Humanitarian Military Intervention and World Politics

1
Humanitarian Military Intervention and World
Politics

• What is humanitarian military intervention?
• Political, legal and moral issues
• The Solidarist case for humanitarian military
  intervention
• Objections for legitimizing humanitarian military
  intervention

2
What is humanitarian military intervention?

• Patterns of intervention in conflict situations
  post Cold War
• -boundaries between peacekeeping (under the
  Chapter VI of the UN Charter) and peace
  enforcement (under the Chapter VII of the UN
  Charter)
• -is there a hybrid type of operation?
• -practical aspects IFOR and SFOR in Bosnia and
  Herzegovina Somalia 1993
• Definition of humanitarian military intervention/
  limited intervention/ peace enforcement
• dictatorial or coercive interference in the
  sphere of jurisdiction of sovereign state to
  protect or relieve individuals facing mass
  oppression or genocide (Knudsen 1997, 171).

3
Legal/ moral authority and humanitarian military
intervention engagement

• The international law the UN Charter and the
  principles of sovereignty and non-intervention
• Chapter VII of the UN Charter
• Connecting international peace and security with
  violations of international humanitarian law
  UNSCRs 688 and 794 customary law
• Justification issues threshold for humanitarian
  law violation what constitutes legitimacy
  multilaterality of the intervention the level of
  humanitarian ambition the impartiality problem
  and the effect/ security aspect of the involvement

4
The Solidarist case for humanitarian military
intervention

• Moral justification- humanitarian motivation of
  these operations
• Political argument
• Security considerations

5
Objections for legitimizing humanitarian military
intervention

• States do not intervene for primarily
  humanitarian reasons
• States are not allowed to risk their soldiers
  lives on humanitarian crusades
• Disagreement on what principles should govern a
  right of humanitarian intervention
• The effectiveness of such operations is questioned