Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention

Read "Genocide and Human Rights" by Scott Straus from Human Rights: Politics and Practice by Michael Goodhart.

Read "Humanitarian Intervention" by Alan Kuperman from Human Rights: Politics and Practice by Michael Goodhart.

Read "Humanitarian Intervention" by Andrew Heywood from Global Politics published by Palgrave (optional).

What are the six components to jus ad bellum the three components to jus in bello?

• Third-party involvement in conflict, including humanitarian intervention

• Manifestations of conflict: Genocide

How do you thing genocide differs from ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity?

See this section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website for details.

This documentary is an introduction to the topic of humanitarian intervention and genocide, but also a connection to the justification for violence, UN intervention and international law. Consider the Myanmar story, is it the ultimate justification for violence?

• Third-party involvement in conflict, including humanitarian intervention

• Justifications of violence, including just war theory

• Manifestations of conflict: Genocide

Obama from A Promised Land (2020) on a Responsibility to Protect

As much as I shared the impulse to save innocent people from tyrants, I was profoundly wary of ordering any kind of military action against Libya, for the same reason that I’d declined Samantha’s suggestion that my Nobel Prize address include an explicit argument for a global “responsibility to protect” civilians against their own governments. Where would the obligation to intervene end? And what were the parameters? How many people would need to have been killed, and how many more would have to be at risk, to trigger a US military response? Why Libya and not the Congo, for example, where a series of civil conflicts had resulted in millions of civilian deaths? Would we intervene only when there was no change of US casualties? Bill Clinton had thought the risks were low back in 1993, when he sent special operations forces into Somalia to capture members of a warlord’s organization in support of US peacekeeping efforts there. In the incident known as “Black Hawk Down,” eighteen service members were killed and seventy-three more wounded.

The truth is that war is never tidy and always results in unintended consequences, even when launched against seemingly powerless countries on behalf of a righteous cause (p. 655).

Humanitarian intervention is based on the assumption that the highest priority of the international community during a war should be protecting civilians from harm, but is that always true? Are other goals, such as freedom or democracy, important enough that the international community should prioritize them above the protection of civilians? Moreover, is it possible that the opposing groups in a domestic conflict have the right to settle their dispute by force, if they so choose, without outside interference? What gives outsiders the right to intervene in other countries, especially ones that are far away and may have very different cultures? Think back to the US Civil War in which more than half a million Americans died before the Union defeated the Confederacy, unifying the country and ending slavery. In retrospect, would it have been preferable for interveners to stop the violence on humanitarian grounds, even if that preserved the slave-holding Confederacy?

Consider some of the questions above and complete a Theory of Knowledge reflection on the question of: What gives outsiders the right to intervene in other countries, especially ones that are far away and may have very different cultures?

1. Consider what assumptions you bring to the question, what seems to be your automatic response to the question of intervention. What causes you to make those assumptions?

2. Drawing on your discussions from the "is humanitarian intervention ever justified" activity, how, if ever, can we make a decision about what is the right action as it relates to humanitarian intervention?

Assume you are the head of a Genocide Prevention Committee commissioned by the United Nations.

Your task is to develop preventive measures in order to assist the international community in recognizing potential genocides. In other words, now that you have developed a general understanding of the causes of genocide, what do you think could and should be done to prevent genocide in the future?

These solutions must be what you believe to be appropriate; they must be, most importantly, viable solutions to the problem of genocide – will your solutions work?

It is important to incorporate your understanding of the historical causes of genocide. Reflecting on the historical causes should give you some insight into establishing some preventive measures that could be put in place to ensure potential genocides are recognized early, so that appropriate, effective actions can be taken to immediately avert these disasters.

Thoroughly explain your solutions and recognize possible problems with them and, in the process, come up with at least three concrete, realistic solutions to genocide.