Humanitarian
Intervention
Utebayeva Bayan
I36042
Question:
When and where do you think (forcible) humanitarian
intervention can be justified? Please use at least two
real world examples to support your argument.
Content:
 What is Humanitarian Intervention?
 Pro-interventionists vs anti-interventionists
 Humanitarian intervention – Kosovo case
 Humanitarian intervention – Rwanda case
Conclusion
 References
Humanitarian Intervention: definition
• There are many definitions given by many scholars.
• Humanitarian intervention is a means to prevent
or stop a gross
violation of human rights in a state, where such state is either
incapable or unwilling to protect its own people, or is actively
persecuting them.
• Humanitarian
intervention is practically and normatively complex
notion. Scholars and politicians share and agree on the idea that: it
regards a military intervention; the intervener is from outside of the
concerned country; the reason of the intervention is related to human
rights.
Humanitarian intervention is not a new term
In history:
 19th century
• Russian, British and French Anti-Ottoman Intervention in the Greek War of
Independence (1824)
• French expedition in Syria (1860–1861)
• Russian Anti-Ottoman Intervention in Bulgaria (1877)
• Spanish–American War (1898)
20th century (1900-1990)
• United States occupation of Haiti (1915)
• United Nations Operation in the Congo (1964)
• US intervention in Dominican Republic (1965)
• Indian intervention in East Pakistan (1971)
• Vietnamese Intervention in Cambodia (1978)
• Uganda-Tanzania War (1979)
90s interventions
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Operation Provide Comfort (Iraq, 1991)
Unified Task Force (Somalia, 1992)
Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti, 1994)
UNAMIR (Rwanda, 1994)
UNTAET (East Timor, 1999)
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (1999)
British military intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War (2000)
Coalition military intervention in Libya (2011)
Military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (2014)
Realists’ view on humanitarian intervention
• Realists cast doubts regarding humanitarian intervention as a purely
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profit-free intention to prevent massive human abuses.
States would not scarify their own soldiers overseas unless they have
self-interested reasons for doing so.
States always apply principles of humanitarian intervention selectively,
resulting in inconsistency in policy.
National interests first!
Liberalists’ view on humanitarian intervention
• Liberalists claim that massive human rights violations legitimize use of military
force. There is a strict moral duty to intervene when fundamental human rights
are violated. Protect victims and coerce the wrongdoer!
• Military intervention is an effective tool of foreign policy that could deter rogue
states with poor records of human rights abuses.
• Liberalism: high moral purposes bring peace, justice, democracy and civilization
to the affected area.
Pro-Interventionists
• Stress responsibility of powerful countries to address gross and systemic
human rights violations.
• Media-driven public support. Media is important in exposing and publicizing
the kinds of violations that may give rise to intervention on humanitarian
grounds. Use of force as a last resort.
• Reluctant pro-interventionists: support intervention when it is explicitly
sanctioned by the UN.
• Other pro-interventionists: support collective and unilateral state intervention.
4 types of Anti-interventionists
• Pacifist Anti-interventionalist: against of use of force, the sanctity of life
permits no grounds for justifiable violence.
• Anti-imperialist Anti-interventionalist: oppose of American and European
humanitarian diplomacy.
• Conservative Anti-interventionalist: humanitarianism is incompatible with
national interests; waste of military power.
• For-sovereignty Anti-interventionists: protect sovereignty established in
1648.
The legal argument
Counter-restrictionists point:
based on interpretations of the UN Charter and customary
international law and all individuals are entitled to a minimum
level of protection from harm by virtue of their common humanity.
Humanitarian intervention – Kosovo case
o Division of Yugoslavian countries
o Serbs as perpetrators
o Ethnic tensions in Kosovo
o NATO invasion to Kosovo
o Results
Yugoslavia: “a puzzle country”
Ethnic tensions
• Religious disagreement:
the Croats and Slovenes were Catholic
Bosnians were Muslim
the Serbs were Orthodox
Kosovo was Muslim
Diverse society
Serbs as main perpetrators
a
Serbian and Yugoslav
politician who was the President
of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and
President
of
the
Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia from
1997 to 2000.
 Against
any special treatment
of any ethnic group other than
the Serbs.
Slobodan Milosevic –
a nationalist leader
NATO intervention in Kosovo
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Milosevic refused to comply, and on 23 March the order was
given to commence air strikes (Operation Allied Force)
In June of 1999, NATO deployed an air campaign in Kosovo
lasting seventy-seven days
Reason to intervene: to protect Kosovar Albanians, to rebuild
legitimacy, to halt a refugee crisis
U.S. provided the majority of military air campaign
NATO intervention in Kosovo
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Between March 1998 and March 1999,
before NATO governments decided upon
military action, over 2000 people were
killed as a result of the Serb government's
policies in Kosovo.
During the summer of 1998, a quarter of a
million Kosovar Albanians were forced from
their homes as their houses, villages and
crops were destroyed.
In January 1999, evidence was discovered,
by a United Nations humanitarian team, of
the massacre of over 40 people in the village
of Racak.
NATO intervention in Kosovo
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Assistance given by NATO forces to alleviate the refugee situation included providing
equipment and building camps to house 50,000 refugees in Albania; assistance in expanding
camps in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; providing medical support and
undertaking emergency surgery on the victims of shootings by Serb forces; transporting
refugees to safety; and providing transport for humanitarian aid and supplies.
By the end of May 1999, over 230,000 refugees had arrived in the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia, over 430,000 in Albania and some 64,000 in Montenegro. Approximately
21,500 had reached Bosnia and over 61,000 had been evacuated to other countries. Within
Kosovo itself, an estimated 580,000 people had been rendered homeless.
