Humanitarian Intervention Exception and Respect for National Sovereignty - Report Example

Strange Bedfellows: Humanitarian Intervention Exception and Respect for National Sovereignty Introduction The recognised pioneer of African studies, Basil Davidson, entitled his final manuscript, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State. The curse is still alive and manifested in the belief in the dominance of national sovereignty, when all forms of transgressions or human rights violations can be perpetrated by the states against their own citizens, making the international community incapable of intervening to protect the ideals of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law (Desai & Potter, 2008, p. 466). This same curse, or dilemma, is expressed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 1999: “… if humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity?” Therefore, this essay attempts to answer these two main issues raised by Kofi Annan: (1) is humanitarian intervention an unacceptable assault on sovereignty? And (2) how should the international community reconcile the principles of humanitarian intervention and the rights of national sovereignty? Is Humanitarian Intervention an Unacceptable Assault on Sovereignty? The whole system of international relations (IR) is rooted in the idea that the world is made up of different and separate organized nation states. Nation states are the main agents that live in the global arena, and they make all the necessary decisions and actions for their people within their own jurisdiction, and act in the best interests of their citizens with regard to the international community. This is untrue, as numerous alleged nation states are not existent in the real world. They are fake creations of colonialism and decolonisation that under no circumstances provided these geographically distinct territories the tiniest opportunity to succeed. Since national sovereignty is dominant in establishing international relations, humanitarian interventions rely on the eagerness of the great powers to get involved or to reject the possibility of intervention in complicated humanitarian political crises. Objective humanitarian necessity, based on the degree of human rights violation, is never the standard considered in deciding whether or not the international community will respond or intervene (Kassner, 2013). International politics is controlled by money and power, moderated, to a certain extent, by the humanitarian desire, which is affected by public opinion and the media (Talentino, 2005). Humanitarian intervention is the exercise of military force in another state’s territory to give humanitarian support to the people of that country. Usually, the necessity of humanitarian support is brought about by the existence of several human rights violations. Humanitarian intervention is a process of implementing human rights and is generally rationalised on such bases (Krieg, 2012). The universal nature of human rights offers the foundation of such rationale. The defence of intervention through reference to universal human rights creates several issues. The usual theoretical basis for defending the international community’s exercise of military violence is ‘just war theory’, and this is derived from the primacy of national sovereignty. However, humanitarian intervention frequently disrupts national sovereignty (Kassner, 2013). It is a fact that the area of just war theory regarding how violence or force could be exercised—jus in bello (the law in waging war)—is aware of human rights, as shown, for instance, in the code of discrimination. However, the just war principles of jus ad bellum (right to war), which refer to the exercise of military force across territories largely consider national defence as an important requirement for such reasoning (Carlsnaes, Risse & Simmons, 2012). Force can reasonably be exercised only in reaction to hostility by another state. On the contrary, the violations of human rights that validate humanitarian intervention take place within a state. It is the state which perpetrates hostility against its own people but not against another state (Carlsnaes et al., 2012). Such conflict between humanitarian intervention and national sovereignty underlines a core dilemma with just war theory that was already obvious in the past. The theory must concern the attainment of justice and, otherwise, must not be pursued. Justice involves protection of human rights (Hehir, 2013). Conventional principles of jus ad bellum, which stress the primacy of national sovereignty, appear to hinder the attainment of justice with regard to violations of human rights that take place within states. This opposition is usually conveyed by arguing that jus ad bellum has an undesirable statist focus. It views states as the essential moral actors and beneficiaries. It is the rights of the state that are encroached upon when hostility takes place, and, based on conventional just war theory, merely this kind of violation can rationalise the exercise of force across borders (Pattison, 2010). This point of view is questionable for liberalism, which gives the greatest value to human rights. Liberals regard the traditional principles of jus ad bellum as too submissive to the value of national sovereignty (Spalding, 2013). Just war theory does not totally deserve such disapproval. Humanitarian intervention, in most explanations of jus ad bellum, is an accepted form of defence. When a state perpetrates serious violations of human rights against its people, most explanations of just war theory acknowledge that military intrusion may be necessary. The basis of humanitarian intervention in jus ad bellum may be called the ‘humanitarian intervention exception’ (Reidy & Sellers, 2005, p. 149). However, if jus ad bellum allows the humanitarian intervention exception, the dilemma for the principle thus changes. It is possible that attempts to demonstrate continuity between the jus ad bellum’s overall noninterventionist perspective and humanitarian intervention exception can also demonstrate that jus ad bellum is along the lines of liberal morality (Reidy & Sellers, 2005; Hehir, 2008). The notion of non-intervention governs English School treatise, with specific focus from the pluralist theory. This