Development, human security and humanitarian intervention

Question 1

What is Intervention?

Answer 1

“Forcible action taken by one state against another state, without the latter’s consent”

Question 2

What are the processes of intervention?

Answer 2

• Diplomatic
• Economic
• Military

Question 3

What is diplomatic intervention?

Answer 3

Mediation (and offers of mediation, international forums, recall of ambassadors, ex-Presidents, Catholic Church

Question 4

What is economic intervention?

Answer 4

Either negative (sanction) or positive (financial aid)

Question 5

What is military intervention?

Answer 5

Forceable action (or threat of) using military force, personnel and equipment

Question 6

What are the main types of intervention?

Answer 6

• Humanitarian

* Peacekeeping

Question 7

What is humanitarian intervention?

Answer 7

- “Military intervention that is
  carried out in pursuit of
  humanitarian rather than strategic
  objectives”
- Often include elements of diplomatic,
  economic and military

Question 8

What is peacekeeping?

Answer 8

“An operation involving military personnel, but without enforcement powers, undertaken by the UN to help maintain or restore international peace and security in areas of conflict”

Question 9

What tensions arise from intervention?

Answer 9

Tension between human rights, states’ strategic self interest, and state sovereignty

Question 10

What has been the general history of humanitarian intervention?

Answer 10

• Creation of the 90s
• Increasingly important in the
  aftermath of Cold War
• Easy to want to add humanitarian
  justification for strategic
  intervention (Iraq 2003)
• Strategic interventions can also have
  dramatic humanitarian implications

Question 11

What kinds of peacekeeping are there?

Answer 11

• Traditional

* Multidimensional or Complex

Question 12

What is traditional peacekeeping?

Answer 12

- Peacekeeping after a militarised
  conflict
- e.g. UN mission to Golan Heights
  between Israel and Syria since 1974
    - Over 1000 UN troops currently
      stationed there
    - Since 2011, it has turned into a
      complex mission after civil war

Question 13

What is multidimensional or complex peacekeeping?

Answer 13

- Combination of peacemaking and
  peacebuilding
- e.g. MONACO peacekeeping mission to
  DR Congo, 1999 - today
    - Mandate: protect civilians,
      personal and human rights
      defenders under threat of
      violence and support DRC
      governmetn
    - 20,000 uniformed personnel
    - Annual $1.4 billion
    - 86 total fatalities

Question 14

What are the motivations for intervention?

Answer 14

• Internal
  
  • Instability within a large state
    (civilian deaths, lack of state
    capacity, peace agreement)
• External
  
  • Humanitarian interests overlap
    with strategic interests
    
    • Us in Haiti, ’15-’34, ’94-‘99
    • NATO in Kosovo, 1999
• Media (CNN effect)

Question 15

What about the world system affects how easily international consensus is reached regarding intervention?

Answer 15

US as only superpower made it easier to reach an international consensus about intervention

Question 16

What are the moral and ethical challenged involved in intervention?

Answer 16

- Violating norms of state territorial
  and legal sovereignty
- Moves states beyond just war theory,
  which focuses on self defence
- Implies universality of human rights
- Who has the authority to make these
  decisions? The UNSC?
- Who has the responsibility to protect
  (R2P)?

Question 17

What is R2P?

Answer 17

• Kofi Annan’s new norm
• 2000: African Union proposed a right
  to intervene in it’s Constitutive Act
• 2009: UN Secretary General report:
  
  • A state has reposnsiblity to
    protect its population against
    genocide, war crimes, crimes
    against humanity and ethnic
    cleansing
  • International community has a
    responsibility to help a state
    observe its responsibility
  • If the state fails, the
    international community has the
    responsibility to intervene

Question 18

Summarise the effects of intervention

Answer 18

- Goals can be stability, regime-chance
  and/or democratisation
- Change (decrease) in willingness for
  intervention after Afghanistan and
  Iraq
    - Similar to UN 1992-4 intervention
      in Somalia
    - Both Afghani and Iraqi
      interventions were in part
      motivated by rhetoric of
      humanitariasm
    - US and allies drawn into larger
      remaking of society rather than
      more limited goals of
      humanitarian crisis and getting
      aid in
- Limited current desire for
  intervention into complex cases like
  Darfur, Zimbabwe, Mynammar and Syria

Question 19

Describe the Nato intervention in Libya

Answer 19

• Authorised by UN Security Council (2011)
• Libya had few allies or UNSC members
  willing to veto
• Credited with preventing large-scale
  massacres in Benghazi region
• Instability has persisted, however

Question 20

Describe 2011-2015 in regards to Libya

Answer 20

- 2011 Feb - Benghazi protests over
  arrest of a human rights campaigner
  sparks civil war
- 2011 Mar - No fly zone authorised by
  UN SC
- 2011 Oct - Col. Gaddafi captured and
  killed
- 2012 - 2014 efforts to try and end
  militia actives largely fail
- 2014 Feb - civil war escalates
- 2014 July - UN staff pull out
- 2015 Feb - Egyptian jet bomb ISIS
  targets after ISIS beheads 21
  Egyptian Christians

Question 21

Describe the Syrian Civil War

Answer 21

• 2011 - now
• Syria has strong ally in Russia
• Multiple humanitarian interventions
  boycotted in UNSC
• Over 200,000 killed and millions (9)
  displaced
• Population 22.8 million in 2013
• Over 3.9 millions have become
  refugees abroad and 6 million
  internally displaced
  
  • Turkey: 1.7 million
  • Lebanon: 1.2 million