The Impact of Humanitarian Intervention in Contemporary Conflicts - Essay Example

?To begin with, humanitarian intervention is a needful measure since the end of the World War II. It is a vital procedure to make sure some conflict situation will not grow in its development in the future. In fact, wars, terror, and social conflicts are still pursuant to the economically and ideologically unstable regions. Hence, it is crucial to delve into the hallmarks of humanitarian intervention and its necessity for today. Moreover, peaceful population living in the hotspots is in need of care on the part of the World Community every now and then. Therefore, the impact of humanitarian intervention in today’s conflicts cannot be underestimated, since it serves a back-up way to take control of the situation in a more peaceful way. First of all, every precept of contemporary notion of humane and stability throughout the economically and politically unstable regions of the world is in need of humanitarian intervention. Undoubtedly, it is the first step toward keeping up with a peaceful resolution on the spot. In accordance with a set of international agreements, violation of human rights throughout masses is the first precedent for providing humanitarian intervention. There is plenty to talk about reasons why such cases take place. However, Guraziu (2008, p. 2) notes another problem evident since the end of the Cold War, namely: “The problem arises, however, when humanitarian intervention conflicts with the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention.” Such cases of tyranny and violation of human rights are those factors to be tactically reduced in the field of the international law. The question is that such conflict regions as Rwanda, Srebrenica, Kosovo, or East Timor cannot rely on the help provided by some other kind of intervention. The grounds for humanitarian intervention in these countries were tyranny coming from military violent regimes at the site. The situation at these areas left too complicated due to social disturbances among proponents and opponents to such regimes. Due to the active position of the UN countries and other international organizations searching for peace and constructive development, humanitarian intervention did a great deal of work in these regions. However, it affected these countries in a different way. The question is that social ruins were left untouched while foreign presence has increased eventually. It is hard to talk on that it stopped infringement of human rights in here. However, tyranny and anarchy cannot be destroyed through some ideology other than that widely used within the country. Furthermore, if the conflict arises too fast, there is a threat of its growth and spread over the neighboring countries or settlements. In this respect one should bear it in mind that violation is a strong force which can be dampened by some higher force from within outside. Thus, to break down an enemy force and oppression aimed at discrediting fundamental human rights, there must be a readymade powerful “push” against such threats. It is here that conflicts may overgrow into entire misconception between two or more sides like in the case of Turkey and the Kurds. It is a case when humanitarian military intervention is likely to provide nothing but chaos and more violation within a particular hotspot. Thus, when talking about humanitarian intervention, it is necessary to make sure a social balance will be released afterwards. In fact, when looking at Somalia and unfortunate intervention of the US in Mogadishu, it is likely to state that such an intervention created new human rights abuses which were unintended by the interveners and spread over the rest of countries through pirate seizures of different ships. It was a trap of misconduct and half-done work in studying geopolitical situation throughout the country with its wide extremist direction. Nevertheless, experience of Mogadishu is among disadvantages coming from humanitarian intervention. On the other side, interventions that took place in Kosovo, Srebrenica, Rwanda, and East Timor have shown particular progress in building up a background for human rights. Facilitated by the inner as well as outer conventions, these countries have demonstrated the significance of humanitarian intervention. Once again, humanitarian intervention should not go aside from its definition. In other words, no other additional strokes favoring particular sides engaged into such interventions should be inserted. Thereupon, one ought to keep it in mind that theorists in social and political studies define humanitarian intervention “as the proportionate international use or threat of military force, undertaken in principle by a liberal government or alliance, aimed at ending tyranny or anarchy, welcomed by the victims, and consistent with the doctrine of double effect” (Cited in Guraziu, 2008, p. 3). This is why there should be a confirmation of the victims and accuracy on the part of the humanitarian force so as to guarantee no peaceful civilian will be injured or killed mistakenly. Thus, the history knows different examples when humanitarian intervention was not justified. The case of Kosovo or war in Iraq in 2003 promote a scope of assumptions on the reason why developed countries and the World Community on the whole let the conflict go. It cannot be justified just because it is called “humanitarian intervention.” Different studies on this problem seek to make it clear for everyone in order not to fall into a pit of fallacies, so to speak. Different opinions of experts aim at providing a complete understanding of what the core objective of humanitarian intervention is. Ethical issues and superiority of the international legal norms on human rights should be considered first. Ramsbotham & Tom Woodhouse (2011, p. 331) agree in their study on that “firm and carefully applied ethical criteria are an essential consideration for those who intervene in conflict, at any level.” Hence, when responding to