytical problems towards the international scholars. Many traditional scholars of security issues have moved violently in understanding of the humanitarian nature as an interest, with the consequence that they merely discount as well as emphasize other probable motivations for intervention. In some of their analyses, Somalia intervention is perceived as an effort of exporting the values of the US, Haiti intervention was in relation to refugees, while Kosovo and Bosnia interventions are elucidated by the urge of protecting the credibility of NATO as well as maintain stability in the European continent (Mandelbaum 1994, p. 17-18). Thus, scholars are left at some positions, which limit their critical evaluation of humanitarian interventions since a nation with some hidden motives will always play safe to avoid raising alarm from the international community. In all these cases, scholars argue that humanitarianism was no more than window-dressed in order to perpetuate the interests of the ‘humanitarian’ countries involved. Legal scholars, constructivists, as well as increasing amount of policy analysts tend to have taken humanitarianism initiatives more critically as a basis of motivation for the action of states. They tip the increasingly dense humanitarian treaties, laws, and norms’ web, and the transnational groups of activists, which mutually coerce the publics and their policy makers to hold up these interventions. This group’s analytic problem has been seeking an understanding of the reason why humanitarianism generates such varied and inconsistent effects. Humanitarian laws and norms are often disrespected, with humanitarian concerns failing to produce effective intrusions as illustrated by the painful Rwandan case of 1994. In addition, they fail producing similar kind of interventions across the different nations. These scholars require giving a more detailed explanation of the circumstances under which humanitarianism prevails as well as the types of events it will generate if it is a significant state action’s motivator (Finnemore 2000, p. 1). Effectiveness of the International Community in Preventing such Occurrences Prevention of these occurrences (genocide, murder, rape, and other inhumane acts) is both an individual and collective responsibility. All stakeholders such as governments, civil society, media, religious groups, and all people have an important role to play in their prevention. The international community calls for all to join hands in building a strong global partnership against all forms of human abuse. This is irrespective of whether the governments of concerned countries are willing or not in a position to protect their populations. The urge of preventing genocide as well as punishing all those responsible rose to the international community attention’s forefront after Second World War. This occurred at a time in which some 12,000,000 individuals were murdered systematically by the famous Hitler-led Nazi regime for grounds of their sexuality, ethnicity, or other characteristics. UN members, since then, have reached an agreement on international treaties aimed at contributing towards prevention of genocide. This includes the “Genocide Convention” (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) of 1948, the 1949’s Geneva Conventions, as well as the two Protocols identifying further actions as illegitimate under the international law. The 1948’s Genocide Convention places an commitment upon all nations to avert or penalize genocide acts whether committed during war times or in peaceful ones (UN ND, Para 2-4). Typically, all people are entitled to some basic human rights, which should not be infringed at all. Innocent individuals should be treated inhumanely; by ensuring that they are protected from all forms of murder, torture, or rape. Instead, the international law provides for their just and fair treatment, and with their due respect and dignity. Such people are also entitled to their basic needs, as well as some freedom for making autonomous decisions. Parties are thus required to protect the guiltless civilians on opposing sides in times of conflict and/or war. The international law also advocates for a fair trial for all those found culpable of breaking law as opposed to subjecting them to any kind of unusual or cruel punishment. However, the people perceived to be out of the scope of justice and morality are treated impartially with both concepts of fair treatment and deserving basic needs failing to apply and sometimes seeming irrelevant (Opotow 1995, p. 347). Any form of harm, which befalls such people seems warranted as well as perhaps even more morally justified. All those people excluded from morality and justice scope are perceived as typically expendable, psychologically distant, as well as deserving any form of treatment, which would otherwise not be tolerable for all those composed in a moral community. The most common exclusion criteria include skin color, ideology, as well as cognitive capacity in dehumanization activities and/or actions. Typically, those whom are perceived as posing a threat towards a group’s values or well-being are dehumanized and the international community has been strongly opposed to this (Deutsch 2000, p. 51). International organizations’ role in execution and legitimatization of humanitarian intrusions is a vivid change in normative structure in which such intervention operations are conducted though their changing role is broader. After interventions, and achievement of some settlement, the international organisations are given leading roles in the reconstruction of these societies and states. The United Nations (UN), United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), World Bank, as well as other countless humanitarian assistance NGOS lead in the implementation of the settlement accord. In addition, the organisations they make myriad consequential decisions based on the ground, which determine the destiny of the individuals who were saved by the interveners. International organizations’ role in legitimization as well as implementation of such interventions are related to a number of features of the sorts of states, which are process-oriented and are currently viewed as legitimate. First, the international organisations are perceived as somehow impartial as any other nation in implementation of the internationally legitimate courses for selecting