Obstacles to protect; the case of Humanitarian Intervention

In view of the Cold War, humanitarian intervention has significantly gained importance due to the need to find an effective instrument to provide peace and stability to conflict zones. The United Nations Security Council (1948) defined humanitarian intervention as the use of “military force against another state when the principal publicly declared aim of that military action is ending human-rights violations being perpetrated by the state against which it is directed.” . However, since its establishment after the World War II, the UN struggled to provide peace, security and justice, and a feasible way to achieve this was through humanitarian intervention, particularly in states where humanitarian law failed to settle an agreement. This, in combination with the unfolding of events, the new emerging threats and the need to protect innocent people, humanitarian intervention became a controversial subject as it begun to gain popularity. This is because, on one hand there was an optimistic belief that conflict could be solved with negotiations rather than the conventional use of force, it gave people hope for a peaceful world without wars. Yet, on the other hand, there was an increase of non-military threats, those such as: war crimes, violations of human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocides, posing new non-conventional threats to humanity and international peace and security. Nonetheless, it remained unclear how any of these threats could justify an intervention and raised questions as to whether humanitarian intervention may interfere in the states’ sovereignty of their territory, or as whether an actor could benefit itself on the expense of another. There is a distinct correlation between these challenging issues at the state level and the type of intervention. Reason for which, throughout this study the role of humanitarian intervention will be critically analyzed, yet arguing that no intervention can create a prospective reconstruction and successful peace-building, considering the responsibility vs. sovereignty argument while recognizing that the local participation of any state exerts a stronger strategy than humanitarian intervention alone.

The need of humanitarian intervention

To lead off the argument, it is crucial to define different situations that could entail intervention. Many complex situations within states led to armed conflict, situations such as regime change or the inability of governments to provide basic goods and services to their own population. Debidatta Mahapatra defines conflict to be “the pursuit of incompatible goals by different people or groups. These goals can range from contradictory needs within a family to competition over scarce resources between members of a community or between neighboring countries.” In other words, weak states or fragile states became the root and consequence of conflict. When conflict occurs and it escalates to an emergency situation, it is almost inevitable to prevent collateral damage which usually results in violence, displacement of people and massive loss of life.

Usually the first approach to be implemented is a preemptive strategy, but when it cannot be prevented and the situation intensifies, the handling of the conflict changes its nature. It only makes sense to manage the situation, in which most of the efforts are taken in order to contain and limit the conflict, which is not necessarily a solution, but it gives an opportunity to manage chaos. In such situations, populations are the main victims facing mass displacements, crimes and mass killings. Scholars and policy makers called this, the “required criteria” for permissible intervention.

The doctrine of humanitarian intervention

The debates of humanitarian intervention within the international community began with the tragedies in Rwanda in the 1990s, which for many scholars such as Mary Kaldor became the “decade of humanitarian intervention” debating on how to respond effectively when citizens’ human rights were grossly systematically violated. Kaldor is certain that humanitarian assistance is essential, because otherwise people would die and starve, yet she argues that “it needs to be much more carefully targeted, taking the advice of local experts who really know the local situation.” When referring to humanitarian intervention, very often people think it is the good will of other nations to help out a country in state of emergency, but the real matter is whether or not a state can keep another state’s sovereignty, and intervene unconditionally without interfering in internal affairs.

Reason for which, it became so controversial and instead the debates shifted onto “ground rules that needed to be taken in order to protect the state’s sovereignty” and whether it should be carried out by individual states, groups of states, or by the United Nations under the collective security doctrine or R2P and ally countries. It seems thought, that there is no practical and effective way to carry out such action without having to intervene with some other state’s interests. Most debates seem to focus on the role of the United Nations and the United States in such situations, both as primary actors of peacekeeping operations, with a particular interest in the United Nations since it plays an important and impartial role within the international community, as a non-state actor and due to its political commitment to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. With the Responsibility to Protect doctrine – R2P – the United Nations promoted the collaboration between states and the international community to prevent catastrophes. On the other hand, the United States became a significant actor given its superior military capabilities, and it became the “command of the commons” which according to Posen “command means that the United States gets vastly more military use out of the sea, space, and air than do others; that it can credibly threaten to deny their use to others; and that others would lose a military contest for the commons if they attempted to deny them to the United States.”

The real challenge humanitarian intervention faces

Humanitarian intervention challenges the inviolability of the territorial sovereignty of states, the respect for the territorial integrity, which is the most important principle in international law. Yet, according the R2P by the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide “Sovereignty no longer exclusively protects States from foreign interference; it is a charge of responsibility that holds States accountable for the welfare of their people” though for such doctrine the military use of force should only be used as a last resort.