human rights, there should be some ethical and human prerequisites at stake. Continuing on this problem, there is an assertion that humanitarian intervention is an optimal and even the only way to stabilize inner situation within a hotspot. Definitely, it serves an aggregate factor for reducing violence peacefully. However, controversies may simply emerge in the course of a particular resolution on humanitarian intervention. Thus, not to take gamble on human lives, there should be a committee on planning humanitarian intervention in keeping with the best tradition of ethical along with socially-related approaches. Whether forcible or non-forcible, humanitarian intervention is a widely accepted policy. However, humanitarian intervention should not possess a long-term period of execution, as the victims of oppression may have no positive feedback since the start of intervention itself. Kabia (2009, p. 3) admits that “this intervention should seek to protect human rights and alleviate the suffering of victims in the short term; and address the underlying causes of the conflict by facilitating conflict resolution and peace building in the medium to long term.” This is the moment of truth. International organizations should lead toward somewhat consensual resolution on providing intervention. No one-sided or agenda-driven suggestions should be accepted in this case. In fact, forcible intervention may be evaluated as an attempt of some powerful country to pursue its national interest under the guise of humanitarianism (Guraziu, 2008). It is a focal reason why international community may judge upon humanitarian intervention in a wrong way. There is no axiom regarding humanitarian procedures concerned with military intervention. That is to say, humanitarian intervention forced by the interest of some influential countries may simply overgrow into a hegemonial intervention (Guraziu, 2008). Under such a threat, there is no way to prescribe some constant notion of intervention other than just an international expansion by means of armed forces and ideals imposed to the regimes and sovereignties. This discussion may lead to a dead-end if there is no qualitative and independent supervision of a definite situation in this or that hotspot. Hence, the acts of terror, war and social disruption are not fully regulated by the norms of the international law and resolutions perpetually adopted or reinvented by the officials worldwide. However, there is a need for the implementation of some new set of laws aimed at reducing old age problem of unethical killings of indiscriminate character (Janzekovic, 2006). Nonetheless, humanitarian intervention is under a threat of usurpation by some countries likely to use humanitarian idea pursuing their own ends. Thus, humanitarian intervention has two contradicting sides of good and bad effects on the peaceful development of intrastate relationships. It is another point to strengthen international supervision over the way in which intervention is conducted. Moreover, no biased attitudes should take place according to a particular country and conflict situation within it. To bear all these features in mind, the World Community has to come up with new progressive tools of intervention excluding harmful effect as a result. On the other hand, ineffective or quite aggressive humanitarian intervention provokes acts of terror afterwards. Pertaining to this question, officials run into the necessity of coping with a more dangerous and challenging opposition. In other words, they have to keep their eyes wide open to maintain a set of activities with the purpose of alleviation of threat for peaceful nationals at a definite site and people living abroad or within a country responsible for intervention. The demands of time suggest world countries to comply with them due to a transformation of ideals, needs, norms, and other attributes of intervention. Sahni (2001, p. 4) justifies it in the following way: Over the decades, consequently, both the policy-making and the academic community have substantially transformed themselves into relatively ‘closed’ systems, dominated by an incestuous discourse addressed only to their own colleagues and peers. There is, as a result, knee-jerk resistance to ‘interference’ from any other source, particularly one that is sometimes regarded as fundamentally ‘hostile’ to the activities of either of these ‘systems’. Sources of intervention differ in accordance with a resolution assigned and ratified beforehand. According to the ongoing perspective of changing world situation for better with a long-term peaceful effect there are issues to be rediscovered by the governments of the most influential countries. It starts from the definition itself. There should be a more solid base to dispatch military forces for the sake of the humanitarian perspective in hand. This is why some notions coming from the definition should be transformed coherent with actions to be assessed once the conflict springs up. Moreover, security of human lives should be paramount for interveners, as the notion of peace and order becomes trite or impossible if violence occurs instead of peaceful regulations. On the other side, the intersection of wars along with terror is inevitable in the regions where there is no humanitarian intervention on the whole. Henceforth, it would be an act of inhuman attitudes on the part of the World Community. Virtues and ideals of humane and rationality may just disappear under these circumstances. The question is that cities are marked as targets in the debate on social policy and stabilization. Thus, a city is a springboard for local verification and peace first of all. A city renowned for some single or constant conflicts (like Sector Gaza) should be analyzed in terms of urban and nationwide geopolitics, as mentioned above (Graham, 2004). This is why these constructive suggestions should be taken into account, as the practice requires it. The extent of force in a definite conflict region should not possess an absolute