Humanitarian Intervention

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As a humanitarian intervention engagement with armed groups in the territory of another is the state designated, which has the protection of people in a humanitarian emergency, such as large-scale human rights violations, to the goal. In a narrower sense, humanitarian interventions relate to the local population, not to the protection of citizens of the intervening countries (protection of their own nationals). A prerequisite is that the affected state is unable or unwilling to offer protection to those at risk itself. Humanitarian intervention is not anchored as an instrument in the Charter of the United Nations and conflicts with the principle of sovereignty , which is why the international law admissibility of humanitarian interventions is controversial.

Problem

Military intervention for humanitarian reasons can lead to a situation of undeclared war . There are controversial views in the discussion of the modern understanding of international law. At its core, it is a matter of weighing up two principles of international law : on the one hand there is respect for and protection of state sovereignty , on the other hand respect and protection of human rights .

Derivation and emergence of the problem

Although there was already a vague understanding of the problem in the early days of developing international law - in the context of the Thirty Years' War, the Swedish invasion was already operating under the guise of humanitarian concerns - in classical international law, the guiding principle of sovereignty of states failed to look at rights the population affected by the states. This began to change in the 19th century with the spread of human rights and the interventions in Greece (1827), Sicily (1856), Syria (1860), Crete (1866), Bosnia (1875), Bulgaria (1877), Macedonia ( 1887) and Cuba (1898). The General Prohibition of Force of the United Nations Charter changed this situation fundamentally and abolished the possibility of such an intervention.

With the emergence of international human rights protection, the problem has again become topical. The ever more sustainable enrichment of the modern international legal system with human rights content justifies a shift in international legal values ​​that has shaken the foundations of traditional understandings of international law as mere state law: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been adopted in the UN General Assembly since 1948 - and also since its further development of the Geneva Conventions until 1977 - the protection of human rights is considered part of customary international law .

The clarity of the problem is brought into global perception today through media images of violence and terror. Reports of massive human rights violations in various countries (e.g. Somalia , Bosnia-Herzegovina , Kosovo ) and deliberate obstruction of UN peacekeeping operations by conflicting parties, such as in the course of the Yugoslav wars, led to the question of whether there was a moral obligation Rescuing foreign state sovereignty, including through the use of military force, and protecting them from widespread persecution, displacement and murder, including genocide . In some cases, analogies were drawn to the intervention of the Allies in World War II , although this comparison appears to be misleading, since the direct cause of the Allied intervention at that time was not itself a humanitarian one: According to international law at the time, the genocide of the Jewish population probably had no right or be able to establish an obligation of third states to intervene. Only the German attacks on Poland and Czechoslovakia could, according to the classical understanding, provide a justification for the seizure of violence; the support for the victims of the Nazi regime among the European civilian population was therefore a secondary effect. This leaves the problem of what should happen if a state permits or commits crimes against humanity but does not violate the sovereignty of other states.

Newer development

Attempts have been made to take this into account. In the meantime, the UN Security Council has allowed serious human rights violations to be sufficient grounds for military intervention by foreign states. This was based on an expanded understanding of the concept of peace in the conditions for intervention in Article 39 of the UN Charter (Chapter VII) . The opening of the Security Council's options for action can therefore also be based on humanitarian protection purposes - according to the Somalia decision even if there is no cross-border element. (see United Nations Operation in Somalia I )

The group of 77 , which meanwhile includes 133 states, does not want to recognize titles of justification that are based solely on the justification of a humanitarian intervention. Furthermore, only the United Kingdom and Belgium have so far expressly taken the view that humanitarian intervention without a Security Council resolution is permissible under international law.

Will of the Security Council to act

The will to act on the part of the members of the Security Council and thus of the Council as a whole to stand up for the benefit of human rights is problematic, the fundamental respect and weighting of which varies widely in the Security Council. China questions the Western interpretation of the universality of human rights and is not a member of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights .

The UN Security Council's ability to act is limited by the different political interests of its members and the ability to veto decisions .

With its right of veto, the US has blocked numerous resolutions on the Arab territories occupied by Israel.

On July 11, 2008, China and Russia vetoed a long-term veto of a sanction intended to induce Zimbabwe's head of state Mugabe to end the terror against their own people after the lost election. The Russian UN representative Vitaly Tschurkin justified the veto by saying that the resolution was “an ... attempt to take the council ... beyond maintaining international peace and security. We believe such practices to be illegitimate ”. ("An ... attempt to take advantage of the advice ... beyond maintaining international peace and security. We think that such practices are not legitimate.") China's Ambassador Wang Guangya spoke of "domestic affairs".

On April 27, 2011, Russia and China also vetoed a resolution by the UN Security Council with very similar arguments, through which Syria should be condemned for its actions against demonstrators: The Russian UN representative Pankin stated that the behavior of the Syrian government "Poses no threat to peace and international security". Such a restriction of interventions to the maintenance of international security refers - even serious - human rights violations to the internal affairs of a state.

