Humanitarian Intervention is military intervention that is carried out in pursuit of humanitarian rather than strategic objectives. This term is controversial and therefore often debated, as it is an evaluative and subjective term. The common use of the term itself is the desire to come in help to other people, however according to some other opinions, it is the outcome of the intervention that defines it. Firstly, it is essential to define what is meant by the word abandoned in this context. As HI has been happening throughout history, abandoned would imply an on-going lack or diminishing numbers of interventions.
In humanitarianism, the most relevant key concept is human rights, which is illustrated as rights to which people are entitled by the virtue of being human. Human rights are universal, meaning they apply to everyone regardless of their gender, culture or religion. In this essay I will mention key terms including violence, conflict and justice, as these are at the heart of humanitarian intervention. Power, which is not meant to be of much importance when discussing humanitarianism, is in reality, crucial. And this leads on to my first point.
As interdependence is rising in today’s world, power is too. This implies that countries, usually not democratic, have more state sovereignty on their people and therefore are likely to have an army, which makes it increasingly difficult for other countries to intervene. Unfortunately nowadays the effectiveness of HI is underestimated when a conflict comes, as “universal rights” and state sovereignty come face to face, state sovereignty usually wins the confrontation. Economic power also affects the number of interventions. The Chinese government, for example, violates human rights in some parts of the countries, especially near the borders of Tibet, and no military intervention from other countries is planned because of China’s well known world’s