character. To a degree, it is a formality having all chances to cause detrimental rather than effective consequences. Ramsbotham & Tom Woodhouse (2011) outline in bello criteria as a guarantee to decrease the use of force to its minimum so as non-combatants must not be targeted. This procedure requires a set of training to make the whole process stable and human. In addition, war conduct and war decision criteria are better to be mixed up in every attempt to minimize the extent of threat for non-combatants (Ramsbotham & Tom Woodhouse, 2011). This predominant constituent is not always determined by interveners, especially beginning with the first days of intervention. Thus, it is all about how well the international community deals with the concept of peace building applicable for a definite region of the world. Thereupon, the International Committee on Intervention and State Sovereignty once argued that “the international community does not only have a “responsibility to react” but also a “responsibility to prevent” and a “responsibility to rebuild” (Kabia, 2009, p. 3). This is why intervention should not bear a status of just intrusion with no positive feedback. It is a construct for measuring resolutions in their consistence with the tripartite normative requirement for provision of humanitarian intervention de jure. However, humanitarian intervention may become an act of self-defense, as in the case with Ethiopia and Eritrea (Guraziu, 2008). There might be not enough time to weigh all pros and cons of the whole operation so as to diminish the threats for non-combatants. Nevertheless, violence causes violence in reply. In this respect an intervention with “human face” becomes an aggressive military action with no difference between combatant and non-combatant parts of the civilians living at the site. Based on the example of Vietnam and Tanzania, humanitarian intervention becomes a prerequisite for further wars and losses in human lives. In this vein, the international community tends to pay no attention to such facts in order to make more emphasis on the current flow of reforms taking all mismatches from the past into consideration. As a matter of fact, it is a case of a theoretically and practically incomplete treatment of a situation at large. There are fallacies which tend to stimulate transformation of one notion regarding humanitarian intervention into its negative meaning. International consultants and numerous experts in this field unite at the point where humanitarian intervention falls short of the basic requirements. It is not for nothing that Ramsbotham & Tom Woodhouse (2011, p. 329) fairly agree on that “Western just war criteria transmuted into criteria for just intervention.” At this point, everything related to humanitarian activity worldwide spins around the Western countries due to a bunch of agreements and conventions at their disposal. Henceforth, the rest of the world’s countries have to unite in their overall perspective for even distribution of force and power in decision-making process on humanitarian intervention. Here, it is difficult to state that the most powerful countries pursue the situation for their own interests. Also, it is impossible to state that genuinely humanitarian intervention should be highly politicized with an idea of gaining profits at the expense of social disintegration through refugee camps, injuries and killings done by the militants mistakenly. To say more, the final outcome of any humanitarian military intervention touches upon the imprisonment or incarceration of the violent regime leaders. The idea is that there is a danger of new terror acts due to the fact that such individuals are “considered outside any sort of legal process” (Janzekovic, 2006, p. 108). Thus, humanitarian intervention may be interpreted as half-human due to an uneven distribution of legal procedures agreed by the international community. What is more, intervention itself is justified in both positive and negative notions so as to amplify the need of following basic laws and norms consistent with the contemporary humanity. To conclude, humanitarian intervention is considered optimal for providing force at places where no other intervention fits into the standpoints of peace and order. However, it has contradicting points striving to characterize humanitarian intervention in its detrimental effect on ordinary non-combatant civilians. The idea of the pursuit for national interests has been identified as one of the stimuli for an intervention as grounded on some resolution acclaimed before. Hence, the overall idea of forcible actions at hotspots worldwide is well concerned with further outcomes falling into wars and acts of terror. Several examples have been highlighted to prove this idea right. Nevertheless, there is also a striking necessity for providing humanitarian interventions as an act of care and deliberateness consistent with the norms of humane and rationality in treating the Declaration on Human Rights. Overall, humanitarian intervention is considered a great sacrifice for the world’s peace and justice in a democratic way. Reference List Graham, S 2004, Cities, war, and terrorism: towards an urban geopolitics, Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ. Guraziu, R 2008, January, Is humanitarian military intervention in the affairs of another state ever justified? Global Security Political & International Studies MA International Relations. Janzekovic, J 2006, The use of force in humanitarian intervention: morality and practicalities, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., London. Kabia, JM 2009, Humanitarian intervention and conflict resolution in West Africa: from ECOMOG to ECOMIL, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., London Ramsbotham, O & Tom Woodhouse, HM 2011, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (3 ed.), Polity, Cambridge. Sahni, A 2001, Social Science and Contemporary Conflicts: The Challenge of Research on Terrorism, Viewed June 23, 2011, on SATP: Read More