A Cycle of Human Rights and Conflict

The idea of human rights and the various conflicts it involves are often inseparable in our progressively globalized world. In a sense, human rights and conflict share an interrelated relationship in which they complement each another through the ultimate goal of achieving positive peace and human justice. Ensuring human rights contributes to conflict just as conflict calls for the protection of human rights. In particular, the ethnic warfare in Kosovo eventually led to an unauthorized military intervention in order to prevent genocide. Conversely, a second case illustrates the link between threats of terrorism since September 11th in the U.S. and the violation of human rights in the spread of torture culture. Together, both case studies show that the peacebuilding process is made up of both issues of human rights and violent conflicts. Although the two cases imply different causal directions between human rights and conflict, they also share common features, challenges, core issues, and the intention of reaching a world of sustainable peace.

In 1998, land disputes and ethnic conflicts escalated the level of violence between the Yugoslav police forces and Kosovar Albanian paramilitaries, leaving the country desperate for international assistance. Approximately ninety percent of the country was inhabited by Albanian Muslims, but they were being driven out of Kosovo by Milosevic's forces (Robertson, 471). Additionally, Yugoslav police forces and paramilitaries committed atrocities beyond actions of counter-terrorism—refusing to reduce its troops and carrying out police operations that harmed defenseless civilians. Further pushing Western intervention was the massacre of 1,800 civilians in early 1999 (Robertson, 479). It was a specific event like this that led the U.S. and NATO, backed by their European allies, to take immediate action and prevent the eventual crime against humanity. The ethnic cleansing of Albanians would also create a refugee crisis and impact bordering states in the long-run; it was going to require assistance from external actors.

However, the campaign of NATO to bomb Kosovo also faces oppositions. First, it is possible that the bombings augmented the level of violence already existent in the country. For instance, the first bombing mission on March 24th contributed to the chaos and allowed Serbian forces to intensify the ethnic cleansing process of wiping out the Albanian population. Still, another criticism was NATO's insistence on not committing ground troops in the battle, so as to minimize their loss of personnel. Consequently, 500 innocent civilian lives were lost, both Serbs and Albanians (Robertson, 481). Thus, in the larger picture the excessive precaution that NATO forces took prolonged the operation and resulted in more extreme violent conflict and greater casualties. The campaign also instigated conflict on the inside with clashing views from different countries regarding NATO decisions. Legal teams from the U.S., France, and Great Britain at times reached different conclusions about the actions that NATO took. The Americans, for example, discontinued their use of cluster bombs while the British dropped them throughout the war and caused unnecessary civilian death (Robertson, 482).

Criticisms aside, the humanitarian intervention in Kosovo succeeded with their initial mission of protecting human security by restoring Kosovars to their homeland. A peace agreement signed on June 9th drove the Serbs out of Kosovo and returned political power to the people. Overall, the operation was not a complete failure but that is not to say that this humanitarian mission maintained peace either. As Michael S. Lund suggests, human rights can be a source of conflict as well. In struggling to “enforce contemporary international legal standards for human rights during the course of intrastate violent conflicts...the combatants usually and often deliberately inflict violence on noncombatants (Mertus, 39). In the case of Kosovo, NATO's peace operation in a way heightened violence in the country with its attacks. The consequences of bombing damaged Kosovars and civilian infrastructure, worsening the refugee issue and destroyed many cities and towns in the process (Mertus, 193). Moreover, Lund further supports the argument that the enforcement of human rights standards can contribute to more violence in states. Lund states, “Human rights are not simply something that may or may not be abridged or enforced amid or after a conflict; they are often what the conflict is about” (Mertus, 39). Humanitarian intervention is a complex peacekeeping process and massive responsibility that comes with pure intentions, but opposing force with force does not amount to resolving all conflicts. Hence, regardless of whichever causes the other the intervention in Kosovo shows a definite interrelationship between human rights and conflict.

Yet, the terrorist attacks of September 11th examines another way in which human rights and conflict go hand in hand in the international peacekeeping agenda. Following the hijacking of multiple American Airlines flights and the loss of 2,973 civilian lives, America saw a growing acceptance of the use of torture for purposes of national security (Robertson, 517). Declaring jihad versus America, Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida had one political objective: to kill all Americans wherever they were found. The violence they inflicted is beyond that of the passengers killed on the American Airlines—operations in previous years ranged from bombing U.S. embassies to attacking U.S. troops on their missions (Robertson, 514). Because of the systematic violence against Americans, U.S. legislation became increasingly committed to using any necessary means, including torture, to restore “justice” and defend the state.

Torture has been practiced by governments throughout history and is a common defense mechanism and security strategy. The rationale behind that logic is purely to ensure national security, but resorting to torture and interrogation tactics only dehumanizes the victims. Torture techniques not only inflict physical pain but often causes psychological trauma on individuals, leaving them without medical or psychological treatment afterwards (Amnesty, 87). The effects of torture instead defeats the purpose of securing human rights by abusing the individual rights of its victims and perpetuating the vicious cycle. As Lisa Schirch explains, “...the deprivation of human rights and human needs is the major cause of conflict...when conflicts turn violent, they deny people's need for security and lead to further human rights abuses” (Mertus, 67). The spread of torture culture further reinforces the violence created by terrorism and, in turn, human insecurity results in more conflict. Evidently, human rights issues, violence, and conflict are closely related in the conflict resolution process and its challenge of getting to positive peace.

Most of all, the two case studies of humanitarian intervention in Kosovo and terrorism since 9/11 present both similarities and differences in regards to peacekeeping approach. To begin, their actions and measures taken were founded on a principle of positive peace: a world not only absent of violence but one that ensures the social justice of every individual. In Kosovo, there was a need for intervention and attention from the international community due to rapid civilian death and increasing refugee flows. States resort to humanitarian intervention in severe cases of human rights violations, and the situation in Kosovo proved to be one. Although the operation in Kosovo was not executed flawlessly, its objective and intention was to restore peace in the country. Similarly, the post-9/11 use of torture abused human rights on an extreme scale but was carried out in the name of national security to defend American justice. Both situations, therefore, can be explained by a liberalist ideology of turning to a sustainable form of peace. Furthermore, as Robertson defines, both instances were crimes against humanity in which “multiple acts of murder committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population” (Robertson, 521). Violence was inflicted on innocent Kosovar and American civilian populations, and the use of force was legitimized on those grounds in the respective cases. Overthrowing the Taliban and Yugoslavian governments is then justified in order to prevent the crimes against humanity. The case studies also shared similar challenges and issues. Even though it was not their intention, controversy erupted because both reinforced the violence using tactics like intervening with aerial bombing and cruel torture methods. Nonetheless, the wars in Kosovo and responses to terrorism after September 11th show the overall interconnected relationship between conflict and human rights in a peacekeeping framework of striving for positive peace.