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1. Humanitarian Intervention and International Order: The Endless Wars Problem

Author:
Alex J. Bellamy
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Nowadays, few approve of humanitarian intervention, understood as the use of non-consensual force for the principal purpose of alleviating massive human suffering. Realists have always held that armed humanitarian crusades are an irrational, dangerous, and counterproductive extravagance likely to cause more problems than they solve, and at great expense.1 In a world full of autocracies and communities that define their values very differently from one another, re- alists argue, the forceful pursuit of “liberal hegemony” is likely to produce only “a perpetual state of war.”2 Critical thinkers have always suspected that a thinly veiled Western liberal imperialism lay behind what some described as the “new military humanism.”3 Its confidence in Western perfidiousness was briefly shaken by revelations of its misplaced faith in the Khmer Rouge and Slobodan Milošević but restored with gusto by the false pretexts for war with Iraq in 2003. English School pluralists value international order over individual rights;4 legal positivists lament the illegality of humanitarian intervention;5 post-colonial scholars, states, and other critical writers believe humanitarian intervention is the thin end of a neo-imperial wedge to erode hard-won self-determination and sovereignty;6 pacifists complain that humanitarian war is still, after all, war, and highlight the tragic irony of taking lives in order to save lives.7 More recently, Samuel Moyn situated humanitarian intervention within a broader politics by which “endless war” has been normalized as humane at the expense of war prevention.8 So intense is global antipathy that prominent advocates of the “responsibility to protect,” like Gareth Evans, carefully distinguish the principle they champion from humanitarian intervention. Samantha Power, meanwhile, was chastened by a painful experience in Libya into doubting whether humanitarian goals could be achieved by military force.9
Topic:
Human Rights, War, Humanitarian Intervention, and International Order
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Armed Conflict and the Protection of Populations: The Debate over Humanitarian Intervention, Using Armed Force, and the Idea of Sovereignty

Author:
James Turner Johnson
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
This paper examines the development of the idea of humanitarian in- tervention and its implications for state sovereignty. It begins with a moral discussion of intervention from the rediscovery of the just war theory in the 1960s and 1970s, extends through public debates about intervention to protect fundamental human rights during armed conflicts over succeed- ing decades, and includes the production of the global commitment of the “Responsibility to Protect” and its treatment in the Outcome document of the 2005 UN World Summit. The article notes that two competing ideas of sovereignty have been recurrent themes in humanitarian intervention debates. One idea, expressed in Article 2 of the UN Charter, defines sovereignty in terms of the inviolability of state territory. The other, surfacing in human rights law and in moral debates in the public sphere, defines sovereignty in terms of the responsibility of states and the world order to protect funda- mental human rights domestically and internationally. This paper identifies the deep historical roots of both conceptions and their mutual, but different, connections to the idea of natural law, as well as their different implications regarding the roles of states, regional organizations, and the UN. It concludes by noting that while the 2005 Summit reaffirmed the former conception of sovereignty, it also acknowledged the latter as a domestic obligation of states, though one in which the international community also has an interest.
Topic:
Sovereignty, Humanitarian Intervention, Armed Conflict, and Protection
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Moral Imperatives and Legal Realities: The Perennial Conundrum of Humanitarian Intervention

Author:
Chris O'Meara
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Article 1 of the UN Charter embodies a well-known tension that exists in international law. On the one hand, it sets out perhaps the most fundamental purpose of the UN: the maintenance of international peace and security. This principle underpins the operation of the post-World War II rules-based inter- national order. It is reflected in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political indepen- dence of any state.”1 Such prohibition, while routinely flouted by states, stands as an intransgressible rule of international law.2 On the other hand, Article 1 establishes what appears to be an equally foundational principle: promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Indeed, the burgeoning body of international human rights law that has arisen since the signing of the Charter has increasingly placed human rights and human security at the center of international concern.
Topic:
Human Rights, International Law, Humanitarian Intervention, and International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Coups, Conflicts, and COVID-19 in Myanmar: Humanitarian Intervention and Responsibility to Protect in Intractable Crises

Author:
Adam Simpson
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
Myanmar is a complex country with an unlucky history that includes op- pressive British colonization, Japanese invasion during World War II followed by independence, the world’s longest-running civil wars, and disastrous military coups. The coup of 1962 resulted in half a century of authoritarian military rule.1 The most recent coup on 1 February 2021 reversed a decade of political and economic reforms, resulted in crimes against humanity, and removed any glimmer of hope for Myanmar’s future.2 The terrifying trauma of a third wave of COVID-19 in mid-2021, dominated by the Delta variant, left much of the country sick and gasping for breath.3
Topic:
Humanitarian Intervention, Conflict, Crisis Management, Coup, and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia and Myanmar