arises from a theoretical perspective, which claims that the state is the only cradle of sovereignty. From such basis, the theory maintains that international order is ideally sustained by a network of states that values the autonomy of the domestic issues of other states (Spalding, 2013). Hence, humanitarian intervention is refuted as it requires meddling in the internal activities of another state. Realism views international society as anarchic. This shows the inclination of realism towards order rather than justice. This is vital in recognising the downgrading of morals apparent in the noninterventionist model. Realism in IR argues that in an anarchic system global situations force states to protect their existence and interests through more often than not immoral ways, and this pressure of self-preservation dissolve and this compulsion of self-defence soften or bypass moral responsibilities (Talentino, 2005, p. 63). Realism argues that to attain international order states should preserve and defend their sovereignty. Hence, realism prefers state sovereignty over morals, and hence rejects humanitarian intervention. The superiority of sovereignty over moral principles and dismissal of human rights have an evidently theoretical basis. Nevertheless, in spite of its inner theoretical sense, the concept of non-intervention comes from a faulty idea defined as, “the perennial problem of order versus justice in the international system” (Carlsnaes et al., 2012, p. 58). Devetak (2007) argues that the theoretical emphasis of state sovereignty pushes thinkers to overlook the actual and wicked brutality perpetrated by sovereign states in behalf of national interest and security (Rengger & Thirkell-White, 2007, p. 167). Advocates of humanitarian intervention diverge from noninterventionist principles because of its preference of justice over order. The liberal cosmopolitan model of humanitarian intervention is composed of three principles (Spalding, 2013): (1) individuals have liberties and rights which the state should safeguard, (2) all individuals equally hold these liberties and rights irrespective of state, religious background, culture, and so on, and lastly, (3) the defence of these liberties and rights is an issue for all people, states, global and domestic institutions. This stems from a theoretical perspective that supports moral authority and universal human rights. As argued by Teson (2003), “If human beings are denied basic human rights and are, for that reason, deprived of their capacity to pursue their autonomous projects, then others have a prima facie duty to help them” (Holzgrefe & Keohane, 2003, p. 97). It is immoral to disrespect or violate universal human rights and moral authority in the global system serves as the theoretical justification for humanitarian intervention. There are theories claiming that humanitarian intervention is not only a right, but a duty as well. Kant argues that the duty of everyone to help others comes from the idea that the helping person will someday need help for themselves. In refusing to help others one “has willed apathy as law, any hope for assistance will be all but extinguished in these times of exigency” (Spalding, 2013, p. 8); for that reason, humanitarian intervention is not only a right, but also a moral duty. While developed countries have approved the humanitarian intervention policy, it has raised disagreements in developing countries, where governments have only quite newly gained independence from colonialism by promoting their right to national sovereignty. In fact, several states, such as the Palestinians, are still fighting for their independence. Current humanitarian interventions, like in Libya, Iraq, and Kosovo show, as developing countries see it, the dangers of a policy that could start with honourable purposes of those demanding it, but in the end creates adverse effects on the state’s sovereignty, the stability of territorial boundaries, and the preservation of international and local peace and order (Carlsnaes et al., 2012). In contrast to a widespread belief in developed nations, only a handful of developing nations would claim that value for national sovereignty is unconditional (Pattison, 2010). Nevertheless, intervention, in the belief of a large number of people, can only be allowed if there is significant evidence of genocide and if steps are carried out to make sure that self-centred intentions do not supplant the original objective of humanitarian interventions. How should the international community reconcile the principles of humanitarian intervention and the rights of national sovereignty? An examination of the theoretical foundation of other perspectives of humanitarian intervention does not definitely show which is more credible as a useful method in international society. Both interventionist and non-interventionist theories come from inherently sound and rational perspectives. Ideas about universal human rights, morality, and state sovereignty are generally viewed as rival principles, which is true. Every theory presents a metaphysical account about the value of order and justice (Welsh, 2006). For interventionist theorists justice is valuable, whilst for noninterventionist theorists order is valuable. Still, there is no theoretical basis for the belief that order and justice cannot be brought together in a single discourse. But state sovereignty is equally valuable as the moral guarantee of universal human rights. As a result, the ideals of order and justice will be reconciled to create a joint theory that substantiates the principle of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’ (Spalding, 2013, p. 9). An effective answer to the obvious contradiction in traditional explanations of jus ad bellum would be to consider the principle of the primacy of national sovereignty as a ‘trial and error’, which may be abandoned in instances where the humanitarian intervention exception is usually valid. Noninterventionists are misguided to seek an individual right within the primacy of national sovereignty, and interventionists are misguided in ignoring the national sovereignty principle to support something that relates strongly and purely to individual rights (Woodhouse & Ramsbotham, 1996). Noninterventionists are misguided because there is