Many difficulties emerge when national interests take a part in the “humanitarian action” Somalia for example. In January of 1992 Somalia was starving, hundreds of thousands at risk of dying, the same year United Nations’ relief operations begun , nonetheless, the reasons for the United States to intervene were still unclear. At the time, there were two arguments; some argued that George W.H. Bush intervened in Somalia because he felt morally responsible. While others argued that Bush was not particularly interested in helping Somalia, especially since he was in the middle of a tough presidential election year, but that the media coverage of starving Somalis put pressure on him to act and he would lose votes if he did not act in light. While both arguments were politically correct, the actual reason for Somalia, was due to the United States’ interest to prevent an intervention in Bosnia which could implicate a disaster similar to Vietnam.

Even so, the consequences emerged later on when former president Bill Clinton got elected and crossed the “Mogadishu line” which according to many scholars it means “straying from humanitarian aid towards politics.” Clinton crossed the line by shifting the mission onto a political one by getting involved with internal Somali politics and trying to help some factions at the expense of others. Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst both claim that “when United States troops intervened in December 1992 to stop the theft of food, they disrupted the political economy and stepped deep into the muck of Somali politics.” Some might even argue that in a nation where food is the scarcest and precious source, food is politics. Which fully makes sense since it implicates the survival of the population, but in such scenario, a humanitarian effort could effortlessly be a fully political mission at the same time, since anything you do to the food stock, it would be equivalent to changing the power structure in Somalia, and that easily a humanitarian intervention could intervene in internal affairs and therefore in the sovereignty of a state.

Considering the sensitive matter of any interference, humanitarian intervention can become dangerous for the safety of the population rather than actually securing them from any conceivable threat. Like Somalia there are other interventions that have crossed from aid affairs to political interests. Libya for example with the killing of Ghaddafi, or Afghanistan and its long-term consequences, even Iraq and Syria with their ongoing situation. The main goal at first may be humanitarian, but there is not real way to provide humanitarian aid in most cases that is not also deeply political, and that is the controversy with humanitarian intervention. A mission that is supposed to help the population can shift its way based on strategic interests and could actually have much worse long-term effects on the nation, its development and its population.

It has become evident how throughout history, humanitarian interventions can often fail, affecting the prospects of sustainable development. It is rather troubling, considering the fact that the idea was developed with the intention of providing security and peace-making. There are very few relative successful missions, but even these can be debatable because of the disagreement of how to determine success. In many cases conflict had been brought to an end, but the long-term success seems to fade away in ineffective solutions for development. These are the cases of Kosovo in 1999 and Bosnia.

Kosovo confirmed the doctrine of humanitarian intervention as legal costume, given Kosovo’s situation of tyranny, it is safe to assume that NATO’s actions can be interpreted as a humanitarian assistance, the unilateral decisions related to assist the revolutionaries seeking freedom from tyranny can and was a justified revolution. Yet, observers debated whether or not NATO’s appearance might have provoked the ethnic cleansing, yet such campaign occurred after NATO’s involvement. The situation in Kosovo was a real state of emergency, approximately 1 million people were displaced, more than ten thousand were killed and many were raped and tortured. In this specific case, the United Nations Security Council was involved throughout the crisis, but it had been unable to agree on a military response, states like Russia and China considered NATO’s air campaign to be illegal and demanded a cease-fire.

At the end Kosovars were liberated from Serbia and its independence was supervised by the United Nations and the European Union. So was this military use of force justifiable? Many scholars believe that the intervention was not only unlawful but also morally and politically wrong, others believe that it had been illegal only on a technical sense. Perhaps this is one of the most common challenges interventions face, to different actors any action will be considered differently given their own interests. Maybe this turned out to be a relatively successful mission because NATO nations had no real interest in Kosovo, o given the nature of their “pure” intentions of carried out the intervention in a different way. So conflict ended in Kosovo, NATO’s military intervention had liberated Kosovars and brought the mass murderers to an end. How successful was this mission? Years later, Kosovars celebrate their independence, in 2008 Prime Minister Hashim Thaci stated “We have waited for this day for a very long time…From today Kosovo is proud, independent, sovereign and free.” Kosovo was indeed recognized by 75 states, but many other United Nations’ members have refused to do so. Given the principles of humanitarian intervention, this was a successful intervention. The case of Bosnia was quite similar, the situation in Bosnia was deteriorating and the violations of human rights were culminating with ethnic cleansing, concentration camps and massacres of civilians. In contrast to Kosovo, the United States took full leadership role to end the war of Bosnia.

Policy making and intervention

Policymakers adopt the discourse of human security and use it to formulate foreign and security policy initiatives that could perhaps influence some of the existing practices, especially when it comes intervention and post-conflict peacebuilding. Having already looked at some of the practices, we can only assume that military intervention in form of humanitarian aid is not quite successful. Yes, the use of force is only permissible as a last resort, but in a state of emergency when there is a mass loss of life and states are dealing with insurgents, the use of force seems to be the adequate strategy, or at least that is what we have learnt from past intervention failures. Perhaps this is the time to adopt different strategies, and instead of implementing a unilateral approach of humanitarian assistance, policymakers should concentrate more on local involvement and cooperation. Yet, before getting deep into this discussion, how is success measurable when it comes to humanitarian interventions? The purpose of any humanitarian intervention is to provide peace, justice and security, to provide a safe environment and reconstruct the weak community, but those are highly ambitious goals that could easily take years to achieve.

