POL 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Jus Ad Bellum, Humanitarian Intervention
17 Dec 2016
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Politics Note 21
• Debates with respect to definitions, criteria, decision-making process, implementation
• New perception/momentum
• the Post-Cold War environment is more conducive to successful interventions.
• Important distinction: humanitarian intervention discussed as a right, not a duty.
• States meant that if they felt compelled to intervene with humanitarian action, they had a right to
do so, but they did not have a duty to do so in case they were not interested: Northern Iraq,
Somalia, Rwanda, Kosovo.
• Humanitarian intervention - the case of NATO actio i Kosoo “A e justificatio for ilitary
action beyond the Jus ad bellum legalist paradigm
NATO’s Definition:
• A humanitarian intervention is an armed intervention in another state without the agreement of
that state to address (the threat of) a humanitarian disaster caused by grave and large-scale
violations of fundamental human rights.
(Definition adopted by a NATO in 1999)
Key aspects of this definition are related to:
1) sovereignty
2) pre-eminence of human rights
• Under this definition action in East Timor, while motivated by humanitarian concerns, was not an
intervention as the action was undertaken with the consent of the Indonesian government
(questions of the power of that government to enforce the decision aside).
• If violence does not spill across the border, the state can do whatever it wants to its people.
Critique
I. Outdated security vision
• The UN Charter - designed to prevent aggression between states not what takes place within state
borders
II. Security Council not a completely unbiased body
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