The Pros And Cons Of Humanitarian Intervention

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Introduction

Mass crimes committed by dictatorial regimes on their own citizens are now one of the main threats to international peace and security, which makes it necessary to use humanitarian intervention as a method of enforcing the protection of human rights. During the Cold war, the notion of “sovereignty” was really strong; therefore, due to moral arguments none of the states were aiming at involving into politics of foreign states (Bellamy & Wheeler, 2014 p. 480). It was due to the fact that humanitarian interventions were contradicting with the idea of sovereignty in those years. According to realists, sovereignty means “no actor above the state that can compel it to act in specific ways” (Smith & Owens & Baylis, 2014 p.4). This view …show more content…

Therefore, humanitarian interventions grew stronger in post- Cold war world with the assumption of changing worldviews for better; however, most of the states were not aimed at humanitarian purposes but were protecting the interests of their country. Although, the humanitarian interventions are not only well known nowadays but, also, one of the most questionable views in the 21st century, which are becoming less acceptable in relation to foreign policy. However, in recent decades, the idea of humanitarian intervention has evolved significantly, moving from the controversial form of unilateral armed humanitarian operation to the universal principle of “responsibility to protect, RtoP” (Doyle, 2016, p.15). RtoP was accepted on UN summit in 2005 as a compromise solution to dealing with massive violations of human rights (Francioni, 2013, p. 6). Wherefore, RtoP is legitimating military interventions of powerful states in protecting citizens and of the weaker states (Doyle, p.15). Nevertheless, RtoP aroused a lot of controversies. According to Francioni (2013), critics argue that RtoP is a real threat to values of the sovereignty of the weak states and does not provide them enough protection (p. 23) Contemporary internal conflicts and tragedies of the civilian population raise a number of doubts about the effective and impartial fulfilment by the international community of the R2P's