It is estimated that by the end of May, 1.5 million people, i.e. 90% of the population of Kosovo,
had been expelled from their homes. Some 225,000 Kosovar men were believed to be missing.
At least 5000 Kosovars had been executed.
NATO forces have flown in many thousands of tons of food and equipment into the area. By
the end of May 1999, over 4666 tons of food and water, 4325 tons of other goods, 2624 tons of
tents and nearly 1600 tons of medical supplies had been transported to the area.
The flip side of NATO’s help
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Not good outcome! more killings, clashes among Albanians and Serbs, 10.000 dead Albanians
and 1000 dead Serbs . More Kosovars are questioning about the results of NATO’s
intervention; NATO bombings intensified the scale of ethnic cleansing; around 500 to 1,000
civilians were killed by NATO bombings.
Doubtful legitimacy of the use of force. Tim Judah: the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention
cannot be determined on legal grounds. He writes, “With no final arbiter in such questions each
country has to make up its own mind, and those decisions are usually intertwined with
questions of realpolitik and national interests. . . .
As Nicholas J. Wheeler points out in Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in
International Society, “State actions will be constrained if they cannot be justified in terms of a
plausible legitimating reason.”
According to Sumon Dantiki, costs such as refugee flows, regional security concerns, and
damage to global prestige (NATO prestige) provide incentives for military intervention.
• “Kosovo had a problem, and NATO provided the solution. In reality, NATO
had a problem and Kosovo provided a solution.”
• Intervention was “designed largely to boost NATO’s credibility.”
• Chomsky: US interests; humanitarianism has become the legitimating
ideology for the projection of U.S. economic hegemony in the post–Cold
War era; mixed motivation of the US and NATO
• Common and individual interests of NATO countries: refugee problem
• Free-rider problem among NATO countries: challenges of collective action
The Rwandan Genocide 1994
• 100 days – 1 million people died (April 7 – mid July)
• Ethnic tension between Hutus 84% and Tutsis 15%
• Circumstances: social, economic, and political
 economic situation was bad
 social/ethnic tensions among groups
 political leaders –Hutu called Tutsis “cockroaches”
Rwanda: falling “into the deep ditches of darkness”
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April 6, 1994 - Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana is killed when his plane is shot out of the sky.
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April 7, 1994 - Hutu extremists begin killing their political opponents. Hutu crafted informal document
called “Organization of civilian self-defense”: Procurement of 1,995 firearms; 499,500 bullets; 580,000
machetes.
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June 22, 1994 - the Security Council authorized French-led forces to mount a humanitarian mission,
“Operation Turquoise”.
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July 18, 1994 - the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) announced that it had taken control and the war was
over.
Response to the genocide
• International community was reluctant: “no impact throughout the world”
• Disinterest by most viewers, despite western media’s struggle
• Mistakes were made across the board, especially at UN
• “Fast beginning fast ending”
Conclusion
States
in the global south see intervention as a “Trojan horse”: legitimate
interference of the strong in the affairs of the weak.
Chomsky:
humanitarianism has become the legitimating ideology for the
projection of U.S. economic hegemony in the post–Cold War era.
Justifications are mere fig leaves behind which states hide their less savory and
more self-interested reasons for actions.
Humanitarian justifications have been used to disguise baser motives in more
than one intervention.
 More frequently, motives for intervention are mixed; humanitarian motives
may be genuine but may be only one part of a larger constellation of
motivations driving state action.
The United States and the Western countries intervene when it is in their
interests to do so. Still, the motives are pluralistic.
Hypocrisy of the United States and other Western governments.
 The
legitimacy of an intervention depends heavily on the public’s
acceptance of an articulated humanitarian motive for intervention.
Thank you for your attention!
Any questions or comments?
References:
•
“Address by President Bill Clinton to the UN General Assembly”. September 21, 1999.
http://www.state.gov/p/io/potusunga/207554.htm. (Accessed 10.11.2015)
•
Baylis, Smith, and Owens “The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to international
relations”, 5th edition.
•
“Emotions
Run
High
as
Rwanda
Remembers
Horrors
of
Genocide”,
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/emotions-run-high-rwanda-remembers-horrors-genociden73576. (Accessed 10.11.2015)
•
Finnemore, Martha “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention”, http://users.metu.
edu.tr/utuba/Finnemore.pdf. (Accessed 9.11.2015)
•
Hammond, Philip and Edward S. Herman eds. “Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo
Crisis”. (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2000).
•
“NATO's role in relation to the conflict in Kosovo”. http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm.
(Accessed 11.11.2015)
•
Peter Ryan Jr. “Assessment of the Rwanda Genocide”, https://phryanjr.com/assessment-of-therwanda-genocide/ (Accessed 10.11.2015)
•
Rwanda profile – Timeline. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14093322, 25 June 2015.
(Accessed 10.11.2015)
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Tariq Ali. ed. “Masters of the Universe? NATO’s Balkan Crusade”. (New York: Verso,2000).
•
“Kосово. Гуманитарная интервенция?” http://farc.narod.ru/magazine/21/21-08.html. (Accessed
10.11.2015)
“Анализ концепции гуманитарной интервенции как новой формы миротворчества на примере
конфликта в Косово”, http://bibliofond.ru/view.aspx?id=460566. (Accessed 10.11.2015)
Video: Kosovo and Rwanda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPpUIHLQuJk
http://www.history.com/topics/rwandan-genocide