no such thing as an individual right within the dominance of national sovereignty, and interventionists are misguided because the moral choice whether to wage war based humanitarian objectives is more complex than what can be covered in the concept of correlation and because it rationally cannot include mention of the political correctness of the choice itself (Welsh, 2006). The aspects that a state must consider in making a decision whether it is morally acceptable to react with military violence to domestic violations of human rights in another state are many. First, awareness of the nature and degree of the human rights violations that could rationalise military force is unavoidably restricted by distance from the place of the violence. This concerns outsiders’ view of people’s behaviour in another state (Wheeler, 2002). Human rights violations are normally directly linked to the issue of whether the victim of hostility has allowed the hostility. There could be no violation if the victim permitted it. However, the existence or lack of permission to hostility in groups is at best partly an outcome of the relationship’s history and how it has been structured by the members through their choices over time. It is doable to obtain adequate information about people from another state so as to make correct decisions about violations of human rights (Reidy & Sellers, 2005). Second, military intervention will unavoidably confront military struggle, and a decision of an intervention’s moral permissibility should consider this. This makes military intervention a tremendously costly operation. Noninterventionists view opposition to intervention as being a manifestation of the right of political involvement. If the people of a state consider their state legitimate, regardless how outsiders may see it, they will reasonably oppose intervention (Pattison, 2010). However as a claim for the state’s right to oppose intervention, this becomes excessive because citizens would believe in the legitimacy of their state and they would protect it although intervention was necessary (Kassner, 2013). Third, a humanitarian intervention exception will allow states to intercede based on a humanitarian intervention principle when humanitarian intervention is not validated and the justification is intended to conceal other intentions. The issue here is not instances where a humanitarian intervention basis is reasonable but instances where states interfere with other intentions (Carlsnaes et al., 2012). Intentions are constantly diverse, and no state is expected to intercede with an entirely humanitarian reason. As long as there is real humanitarian intervention basis and states have no other intention but to remedy the human rights abuses, the existence of other intentions is immaterial to whether the intervention of states are rationalised on humanitarian bases. However, the accessibility of a humanitarian intervention justification for states to exploit as a rationale when the justification is inappropriate is an actual threat. As numerous thinkers have emphasised, a humanitarian intervention exception has a tendency to raise the level of intervention by powerful states in the activities of fragile states (Krieg, 2012). The primacy of national sovereignty safeguards powerless states and this is one justification for a law obliging such primacy. Furthermore, intervention on religious or ideological bases can be endowed with a fake humanitarian basis. The 16th- and 17th-century religious wars were one of the roots of the implementation of the jus ad bellum requirement that all wars should be self-protective (Reidy & Sellers, 2005). States considering humanitarian intervention should be certain that the solution is not more terrible than the problem. The three aspects discussed can all result in predicaments. It is vital that the risks they create be identified, but the risks are easy to ignore. It would be useful to have a common requirement that would work to cover the entire group. Creating an ‘unwritten rule’ that obliges respect for national sovereignty would encompass all three of these potential restrictions on humanitarian intervention and contribute to the assurance that humanitarian intervention will be embarked on when the problem is very serious that the solution is not expected to be worse. When the degree of violations of human rights becomes very high or intolerable the unwritten rule would be displaced by the humanitarian intervention exception. How such ‘unwritten rule’ perspective of the respect for national sovereignty an answer to the obvious contradiction between humanitarian intervention and national sovereignty? The ‘unwritten rule’ perspective involves stability by taking on a moral pluralism, acknowledging a mixture of teleological and deontological aspects that are relevant to circumstances when intervention is being taken into account and that should be evaluated in specific contexts to establish the morally appropriate response (Reidy & Sellers, 2005). Respect for national sovereignty, viewed as an unwritten rule, can convey such crucial aspects, whilst at times facilitating the respect states are obliged to give to the individual rights of their citizens to undermine the common belief against intervention. Conclusions Humanitarian intervention must be allowed to safeguard human rights only in instances where severe violations of individual rights prevail over the other moral aspects encompassed by the moral unwritten rule obliging regard for national sovereignty. The unwritten rule perspective concerning humanitarian intervention argues that state sovereignty can be sustained together with a worldwide respect for basic human rights. This perspective shows that state sovereignty is defended except in instances where it is obviously unlawful and morality validates intervention so as to defend basic human rights. This paper has shown that the disagreements about humanitarian intervention have sound and credible theoretical bases. Examinations of the theories about humanitarian intervention establish the likelihood of a reconciliation of humanitarian intervention and national sovereignty. References Carlsnaes, W, Risse, T, Simmons, B (2012) Handbook of International Relations. 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