Pros And Cons Of Humanitarian Intervention

The Debate on Humanitarian Intervention
Watanabe Koji When a massive and systematic violation of basic human rights is committed by the authorities of one state, can other states intervene forcefully to halt the violation? Since the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO’s) military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, the issue of what is now commonly called humanitarian intervention has become one of the most contentious subjects in managing contemporary international relations. Conspicuous in the argument on Kosovo has been the fact that most Asian countries were opposed to, or reluctant to endorse, the use of force by NATO against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Force, Intervention, and Sovereignty Project grew out of the recognition
Since the end of the cold war, the United States has, thus, justified humanitarian military intervention as a way of promoting peace. And so it was that, in March 1999, NATO used force against Yugoslavia, also on the grounds that to do so was necessary to avert an impending human catastrophe. However, the systemic violations of human rights in Kosovo were not halted by NATO intervention. In stark contrast, however, the intervention in East Timor reaffirmed the long-accepted rules of international intervention, for Indonesia gave its consent, the UN Security Council its authorization, and all the criteria for legitimate humanitarian intervention were met. Kim also raises the matter of human security, pointing out the importance of controlling knowledge and information. Networking and coalition building could help address human rights abuses, international crime, and human security issues, thereby bolstering democracy. The Korean position on intervention is somewhat similar to that of Japan, in the sense that South Korea is a member of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of industrial democracies respecting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Although
CONTRADICTION OF TWO NORMS The critical issue in any debate on humanitarian intervention is the need to harmonize intervention with the principle of sovereignty, which in essence requires that a sovereign state be treated as an independent political unit, its territorial integrity be respected, and it be allowed to pursue its domestic affairs without external interference. These stipulations are essentially those regulating inter-state relations that have evolved since the Treaty of Westphalia and have been codified as core principles of international law. In terms of intra-state affairs, however, sovereignty represents the result of a social contract between the government and the governed/citizens to ensure good governance. Some of the intra-state components of sovereignty already have been embedded in humanitarian norms—such as in the case of the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Genocide Convention of 1948, and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949—but it is only in the post–cold war world that democracy, human rights, and the rule of law have been recognized by the