Humanitarian intervention refers to the use of military force to alleviate extreme human suffering caused by the actions or inactions of a sovereign state, such as genocide or other gross violations of human rights. Various terms are used to refer to these operations, such as “armed interventions,” “armed humanitarian interventions,” and “humanitarian wars” (Collins, 2022, p.20). These are measures implemented to safeguard humanitarian needs and human rights, whether perpetrated by an irresponsible government, an encroaching military force, or a group engaged in acts of terrorism. Most of the time, if not all, humanitarian interventions are executed without obtaining consent from the offending state or terrorist organisation. An armed humanitarian intervention involves deploying military forces by one or more states or international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN) (Collins, 2022, p.23).
Using military force to protect humanitarian needs and the rights of people is not a recent or unprecedented occurrence. During the 19th century, European nations used military intervention to protect Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire from acts of genocide or oppressive governance (Collins, 2022, p.16). In the aftermath of World War II, several military interventions took place, some of which were deemed “humanitarian” in nature, despite being subject to scrutiny, such as the United States intervention in Latin America and France’s military engagement in the Central African Republic (Lischer, 2003, p.78). Several other cases continue to be significant subjects of academic discourse, such as India’s use of armed intervention in Bangladesh in 1971, Tanzania’s humanitarian intervention in Uganda, and Vietnam’s use of military force in Cambodia. Other instances of military action being employed to safeguard humanitarian needs and human rights include interventions in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Haiti (Collins, 2022, p.27). Recent interventions include a military reaction by the United States and NATO to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a regional military intervention in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
However, in the wake of the atrocities committed in Rwanda and the Balkans during the 20th century, which were not prevented by the international community, and the NATO military intervention in Kosovo, which numerous parties viewed as a violation of the prohibition on the use of force, the international community engaged in an in-depth discussion about the appropriateness of using military force to protect humanitarian needs and human rights. Generally, according to one fundamental theory in security studies, the “just war tradition,” which relied on natural law, using military force is a justifiable means of protecting humanitarian needs and human rights in certain critical circumstances (Collins, 2022, p.27). According to Haftendorn (1991, p.13), illustrious scholars such as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas viewed a just war as a means of obtaining justice by punishing the misdeeds of political leaders. This viewpoint has prompted some to argue that such conflicts could justify intervention against governments that oppress their citizens. Shepherd (2013, p.34) emphasised communal self-determination to present consequentialist justifications that limited armed interventions during the 19th century. In the latter part of the 1990s, Kofi Annan presented his annual report to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Annan contemplated the prospects for human security and intervention in the coming century in his address. He urged the Member States to join together and reach a consensus on supporting the Charter’s principles and acting to protect the interests of humanity (Shepherd, 2013, p.34). In his Millennium Report, the author reiterated the premise, posing the question: “If humanitarian intervention is deemed an impermissible intrusion on sovereignty, then what is the appropriate response to Rwanda and Srebrenica, where there were egregious and systematic violations of human rights that violated fundamental principles of our shared humanity?” (Collins, 2022, p.27). Lischer (2003, p.78) depicts armed interventions as legitimate responses to actions that cause moral indignation among humanity.
Armed humanitarian interventions are differentiated from other forms of interventions such as humanitarian aid, sanctions of varying severity, changes in diplomatic relations, monitoring of weapons treaties or elections or human rights practices, and peacekeeping. The current essay examines the extent to which the use of military force is justified as an appropriate instrument for the protection of humanitarian needs and human rights. It contends that the use of military force is appropriate and even justifiable when there are serious and imminent abuses of human rights, when there is a legitimate humanitarian concern, and when there is a good prospect of success. In the first section, the essay examines the extent to which humanitarian emergencies rise to a level at which armed humanitarian intervention is appropriate. The second section explains just war theory and how it may be used to support armed humanitarian initiatives. The last section considers state sovereignty and liberalism as empirical themes that either support or challenge armed humanitarian interventions.
