International Intervention and Human Rights Abuse by State Actors

Many thanks to Bsh1 for what I think will probably be a very enteratining debate, and to all judges who may read this. This debate’s purpose is to advocate, on a conceptual level, for international humanitarian military intervention’s justification (1) in response to state actor’s abuse of human rights may remediate human rights abuse with success, and (2) where intervention as such is in the intervening state’s best interest. This debate’s purpose is not to state specific cases where military intervention would necessarily be justified, but rather to outline the permissible conditions under which -if any- humanitarian military intervention would be justified. I want to note that while there may be other criteria may be at stake in considering whether a state should intervene on behalf of those subject to human rights abuses, it is my only responsibility to argue here that these two criterion for justification MUST be the case if intervention as such is to be justifiable. So, even if there are additional criteria that ought to be considered, whether or not that is the case is necessarily beyond the scope of this debate because this debate is only purposed to consider the two above. ‘International military intervention’ or ‘international humanitarian military intervention’ -both referred to hereafter as IHMI- on behalf of human rights, “is used here to mean ‘the threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals other than its own citizens [due to violence], without the permission of the state within whose territory force is applied’, and the use of military personnel to assist the delivery of humanitarian aid to people in need.” (Seybolt, 2007; at 5-6). Here, it is stipulated a minimum 10,000 people be subject to abuse, as a minimum threshold for intervention. It is assumed that at least at that level, ten thousand victims would be enough to meet Michael Walzer’s criteria for atrocities to “shock the moral conscience of mankind.” (Walzer, 1977)(1) International humanitarian military intervention must be a viable means to remediate human rights abuses, if it is to be justifiable.To determine if IHMI is justified, it is necessary to posit a conceptual framework which accounts for the multiple, plausibly competing interests at stake for both the intervening state, the state in which human rights abuses are taking place and those subject to the abusing state’s violations of human rights. So, as a framework for justification -where “justification” is meant here only to indicate that intervention of the kind described above is the “right” thing to do- military intervention’s consideration must account for IMHI’s probability of success, where success is contingent upon “the means (military intervention)” such that IHMI would offer a reasonable prospect to “achieve the desired ends (betterment of the human condition)” such that “effectiveness should be measured by the number of lives saved.” (Seybolt, 2007; at 4) Failing to account for international military intervention’s probability of success risks not only the potential to exacerbate extant human rights abuses, but likewise exposes the intervening state’s military personnel to capricious, unnecessary risks. As such, “the link between effectiveness and justification” here “is based on the premise that military intervention for human protection purposes can only be justified in humanitarian terms if the intervention does more good than harm.” (Holzgrefe, 2003; at 50) Therefore, IHMI must be a viable means to remediate human rights abuses, if it is to be justifiable.(2) International humanitarian military intervention must be in the intervening state’s best interest, if it is to be justifiable.It is naive and imprudent for those who provide humanitarian assistance to maintain the pretense of neutrality, because of the inherently political nature of all forms of all forms of humanitarian intervention that is evidenced by any kind of aid’s necessarily political impact. (Taw, 2004; p. 5-19) Indeed, the very decision to intervene in a zone of conflict where large scale human rights violations are taking place entails a political calculus based on the intervening state’s interests. The implication to acknowledging intervention’s political nature is that where an intervening state “has clearly identified political motives in addition to humanitarian ones (as long as the political motives are not in conflict with the humanitarian motives) than when the political interests are obscure[d] or minor” it is the case that “a humanitarian intervention is more likely to succeed” because the intervening state is acting in pursuit of not only the moral good, but also in the pursuit of its objectives. (Seybolt, 2007; at 20) Said more clearly, to the extent that an intervening state has a political interest in remediating human rights violations, it is more likely to orient its efforts towards remediating human rights violations, more likely to commit sufficient resources to facilitating the conflict’s end, and more likely to perceiver in the wake of -even potentially unforeseen- loss of life or risk to military personnel. (Whitman, 1994. at 19-35) Consequently, military action should only be undertaken when political concerns are at stake for intervening nations because as Seybolt articulated, “to ignore politics is to invite disaster” because in the absence of an intervening state’s political interest’s being at stake, the probability of a successful intervention is dramatically depreciated. (Seybolt, 2007; at 21) SOURCES: “The humanitarian intervention debate.” Holzgrefe, J. L., Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2003); J. L. Holzgrefe and R. O. Keohane, Humanitarian Military Intervention: The conditions for Success and Failure Taylor B. Seybolt Oxford University Press, 2007 Just and Unjust Wars Michael Walzer Basic Books, 1977 “The perils of humanitarian assistance in armed internal conflicts: Somalia in the 1990s” Taw, J. M. Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 15, no. 2 (autumn 2004) “Military risk and political commitment in United Nations humanitarian peace support operations.” Whitman, J.; Belgrad and Nachmias Foreign Affairs, vol. 73, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 1994)