The Ambassador Jan Eliasson of Sweden to the United Nations stated at the Institute for Peace and Justice that “no peace without development, no development without peace. No lasting peace or sustainable development without the respect of human rights” This is a key factor or at least should be a key factor in any humanitarian action, it should be guided by the principles of humanity, it should recognize dignity and equality in order to reestablish the society and have sustainable development. For this no humanitarian intervention will really be successful if there is no cooperation. It has been said that more local involvement equals to fewer levels of conflict, if this is true then before taking military action, a more efficient way to provide aid, would be working within the communities, reestablishing what has been lost. Providing the protection of civilians, providing water, food, sanitation, accommodations and health services.

Humanitarian intervention in current conflicts

It is well known that the current conflicts in the middle East are a consequence of previous failed interventions. That is the case of Syria, Iraq and the Islamic State, which face an imminent security challenge in the international community. There are approximately 4 million people displaced from their homes and hundreds of thousands of casualties in the area, most refugees have fled to neighbor countries such as; Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey, but numerous amounts are in several countries in Europe and the United States. The displacement of civilians poses a challenge to human security, not to mention the long-term effects this will have in Iraq and Syria. If both nations are in a state of emergency, why has not been implemented a humanitarian intervention yet? This is very controversial one indeed, mostly because the current conflict is a consequence of a previous intervention, the War on Iraq and even the Gulf War.

The only countries that can intervene are powerful imperial traditional powers, countries with the capabilities to intervene, that is the United States, the United Kingdom and even perhaps France, although there has been the debate of whether or not should Russia interfere, particularly in Syria. They could indeed intervene, but the problem is that is not in their best interest to intervene. The United States for instance, turned Iraq into a big political failure which could have had more serious consequences for America’s position in the world. Former president Bush’s decision to link Iraq and the war on terror had led to instability of the Middle East in general and the formation of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq. With the number of troops lost in the battle and the money wasted, U.S policy makers reject the idea of “assisting again” By creating a state of national crisis it became very difficult for other to challenge these ideas and provide a strong argument of the consequences of a war in Iraq, making it really difficult to find a logical reason to assist Iraq again. For the United Kingdom it is not recommended to intervene unless it the nation faces actual security challenges and the country’s interest are at risk.

Again, humanitarian intervention has failed to protect the rights of many civilians, but perhaps nations could take a different approach, cooperate with one another, assist the civilian refugees that have fled and possibly try to save them, providing them with a secure environment away from the chaos. The situation really is tragic, but at this point not even a military intervention could restore the peace in the area, coercion and diplomacy go hand in hand with rewards for the opponent when fulfilling demands. With the power vacuum in Iraq, Syria is pretty much stuck in the red zone which will keep disintegrating, as well as the Middle East. It is a tragedy, but Western countries do not feel morally obligated to intervene. Also, another reason for not intervening in the Middle East, is the imminent threat of terrorism. Alan Kuperman argues on his research A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO’s Libya Campaign about the challenges of conventional wisdom “Humanitarian intervention risks backfiring by escalating rebellion, both in the country where it is conducted and beyond. This is because it encourages sub-state groups to believe that by violently provoking state retaliation, they can attract intervention to help achieve their political objectives, including regime change.” For this, interfering with a rebellious/terrorist group could challenge nation’s national security, its safety and the safety of its population, especially for powerful countries like the United States and United Kingdom that have an important role in the international community.

Humanitarian intervention is a persuasive but vague idea that nation states share the responsibility to protect civilians in situations of great danger. However, the legacy of post-Cold War interventions remains disputed, as well as its effectiveness as an instrument to provide peace and stability to conflicted zones. The debate has significantly increased since then, and it has become a very controversial subject due to the implications that could present in a falling state, the long-term effects and massive loss of life. As generations change, threats have changed as well, there were fewer conventional wars and more human rights violated. Some humanitarian interventions were carried out effectively, but even so there are debates about the legitimacy of such interventions. Other humanitarian interventions did not succeed, and instead the ongoing conflict still face security challenges in the international community. IGO’s and NGO’s should probably take a different approach and involve local leaders into the peace-building process, in that way the humanitarian intervention would be more successful. For lasting solutions, the respect for human right and human dignity is imperative, but good governance and the strengthening of the nation at a community level and state level are essential for the sustainable development. There are other problems including the matter of command and the difficulty to implement the concept of unity of command, states should strive for multilateral cooperation.