The Threshold Condition for Armed Humanitarian Intervention
Even humanitarian intervention advocates agree that there are few situations in which the use of military force is appropriate. In particular, supporters attempt to outline the bare minimum of human suffering that would justify using military force to protect humanitarian needs and the rights of citizens. Armed humanitarian interventions are seen as rescues by scholars like Shepherd (2003, p.78), who defines catastrophic human rights abuses as situations in which a person’s very life or freedom is at risk. Similarly, Haftendorn (1991, p.5) discusses ultimate humanitarian catastrophes, in which the only chance of preserving lives rests on outsiders coming to the rescue after an extreme mass murder, and cruelty goes beyond the infringement of human rights that regrettably happens on a daily basis. Most accounts of threshold conditions have in common the presence of official accountability, the violation of basic human rights, and the pervasive and systematic nature of human suffering. Accordingly, the use of military force as an instrument to safeguard human rights and humanitarian needs is only appropriate in reaction to the gravest breaches; the threshold conditions in the target state must be ones that, in Shepherd’s words, strike the conscience of humanity.
However, various issues arise when trying to specify these threshold conditions. Some critics have argued that it is impossible to precisely define the extent of the concept of human suffering (Lischer, 2003, p.82). How many human rights abuses, atrocities committed, or extreme circumstances must exist before armed action is justified? The second problem stems from the often-cited principle of fundamental human rights. Perhaps, all human rights, as generally agreed, are of equal value. However, paying close attention to abuses of fundamental human rights assumes that there is a hierarchy of these rights. Some have suggested that “negative rights,” such as the right not to be tortured, raped, or murdered, are more fundamental than “positive rights,” such as the right to basic welfare necessities like food, clothes, and shelter; however, not everyone agrees with this classification (Lischer, 2003, p.89). Additionally, there is a contentious debate over whether or not collective rights, such as “the right to collective self-determination, group survival, and cultural integrity,” is included in the scope of universally recognised human rights (Collins, 2022, p.45). Human rights legislation on a global scale creates additional levels of authority that might be significant. The right not to be tortured is the only human right guaranteed by international law to be inviolable under any circumstances; states have a greater legal obligation to protect civil and political rights than they do social, economic, or cultural rights; and states are permitted to suspend some human rights during designated public emergencies (Collins, 2022, p.46).
Further, there are necessary threshold requirements for establishing government liability to justify the appropriateness of using an armed humanitarian intervention. In some cases, governments are directly responsible for mass atrocities and violations of human rights, such as the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, the “killing fields” in Cambodia in the late 1970s, and the “ethnic cleansings” in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s (Collins, 2022, p.118). Alternatively, governments may be complicit in human rights abuses by, for example, funding, arming or otherwise supporting private militias, coordinating attacks on civilians, or inciting war through propaganda and other means of media oversight. This was the case in the Rwandan genocide and the violent campaigns in Darfur, Sudan, in 2004 (Shepherd, 2013, p.89). Further, governmental intervention might be analogous to carelessness, incompetence, or incapacity on the part of the governing body. When a state’s government is weak or collapsed, it loses control of its territory and people. As in the case of Somalia in the 1990s, this frequently leads to extensive breaches of human rights by non-state actors (Lischer, 2003, p.28). People around the nation were living in constant terror of armed militias since the central authority could not maintain order before the United States took a military role in the conflict. Governmental blameworthiness ranging from culprit to failed state may be required to meet threshold criteria. However, threshold requirements are sometimes obscured or made more complicated by the circumstances. Domestic insurgencies, counterinsurgency operations, revolutions, liberation initiatives, partition or secession struggles, and civil wars are all examples of situations when widespread and systematic human suffering occurs during or as a result of the conflict. The Sudanese government justifies its actions in Darfur by saying it was fighting an insurgency; the Bosnian war may be seen as a secession or partition conflict; the Rwandan genocide happened in the context of civil war and struggled for control in that nation (Collins, 2022, p.107). The problems here are epistemological as well as conceptual. Accordingly, threshold conditions of suffering may be satisfied depending on the domestic contexts in which individuals and governments find themselves.