Intervention without the approval of the Security Council

This deficit in the UN system of not being able to adequately guarantee the protection of human rights due to the different interests of the member states is linked to the idea of ​​justifying humanitarian intervention without a resolution by the UN Security Council.

The explosive nature of this lies in the tension between the expressly specific principles of the UN Charter, which are understood to be the cornerstone of modern international law: the sovereignty and the interests of integrity of every state are flanked and protected by the prohibition of violence in Article 2, Paragraph 4. In addition to the Security Council's authority to act under Chapter VII and the right to self-defense, there is no exception to the prohibition of violence in the UN Charter.

Because within the framework of the Security Council - as explained above - due to political opportunity and different evaluations of the human rights of various veto powers, a consensus on intervention in a conflict that is limited to the internal territory of a state will only rarely be achieved and the exercise of the right of self-defense according to Art. 51 the UN Charter requires the existence of an armed attack by one state against another, the two irrevocably recognized breaches of the prohibition of violence do not apply solely to the protection of humanitarian concerns.

Asymmetry in international law

The UN Charter thus in fact privileges the sovereignty and consequently the continued interest of a state in its existence over the interests of its citizens in the protection of human rights through the prohibition of force. This leads to a structural imbalance in the UN Charter. In a change-oriented process of the international legal system of values, the emphasis of which has evidently shifted since 1945 towards the increased protection of the individual as the bearer of inalienable and inviolable rights, this formal view no longer appears to be unreservedly convincing and to demand more satisfactory answers.

In order to derive an answer from the UN system, which weighs up the various interests of its member states, the legal figure of humanitarian intervention has been dogmatically discussed at various points:

  1. A narrowing of the concept of violence in Article 2, Paragraph 4 of the UN Charter
  2. Positioning in Art. 51 based on a dynamic understanding of the fundamental values ​​of the UN Charter
  3. An appeal to the state of emergency under international law in favor of those affected (Karl Doehring)
  4. An independent justification outside of the classic principles

The assumption that the UN system is based on an unchangeable statics is deprived of its foundation due to the constant practice of the Security Council to understand the UN Charter in a dynamic and expanding way, so that further legal development is fundamentally possible here. It remains to be seen how changes can be given a direction and what consequences this would entail.

Arguments for the admissibility of humanitarian interventions

  1. The world community must not evade responsibility by the requirement of sovereignty and non-interference, because according to the modern understanding of human rights, these are taken out of the protected circle of internal affairs of a state - a state has no unrestricted rights over the people on its soil. But this setting has no value if it cannot be enforced.
  2. In the case of massive deaths for various reasons, there is no alternative to acting against the will of the respective state; Blue helmets are tied to the consent of the warring parties, so they are relatively ineffective.
  3. The risk of abuse on the one hand corresponds to the abusive failure of individual members to assume fiduciary responsibility for human rights in the UN Security Council, guided by interest politics and disinterest.
  4. The deterrent effect of justifying unilateral measures in favor of the battered population urges states not to commit massive human rights violations.

Arguments against admissibility

General objections to humanitarian interventions without the consent of the Security Council are:

  1. The risk of abuse is great - behind the high moral goal, interests politics (e.g. economic , strategic or domestic) are sometimes pursued. The goal of establishing global stability through the intergovernmental ban on violence will be jeopardized if the ban on violence is abolished through the back door.
  2. Rather, the war finds a new legitimacy and can easily slip out of political control. This may even make humanitarian aid more difficult.
  3. The choice of cases is difficult to justify: why is intervention being made in one country and not in another? Most of the time, the decision to intervene is a combination of political interests, media attention and pressure from public opinion.
  4. The appropriateness and effectiveness are questionable. Last but not least, the experiences in the Kosovo conflict are sobering.
  5. Humanitarian interventions are a distraction from solving the social question and a substitute for missing political concepts.

Conclusion

The international law debate on humanitarian interventions revolves around the permissible exceptions to the general prohibition of violence in the UN Charter (see Chapter VII of the UN Charter on Collective Security Measures). These exceptions are self-defense or the defense of an alliance partner. Against these exceptions, the necessity and justification of the protection of human rights, which are now regarded as binding under international law, in the event of massive violations such as genocide is used.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Declarations of the G77 summits in 1999 (see No. 69) and 2000 (see No. 54)
  2. ^ Syria action - UK government legal position. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Jennifer Trahan: In Defense of Humanitarian Intervention. In: OpinioJuris. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Worsnip, Patrick: Russia and China veto UN Zimbabwe sanctions (Reuters article of August 11, 2008)
  5. ↑ Nasaw, Daniel: China and Russia veto Zimbabwe (Guardian article, August 11, 2008)
  6. ↑ Breuch, Rolf: UN Security Council disagrees over Syria (Deutsche Welle article of April 28, 2011)