According to Bundegaard, the notion of individuals having rights by virtue of their humanity has been underscored against state interests. This, together with global governance, is the most notable change in international relations since the Second World War. (2010).
Global governance is a complex constituting institution, mechanisms, processes and relationships among states, organizations and markets with collective global interests. This also offers a platform for mediation and establishment of obligations (Weiss, 2006) . This trend of global governance is what has led to the formulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and other UN Charters. Since the 90's, the UN, and other regional organizations, have sanctioned military action on states, without the approval of the state whose territory is being acted on. These episodes were carried out to address injustices in various parts of the world and some were carried out without the authorization of the UN (Philpott, 2010).
One such intervention was in Kosovo by NATO in 1999. NATO failed to prove a sufficient reason for military action by the UN and instead went ahead and started bombing campaigns without UN approval. As it turned out, even though human rights abuses were rampant in Kosovo, most of NATO's claims of 'killing fields' in Kosovo were made up in an attempt to try explaining the invasion (Chomsky, 2001). Seemingly drawing from lessons from Kosovo, the US today insists on a UN mandate for NATO to intervene in Libya, where Gaddafi is seen to carry out human rights violations so as to cling to power (MacAskill and Taylor, 2011).
Human rights abuses, however, are a serious issue in the modern society. There have been reports of violations in many nations of the world: Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Tunisia, Israel, Myanmar, Rwanda, Cuba, and recently, Libya. The 20th century also saw gross human rights violations, with China taking the blame for 45 million deaths within its boarders and 61 million for the USSR. The US has also been accused of human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay where it was accused of torturing prisoners and detaining people suspected of terrorist connections without offering them a fair trial. While there has been the need to curb human rights abuses, Crovelli says that this “overlooks the fact that all states are human rights violators by their very nature, and thus have no moral standing to carry out humanitarian interventions of any kind” (2007).
This phenomenon, which the nation acted on sees akin to bullying, is also portrayed by recent protests by the US against the call by Kenya to try suspects of the recent post-election violence in Kenya instead of the ICC. The insistence that Kenya must not try the suspects themselves, but should hand them over to the International Criminal Court, raises eyebrows since US doesn't even recognize the ICC as it has not ratified the treaty of the ICC (Bundegaard, 2010).
China, a veto member of the UN Security Council, has been touted as a leading violator of fundamental rights and freedoms. The country violates the right of its people to religion, free expression and association. China also uses torture, notoriously curtails judicial independence and implements the death penalty (rex, 1995). Bundegaard (2010) sees this as a war of North-West acting on a rights-based norm and the South-East defending sovereignty and pluralism. This undermines the ability of the UN to successful marshal support for humanitarian intervention because the South-East members, namely China and Russia, use their veto power to advocate for sovereignty of the state as being above the right to intervene. This reduces the effectiveness the UN to intervene in nations where abuses are reported as all members of the Security Council have to come to an agreement before UN can sanction the use of humanitarian intervention.
This reluctance by China and Russia can further be demonstrated by their threat to use their veto power to stop any UN resolution sanctioning military intervention in Libya (MacAskill and Taylor, 2011).
The UN has taken steps to try and redefine the sovereignty of nations after humanitarian intervention efforts in such states as Bosnia, Rwanda and Somali came after atrocities had been committed (Bundegaard, 2010). Rieff and Dworkin (2010) indicate that the UN Charter recognizes the sovereignty of all states. Under the second article, the UN, in its charter, stipulates that all members have sovereign equality. It further states that all members should refrain from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state” (1945). The same article further underscores the fact that not even the UN should intervene in matters which are within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. This article seems to contravene the concept of humanitarian intervention, but this, of course, is subject to the definition of state sovereignty used.
In his article, Annan states that sovereignty, in the face of globalization and international co-operation, has undergone a redefinition. He argued that states are now understood as instruments servicing their peoples and not the other way round (1999). In addition, Bundegaard (2010) says that the emergence of the International Criminal Court institution is a witness of the continuing movement of the line between responsibility and norms. This shifting view of state sovereignty means that we have progressed from the classic definition of sovereignty to encompass modern relations between states.
Contention has arisen as some people argue that powerful nations tend to pursue their own selfish interests under the guise of humanitarian intervention as provided by the UN. It has also been a question of philosophy, as Crovelli views it. He questions why a state has to infringe on the rights of some, so as to restore the rights of others (2006). Bundegaard (2010) refers to the US War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq as excellent examples of misuse of the Right to Protect (R2P) norm. He further states that for weak, third world states, redefinition of sovereignty would simply mean coercion veiled as humanitarian action. The powerful states in the North and West also tend to be the ones acting to propose humanitarian intervention and those in the South or the East tend to be the recipients of humanitarian intervention (Bundegaard, 2010). Christensen (2008) supports this school of thought when he points out that Russia had vested political-economic interests in NATO's intervention in Kosovo. In the recent Libyan crises, NATO has been reluctant to act owing to the fact that it doesn't want to alienate the Arab opinion (MacAskill and Taylor, 2011). This shows that they compelled to inaction to serve their interests while violations of human rights continue to afflict Libya. Corbyn et al (2011) say that Gaddaffi has declared that the opposition in his country is traitors who deserve to be hunted down like dogs and hung from lampposts.
Annan said it best when he posed the question whether we should allow gross and systemic human rights violations, with grave humanitarian outcomes, to go unchecked. He was of the opinion that nothing in the US charter precludes recognition of rights beyond territories and that military force should not be used, save for the common interest (1999). It thus leaves the definition of ‘common interest' subject to debate. “A new, broader definition of national interest is needed in the new century, which would induce states to find greater unity in the pursuit of common goals and values” (Annan, 1999). Annan concludes that in considering the many challenges facing humanity in modern times, the national interest should be modeled along the collective interest (1999).
Conclusion
Humanitarian intervention is an issue that has attracted a lot of scrutiny from UN member states. It was an idea that was previously unheard of before the nineties and it has since become embodied in international relations. With the classic definition of sovereignty, humanitarian intervention is an outright violation of the sovereignty of the nation being acted on. But the 20th century has seen some dastardly crimes committed crimes that go against the very idea of humanity and what it means to be human. This has necessitated countries to acknowledge the need for a system of checks and balances to ensure that all nations uphold the rights of their people. Towards this end, the definition of state sovereignty has been remodeled to accommodate the sovereignty of individuals as taking a front seat in world affairs. The individual makes the state and thus state sovereignty is really the sovereignty of an individual. Nations have taken upon themselves to safeguard these rights, even if it means using military action to achieve this. However, there has to be a system in place to ensure that there wont be arbitrary use of military might to serve politically motivated agendas. This means that all humanitarian interventions must be sanctioned by the UN. Intervention meant to preserve the rights of individuals in a state doesn’t have to be military intervention. Other diplomatic means can be used to achieve the same goal of peace. Even though the use of humanitarian intervention may be abused by nations seeking their own selfish interests, the practice is well-meaning and it has acted as a deterrent to rights violation by nations. We can thus conclude that the practice of humanitarian intervention is compatible with an international system that is based on the principle of state sovereignty.
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