21st Century Security Agenda: Humanitarian Military Intervention

Question 1

What is Buchanan’s definition of humanitarian intervention?

Answer 1

“The threat or use of force across borders by a state (or groups of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread violation of the fundamental rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied”

Question 2

What are the primary functions of the UN in terms of humanitarian intervention?

Answer 2

Promotion of general welfare

Peace-keeping, peace-making

Question 3

What is the UN security council?

Answer 3

Fifteen members
Five permanent members (P5)
P5 veto. Heavily used during the cold war (114 Soviet vetoes 1945-75, 60 US vetoes 1976-90).

Question 4

What are the functions of the security council in terms of humanitarian intervention?

Answer 4

Maintain international peace and security
Call on members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression.
Take military action against an aggressor.

Question 5

What do UN Chapters 6 and 7 state about humanitarian intervention?

Answer 5

6: Pacific settlement of disputes
7: Use of force to bring about international peace and security
UN record is mixed

Question 6

What is UN peacekeeping?

Answer 6

Chapter 6.5 operations
Deployed only when a conflict has ceased
Monitor ceasefires and keeps belligerents apart
Rely on the consent of the warring parties
Small lightly armed forces from neutral or non aligned states (Blue Helmets)
1948-78 13 UN Missions
1978-88 None

Question 7

What is UN peacemaking?

Answer 7

Military force to enforce peace on warring parties
Only one example of UN authorisation during the Cold War (Korea)
UN also allowed the extension of its peacekeeping mandate in the Congo to peace enforcement.

Question 8

What was UN intervention like during the Cold War?

Answer 8

UN involved in most major international crises since 1945.

Ability to fulfill its Collective Security role fundamentally comprised by the Cold War.

Question 9

What has UN intervention been like post-Cold War?

Answer 9

Missions have increased in size and complexity.
P5 and other large states have been able to become involved ‘in the field’ in UNSC missions.
New missions have involved much wider range of tasks than previous UN missions.

Thin line between enforcement and war fighting
Crossing the ‘Mogadishu line’.

Question 10

What did the Presidential Decision Directive state about US’s involvement in humanitarian missions?

Answer 10

“It is not US policy to seek to expand either the number of UN peace operations or US involvement in such operations’

Question 11

What do intervention optimists say?

Answer 11

The international community can forcibly re-build failed states and reform murderous ones.

Question 12

What do intervention pessimists say?

Answer 12

Little can be done about humanitarian crises without the consent of the major parties involved. All is lost if the consent divide is crossed.

Question 13

What can the failure of UN humanitarian intervention be put down to?

Answer 13

Rwanda: Failure of UN Secretary-General to push the case for intervention
US and UK obstruction on the Security Council
Intervention tightrope: Somalia was too ambitious. Not enough was done in Rwanda.

Failure in Somalia partially to blame for UN inaction in Rwanda.
‘The Security Council bears a responsibility for its lack of political will to do more to stop the killing’ (Independent Inquiry)

Question 14

What is Liberal Interventionism?

Answer 14

George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Clinton, Blair
A foreign policy doctrine: Liberal Democracies have a duty to intervene in the internal affairs of other states in pursuit of liberal objectives up to and including military intervention and imposition of liberal democratic governments.

Question 15

What is the Blair Doctrine?

Answer 15

“The fact that we engaged is the result of wide range of changes- the end of the cold war; changing technology, the spread of democracy”

“Principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects. Acts of genocide can never be a purely informal matter. When oppression produces massive flows of refugees which unsettle neighbouring countries then they can properly be described as “threat to international peace and security”.

Question 16

What is Farrel’s quote regarding humanitarian intervention?

Answer 16

“Politics gives identity to humanitarian crises, determining those that warrant international response. It selectively focuses international attention in certain places at particular times”

Question 17

What effect does public opinion have on humanitarian intervention?

Answer 17

Humanitarian intervention is shaped by the 'do something' response
CNN effect; a double edged sword.
Bodybags effect (Vietnam, Somalia)
Wars of 'choice' not wars of 'necessity'

Question 18

What are the three pillars to Responsibility to Protect?

Answer 18

1. The state carries the primary responsibility for protecting populations from genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
2. The international community has a responsibility to encourage and assist states in fulfilling this responsibility.
3. The international community has a responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other means to protect populations from these crimes. If a state is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take collective action to protect populations, in accordance with the charter of the United Nations.

E.g. Libya

Question 19

What are the Security Council politics regarding humanitarian intervention?

Answer 19

Log rolling
Use of threat of veto less frequent in the post-cold war world, but still a factor (increasing?)
Talk the talk but not walking the walk (Srebrenica)
Direction of travel: a problem of coordination and interpretation.

Question 20

How is the balance of sovereignty changing?

Answer 20

Sovereignty no longer exclusively protects states from foreign interference; it is a charge of responsibility that holds states accountable of the welfare of their people.

Question 21

Intervention: What does the future hold?

Answer 21

UN still in the peace operations business
Cautious return to intervention optimism?
Impact of Iraq on UN credibility
Changing balance between principle of non-intervention and humanitarian law.
Still a balancing act reliant on the goodwill of the P5

Question 22

What do Particularists (Pluralists) say?

Answer 22

We owe a greater duty of care to family, friends and fellow citizens

Question 23

What do Universalists (Solidarists) say?

Answer 23

All human beings have a right to life and liberty

Question 24

What is the case for intervention?

Answer 24

When a state is either unwilling or unable to protect the lives and liberties of its citizens, the duty to safeguard these rightly falls to the international community.
The exercise of tyranny or onset of anarchy causes the moral collapse of sovereignty and justifies humanitarian interests.

Question 25

What is the case against intervention? (Scott-Fairles)

Answer 25

“the use of force for humanitarian ends more often than not has become self-defeating, increasing the human misery and loss of life it was originally intended to relieve”