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The Pros And Cons Of Humanitarian Intervention

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Humanitarian intervention is an emerging norm that was born out of a desire to prevent past horrors, such as the Rwanda genocide and Srebrenica massacre from reoccurring. The concept was further enumerated in the formation of the responsibility to protect doctrine (‘R2P’), which infers that countries have a duty to interfere with the sovereignty of others in order to protect human rights. Since their inception into international relations, both humanitarian intervention and R2P have struggled with disunity between its proponents and those who suggest it is merely being used by the West to strengthen their hegemonic power. There are many arguments as to contend that humanitarian is merely a disguised form of Western imperialism, such as: the …show more content…

Thus it could be said that Western states engage in opportunistic humanitarianism (Rigstad 2007) only where their interests are at risk. This is shown by France’s commitment to halting the Cote d’Ivoire civil war. Adeyeri suggests that Cote d’Ivoire is “of maximum economic and geostrategic importance to France. Cote d’Ivoire is the economic powerhouse of Francophone West Africa…” (2015, pp. 65). Further, there was concern by Western powers over Gbagbo’s encouragement and facilitation of Chinese, Indian and Russian influence and access to the region (Bush, Martiniello, Mercer 2011). Hence, by using UN support and humanitarianism intervention as a cover, France was able to avert protracted violence from impeding on its interests. Similarly, intervention in Libya was engaged more on national interests than altruistic motives. Whilst many contend that oil was a significant factor for US engagement, a more decisive consideration was that Libya is in prime position to stifle African immigration from flooding into Europe (Bush, Martiniello, Mercer

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