Humanitarian Intervention

Humanitarian intervention is a state's use of "military force against another state when the chief publicly declared aim of that military action is ending human-rights violations being perpetrated by the state against which it is directed." There is no one standard or legal definition of humanitarian intervention; the field of analysis (such as law, ethics, or politics) often influences the definition that is chosen. Differences in definition include variations in whether humanitarian interventions is limited to instances where there is an absence of consent from the host state; whether humanitarian intervention is limited to punishment actions; and whether humanitarian intervention is limited to cases where there has been explicit UN Security Council authorization for action. There is, however, a general consensus on some of its essential characteristics:

1. Humanitarian intervention involves the threat and use of military forces as a central feature
2. It is an intervention in the sense that it entails interfering in the internal affairs of a state by sending military forces into the territory or airspace of a sovereign state that has not committed an act of aggression against another state.
3. The intervention is in response to situations that do not necessarily pose direct threats to states’ strategic interests, but instead is motivated by humanitarian objectives.

The subject of humanitarian intervention has remained a compelling foreign policy issue, especially since NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, as it highlights the tension between the principle of state sovereignty – a defining pillar of the UN system and international law – and evolving international norms related to human rights and the use of force. Moreover, it has sparked normative and empirical debates over its legality, the ethics of using military force to respond to human rights violations, when it should occur, who should intervene, and whether it is effective.

To its proponents, it marks imperative action in the face of human rights abuses, over the rights of state sovereignty, while to its detractors it is often viewed as a pretext for military intervention often devoid of legal sanction, selectively deployed and achieving only ambiguous ends. Its frequent use following the end of the Cold War suggested to many that a new norm of military humanitarian intervention was emerging in international politics, although some now argue that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the US "war on terror" have brought the era of humanitarian intervention to an end. James Pattison, however, has recently argued that the NATO intervention in Libya has bucked this trend.