Although human rights breaches are often cited as the triggering event in discussions of humanitarian interventions, some characterise the relevant human suffering. Human rights discourse provides easy ethical arguments for military actions. There must be corresponding obligations for each legitimate right. Some believe that even though a national government has the main correlative duty to preserve and defend human rights, other actors nevertheless have a responsibility to do so in the event of a breach of that duty on the part of the primary duty-holder, frequently referred to as “default duties.” Since human rights are being violated in the target state, armed interventions might be partly justified as carrying out (default) tasks associated with these violations. On the other hand, some people believe that military interventions are justified because they strive to alleviate human suffering regardless of whether or not any particular human rights have been violated. Of course, there is also human suffering that results from using force. Thus, lethal force is occasionally permissible to save lives and lessen human suffering.
Just War Theory as a Justification for Armed Humanitarian Intervention
The ethical push of severe humanitarian crises that strike the morality of humanity and a moral reluctance to use military force even to safeguard lives are both taken seriously in conversations about if the use of military force is an appropriate tool for protecting humanitarian needs and human rights. Regardless of the moral philosophy used, justifying an armed intervention includes answering several concerns, such as who or what has the power to interfere and what non-military options are available to alleviate the suffering of the people involved. Additionally, what precisely is the aim of the military operation, and how should the armed forces behave while defending, guarding, or saving people from their government? One theory in security studies that answers these questions and depicts the appropriateness of armed humanitarian interventions is the “just war theory.” Generally, the “just war theory” and its traditional duality—the requirements for legitimately entering the war (“jus bellum”) and the rules guiding good conduct of war (“jus in bello”)—parallel these issues (Shepherd, 2013, p.19; Lischer, 2003, p.78). Just war hypothesis, particularly “jus ad bellum,” provides the best framework for weighing the morality of armed humanitarian operations. Shepherd (2013, p.20) argues that the just war tradition is the source of the criteria that military intervention must satisfy.
Just war theory’s “jus ad bellum” framework lists around six factors that are pertinent to justifying the resort to the use of military force to safeguard humanitarian needs and human rights. All “jus ad bellum” conditions must be met before a war may be considered justifiable (Shepherd, 2013, p.19). Therefore, only if all six “ad bellum” standards are met is the use of military force legitimate for preserving humanitarian needs and human rights. Last resort, success probability, and proportionality are all deterministic criteria. For example, for military action to be proportional, the benefits must outweigh the expenses, devastation, and other bad impacts that are unavoidable. Estimating the likelihood that a war’s goals will be achieved is part of calculating its likelihood of success (Shepherd, 2013, p.19. The concept of war as a last resort conveys the notion that it is after all other options have been exhausted that resorting to armed force is justified. Just reason, proper authority, and the right aim are the other three “jus ad bellum” factors (Lischer, 2003, p.78).
The concept of “just cause” is central to the just war tradition, which holds that certain situations legitimately trigger and substantially contribute to a justification of war (Shepherd, 2013, p.20). Using force in response to an armed assault is also sanctioned under modern just war theory and international law. The question, therefore, when discussing the use of military force for humanitarian purposes, is whether or not “just cause” encompasses the protection of others or, as many put it, whether or not the threshold criteria for intervention constitute a “just cause” for a state or nations to employ military action to protect humanitarian needs and human rights. However, many commentators and legal experts have acknowledged unequivocally that the suffering of a government’s citizens allows others to “take up arms for them” (Collins, 2022, p.93). A major tenet of the classical just war tradition is that redressable wrongs constitute a legitimate cause for war, regardless of whether or not the intervening party has been mistreated. In addition, the “right authority” in contemporary just war theory is often assumed to belong to states. Terrorist groups, liberation movements, revolts, and insurrections are some of the non-state actors that have emerged in recent years, posing intriguing concerns for this “jus ad bellum” subject. However, the “right authority” criterion is typically considered in the context of international legislation and organisations when the just war theory paradigm is used to support armed humanitarian efforts (Collins, 2022, p.108). However, under the United Nations Charter, for instance, except for wars of retaliatory self-defence.
International Law and Armed Humanitarian Intervention
Human rights treaties and the United Nations Charter make up the backbone of the international law that governs interventions. The Charter, which proclaims “the sovereign equality of all states,” limits the use of force to cases of self-defence, forbids interference in domestic affairs, and limits the authority of the Security Council to authorise the use of force to situations where domestic strife or brutalities also threaten the stability of the world (Lischer, 2003, p.79). In addition, the nine fundamental human rights treaties and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948 stipulate that states must respect, preserve, and enforce the articles specified, including the right to life. Only via the United Nations’ “competent organs” are signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention required to take measures to prevent and punish genocide (Lischer, 2003, p.81). The “Rome Statute” of 1998, which established the International Criminal Court, renders the ICC’s enforcement power contingent on and supplementary to those of individual governments. Even though human rights and other such global standards exist, the respect, defence, and preservation of these rights are, according to international law, virtually entirely the responsibility of individual states (Collins, 2022, p.67).
