Humanitarian Interventions

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Argument - why do states intervene in humanitarian crises

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This essay will present a two-fold argument.

It suggests that a shift in norms after Cold War and thus normative notions can explain why states decide to intervene in humanitarian conflicts eventhough they have no apparent strategic interests at stake.

However, such same accounts fails to explain state action in cases where states do have strategic interests at stake. In such cases, states will chose strategic interests over normative values illustrated by recent cases of Libya and Syria.

Hence, a synthesis between constructivist and rationalist theories on humanitarian interventions is not only possible but clearly indispensable.

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UN as case: humanitarian interventions before Cold War

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First 45 years of UN’s existence, UN firmly associated with the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states=

This principle was formally institutionalized by article 2.7 in the UN Charter, which states that the UN shall not intervene in matters which are within the domestic juridiction of any nation states.

During this period, 3 cases of forceful intervention appeared to justify the label “humanitarian”. However, in none of these case, did the intervening state offer humanitarian justification nor did the UN legitimise any of these interventions.

EX: In the case of India, Indian representatives in General assembly did raise the option of a humanitarian justification of their intervention, and suggested that Pakistan’s actions in East pakistan posed a threat to regional security, but this was rejected by other states arguing that the principles of sovereignty and non-interference should take precedence and India had no right to get involved in what they all viewed as an “internal matter”. India ended up justifying its actions to intervene on the grounds of “self-defence”.

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UN as case: humanitarian interventions after Cold War

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This traditional understanding of state sovereignty as a barrier to humanitarian intervention that characterized state practice during the Cold War years, however lost some of its “power” during the 1990s:

The fundamental change in normative practice that occurred during the 1990s was that the SC became willing to define humanitarian emergencies inside a state’s borders as a threat to “international peace and security”. They were able to do this because the UN charter has an exception in the aforementioned art 2,7 namely that the principle of non-intervention shall not prejudice the apllication of enforcement under chapter VII. Chapter VII states that SC can take action in cases deemed to constitute a “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”. Thereby, as the SC were now willing to see internal conflicts as threats to international stability, article 2 (7) legitimise military enforcement action and thus allows for humanitarian interventions to be considered legitimate state practice.

This process of change began with the Iraq crisis in 1991, where the SC in a resolution decided to name the refugee crisis caused by the Iraqi government’s oppression of the Kurds and Shiites, as a threat to regional peace and stability.

Since then, the UN has been involved in various cases of multilateral humanitarian intervention (such as: Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-5), Somalia (1992-1993), Rwanda (1994), Haiti (1994), Albania (1997), Sierra Leone (1997-2000), Kosovo (1998-9), East Timor (1999), Libya (2011-?).)

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Constructivism explaning humanitarian intervention

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Constructivsm:
International institutions and the norms embedded in the institutional environment both formally and informally, have had a constitutive effect on state practice in regards to humanitarian interventions. Norms, are understood as the existence of a shared understanding of what is consider the “right thing to do”. States will thus comply with norms because they accept them as legitimate and thereby they follow a “logic of appropriateness”.

Humanitarian intervention (development of) as explained by constructivism:
Different norms embedded in institution environment + formally expressed in the UN charter, e.g. "state sovereingnty", "peace preservation" and "human rights" have competed in shaping state practice on humanitarian interventions=
- In the Cold War years, state sovereignty was the prevailing norm in the international community, and even when international crises occurred, which could possibly pose a threat to international security, states refused to intervene in internal conflicts.
- In the 1990s we saw a norm change led by the UN Security Council, when it began to define internal conflicts such as the refuge conflict in Iraq as “so inappropriate that not even sovereign state should be free to get away with it”. Thereby norms of peace preservation and human rights prevailed over the norm of sovereignty, and humanitarian interventions became legitimate state practice, as this was considered “the right or most appropriate thing to do” when civilians was threatened by genocide, mass killings and so on.

Example: Thus competing theories (rationalism) fails to explain why states intervene when they have no apparent interests at stake. An example of this is the humanitarian multilateral intervention in Somalia led by the US and santioned by the UN in early 1990s. As the US (or the other MS participating) had no strategic interests at stake in the horn of Africa, we can only understand their motivations for such a costly military intervention as shaped by human rights norms. Thus, they participated because this was considered "the right thing to do".

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Rationalism explaining case

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materialist perspective= norms have no constitutive impact on state behaviour. States are rather considered only to intervene in a domestic conflict of another state, based on strategic interests rather than on moral grounds and thus follow “a logic of consequences”, when deciding whether or not to engage in an humanitarian intervention. Thus acc. materialist accounts, strategic interests of the states remains crucial variables in understanding humanitarian intervention.

The recent cases of Libya & Syria is arguably a good example of this=
After many monhts of unrest and thousands of civilian loses, the intl community still refuses to intervene in Syria. By contrast, it only a short period of time from when the instability in Libya broke out until the UNSC authorised a no fly zone to be implemented by intl. NATO forces.

Why was the intl. community so committed to supporting the Libyan rebels and yet so reluctant to back the people of Syria? It is certainly not on humanitarian grounds. Civilian casualties in Libya by the time the no fly zone was established, was much lower than what it is now in Syria. This would be cases that constructivsm cannot explain, but where the strategic interests of states must be included. Many mention the fact that Libya's oil wealth is greater than Syrias. But perhaps rather, Syria case poses strategic problems which Libya did not, why rationalism/strategic interests explains why states do not intervene in Syria, and constructivism still holds explanational value why they did intervene in Libya:

Strategic interests involved in non-intervention:
1) Firstly, Gaddafi had no notable allies to speak of. Syria has support of Iran + others such as Turkey (NATO member).
2) Second, the regional impact that Syria intervention would have, could have far-reaching consequences. Libya on the other hand, bordering with north african nations incl. Tunisia and Egypt who had just consolidated their democratic revolutions, there wouldnt be any threats of regional instability as is the case with Syria.
3) Thirdly, the size of the Syrian millitary remains far greater than the one of Libya, why an intervention could have far greater implications in Syria than it had in Libya.