Is the development of an international norm of humanitarian intervention sufficient in preventing genocide and mass killings?

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Is the development of an international norm of humanitarian intervention sufficient in preventing genocide and mass killings?

The history of the world has seen many gross violations of human rights with genocide and mass killing being one of them. With the world expanding in terms of fast and effective communication channels it is hard to ignore such violations when they occur. Part of the reason behind the development of an international norm for humanitarian intervention was so that other responsible states can stop and prevent such atrocities from happening. This essay sets out to evaluate the norm and judge if it is in fact adequate enough. The essay sets out with the two perspectives and the arguments presented by the realists and idealists as these are the two ideologies followed by most world leaders. It is further on followed by UN and the Security Council’s stand point on humanitarian intervention and what can be expected if an intervention was to take place. The essay distinguishes the various options for intervention and then further on evaluates cases of when interventions have taken place and the reasons behind them and when they have failed to do so.

The realist perspective approach moral principles with scepticism and instead whole heartedly believe in state leaders should distance themselves from morality. The perspective suggests state leaders to adopt a dual moral standard, one that deals with its individual citizens and another standard for dealing with other nation states in order to survive. Preserving the life of the state is seen as the only important moral duty for the state leaders (Tim Dunne, 2008). On the hand we have the liberalists who view the world from an idealist lens and base everything on the powers of democracy. As Immanuel Kant (1724) a liberalist thinker states that those states with a democratic government are less likely to go to war with their democratic neighbours and respect the rights of their own citizens. Liberalists such as John Stuart Mills (1973) believe that democratic states are established by the informed consent and wishes of its citizen and in order to establish such democracy the locals should struggle for it. The oppressed should overthrow the tyrant governments and not the outsiders. He further on argues that those who do intervene will find themselves in a never ending human rights issues or the abuse would start again as soon as they leave. A modern day example of this would be the collation forces’ war on terror and intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are the perspectives taken aboard by many of the world leaders today and helps in the understanding the international norm of humanitarian intervention.

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It was declared by Kofi Annan, the former security general of the UN in September 1991 while addressing the general assembly that the developing international norm of forcible humanitarian intervention was to be replaced by a new one. In the new norm the UN Security Council was to put a stop to forcible interventions in fully functioning sovereign states. At the 2005 UN World Summit the definition of the responsibility to protect was adopted by the UN General Assembly (Alex J. Bellamy, 2008). This has been the approach and norm taken up by the UN while dealing with matters of ...

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