Two points concerning using armed action to protect humanitarian needs and human rights seem to be very apparent in the text. Firstly, there can be no doubt that governments have the right to employ military action in times of self-defence. Second, it is obvious that employing armed troops would be a suitable option for resolving humanitarian crises and preserving human rights only if authorised by the UN Security Council. The two international organisations most equipped to carry out humanitarian operations globally are NATO and the United Nations. These international organisations allow nations to fulfil their moral obligation to defend common humanity by taking action against widespread human rights violations. The international community, however, must strive toward establishing a permanent United Nations force to intervene against all instances of genocide and other forms of violent violation of human rights.
Liberalism and Armed Humanitarian Intervention
Transnational social links that bind humans, according to liberalism, create a window of possibility for cooperation across governments that otherwise would be doomed to a state of perpetual war (Doyle, M.W., 1986, p.1155). It also assumes that moral imperatives constrain the government. According to liberal theory, international stability and security may be achieved and maintained via nations’ mutual dependence, interaction, and collaboration. For liberals, the key is figuring out how to keep the peace and make international collaboration sustainable (Doyle, M.W., 1986, p.1155). They stress the importance of international institutions in fostering and enforcing peaceful relations among states by minimising the effects of preexisting anarchy, and they reject the idea that material power is the only driver of international relations. According to liberals, solely self-interested intervention would weaken the foundation for the system of international cooperation and generate instability; hence liberals are dedicated to the idea that humanitarian necessity provides the only valid ground for an intervention involving the use of military force (Doyle, 1986, p.1156).
From a liberalist perspective, moral factors might influence intervention choices when wars result in humanitarian crises, and countries are less inclined to prioritise their interests during such conflicts. Liberal asserts the catastrophic humanitarian emergency prevailing in Somalia, in which 300,000 Somalis died and almost 4.5 million were left to starve, played a significant role in US armed intervention in 1991–1992, even though the crisis posed little threat to the United States and global security (Doyle, M.W., 1986, p.1163). NATO’s unapproved military action in Kosovo in response to widespread abuses of human rights was widely recognised at the time (Doyle, M.W., 1986, p.1164). A liberal perspective on world peace is strengthened by the capacity of international institutions to foster cooperation and mitigate conflict, even if it requires military force.
Conclusion
The conversation surrounding the appropriateness of using military force to safeguard humanitarian necessities and human rights will always be contentious, as it involves the international community’s valuation of human life. Armed intervention to end genocide will never have an unchallengeable conceptual basis since experience suggests that the international community cannot react to every violation of human rights. But it shouldn’t be seen as permission to forego intervention completely. In contrast, all acts of genocide need a forceful response from the world community. Since the right to life is universally recognised, we have no choice but to protect it. Mass murder and torture at the hands of despotic national elites are guaranteed in the absence of intervention and the fear of intervention. When viewed objectively, the advantages are undeniably greater than the potential downsides. The United Nations and NATO are the most credible and effective organisations for humanitarian interventions. However, nations should be trying to create a permanent United Nations force for humanitarian intervention. Such an organisation would practice the justified use of armed force to protect humanitarian needs and human rights, saving innumerable lives.
References
Collins, A. ed., 2022. Contemporary security studies. Oxford university press.
Doyle, M.W., 1986. Liberalism and world politics. American political science review, 80(4), pp.1151-1169.
Haftendorn, H., 1991. The security puzzle: theory-building and discipline-building in international security. International studies quarterly, 35(1), pp.3-17.
Lischer, S.K., 2003. Collateral damage: Humanitarian assistance as a cause of conflict. International Security, 28(1), pp.79-109.
Shepherd, L.J. ed., 2013. Critical approaches to security: An introduction to theories and methods. Routledge.
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