new governments such as electoral processes (Finnemore 2000, p. 17). It would be hard to deem it appropriate to request a state government to move forward and conduct elections in countries like Kosovo, Bosnia, or Cambodia. However, the international bodies have this type of legitimate authority. Related, there exist a sense that the international bodies embody some mode of international opinion, “international will”, or even some generally conventional principles, which are broader compared to the views or interests of any single state. This mode of representativeness adds towards these organizations’ credibility, particularly in the present world in which participatory and consensual decision making form the most legitimate outlines of political life making. The international organisations have the ability of laying claim to some level of expertise in businesses of running elections as well as reconstructuring states. At a minimum, such organisations have profound experience at these activities, which scholars often associate with expertise (Finnemore 2000, p. 18). The trend in which various organisations, international laws, regimes, treaties, as well as other rational-legal authorities establishments are being created has expansive implications for the global politics and humanitarian interventions. It implies that in most contexts, the international organisations like the OSCE and UN have more legitimate acting powers than the individual states. After all, states are generally understood as safeguarding and propagating their personal particularistic interests and views; indeed, the leaders of states are endowed with an ethical obligation of safeguarding their citizens. By contrast, international organisations are both producers and products of general, international, and impersonal rules of the accepted, civilized forms of behavior. Such organisations are established by treaties, which are generalized rational-legal rules, with a requirement of following stipulated rules in their actions (Deutsch 2000, p. 51). Consequently, international organisations become distinctively legitimate actors in the global politics. Such organisations can do the things, which individual nation-states cannot do legitimately. For instance, the international organisations can reconstruct other states unlike individual states’ capacity. If a unilateral state were to be involved into another state’s humanitarian crisis, and manage to stop killing and dehumanization acts, systematize a new government, as well as attempt reconstructing such a society by itself, then such actions would be perceived as a mode of colonialism, with the reconstituted government considered as a puppet. Thus, there is need of engaging the international organisations to ensure the legitimacy of this mode of reconstruction (Finnemore 2000, p. 18). Another key component of the international community is the International Criminal Court (ICC), which handles some delicate cases concerning abuse of human rights. Such cases need a lot of objectivity and nation-states may not offer effective hearings due to the variation in interests. For instance, the case of the suspected perpetrators of the Rwandan massacre or genocide could get a better hearing at the ICC as opposed to trying them at home. The rights of the victims could be well considered by such an impartial body than how an independent nation state could consider them due to partiality in dealing with such cases. Conclusion The law of the international human rights’ expansion has often failed to match by practice. This is why such heart-touching ‘tales’ of Rwanda 1994 genocide occurred as the international community failed to take its rightful position to avert such massive killings. The paper has also shown that some international participants (the rich and influential individual states) have their own interests at heart when attending some international issues. One of such key interests is the on going invasion of the Arab World, which has large reserves of oil and petroleum products. However, there is growing consent that protection of the rights of human beings is a crucial effort, which should urge the international community to resolve emerging conflicts as well as foster reconstruction of states after the or as part of reconciliation process. The trend in which various organisations, international laws, regimes, treaties, as well as other rational-legal authorities establishments are being created has expansive implications for the global politics and humanitarian interventions. All these are geared towards ensuring a safe world for all humanity from all walks of life irrespective of whether such nation’s governments are willing to uphold and safeguard their rights or not. The paper has established that the international community has been in the forefront to fight for human rights, prevention of conflict, genocides, or any other form of human gross abuse. It is motivated by the Rwandan case in which thousands of innocent Rwandans lost their lives in 1994 and the hope of the whole world is that no such misfortune shall occur in any other nation, especially with the increased arsenal of dealing with differing issues. In achievement of the various peace guaranteeing goals, international community has pointed out to a number of apparatus meant to bring a stop to abuse of human rights as well as for establishment of environments, which respect of such rights in the future. No mechanisms are substitutes, but each affords important advantages in dealing with past occurrences and envisioning of a brighter future. References Deutsch, M., 2000. Justice and Conflict. In: M. Deutsch and P.T. Coleman, eds. The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. Finnemore, M., 2000. Paradoxes in Humanitarian Intervention. [Online] Available at [Accessed 9 February 2012] Opotow, S., 1995. Drawing the Line: Social Categorization, Moral Exclusion, and the Scope of Justice. In: B.B. Bunker and J.Z. Rubin, eds. Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice: Essays Inspired by the Work of Morton Deutsch. Sage Publications, New York. Opotow, S., 2000. Aggression and Violence. In: M. Deutsch and P.T. Coleman, eds. The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. United Nations and the Prevention of Genocide, N.D. Lessons from Rwanda: Responsibility to Protect. [Online] Available at >[Accessed 9 February 2012] Read More