Humanitarian Intervention - Criticism

Criticism

Many criticisms have been levied against humanitarian intervention. Inter-governmental bodies and commission reports composed by persons associated with governmental and international careers have rarely discussed the distorting selectivity of geopolitics behind humanitarian intervention nor potential hidden motivations of intervening parties. To find less veiled criticism one must usually turn to civil society perspectives, especially those shaped by independent scholars who benefit from academic freedom.

Some argue that humanitarian intervention is a modern manifestation of the Western colonialism of the 19th century. Anne Orford's work is a major contribution along these lines, demonstrating the extent to which the perils of the present for societies experiencing humanitarian catastrophes are directly attributable to the legacy of colonial rule. In the name of reconstruction, a capitalist set of constraints is imposed on a broken society that impairs its right of self-determination and prevents its leadership from adopting an approach to development that benefits the people of the country rather than makes foreign investors happy. The essence of her position is that “legal narratives” justifying humanitarian intervention have had the primary effect of sustaining “an unjust and exploitative status quo”.

Others argue that dominant countries, especially the United States and its coalition partners, are using humanitarian pretexts to pursue otherwise unacceptable geopolitical goals and to evade the non-intervention norm and legal prohibitions on the use of international force. Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali are at the forefront of this camp, viewing professions of humanitarian motivation with deep skepticism. They argue that the United States has continued to act with its own interests in mind, with the only change being that humanitarianism has become a legitimizing ideology for projection of U.S. hegemony in a post–Cold War world. Ali in particular argues that NATO intervention in Kosovo was conducted largely to boost NATO's credibility.

A third type of criticism centers on the event-based and inconsistent nature of most policies on humanitarian intervention. These critics argue that there is a tendency for the concept to be invoked in the heat of action, giving the appearance of propriety for Western television viewers, but that it neglects the conflicts that are forgotten by the media or occur based on chronic distresses rather than sudden crises. Henry Kissinger, for example, finds that Bill Clinton's practice of humanitarian intervention was wildly inconsistent. The US launched two military campaigns against Serbia while ignoring more widespread slaughter in Rwanda, justifying the Russian assault on Chechnya, and welcoming to the United States the second-ranking military official of a widely recognized severe human rights violator - the communist government of North Korea.

Humanitarian intervention has historically consisted of actions directed by Northern states within the internal affairs of Southern states, and has also led to criticism from many non-Western states. The norm of non-intervention and the primacy of sovereign equality are still cherished by the vast majority of states, which see in the new Western dispensation not a growing awareness of human rights, but a regression to the selective adherence to sovereignty of the pre–UN Charter world. During the G-77 summit, which brought together 133 nation-states, the "so-called right of humanitarian intervention" claimed by powerful states was condemned.