The Ethics And Politics Of Humanitarian Intervention

In 1995 the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame hosted the first of the Theodore M. Hesburgh Lectures on Ethics and Public Policy. Stanley Hoffmann delivered two lectures on the problems of humanitarian intervention in international relations. This volume presents these lectures.

An interdisciplinary approach to humanitarian intervention by experts in law, politics, and ethics.

How severe must human suffering be before military intervention is considered? Can there be commensurate legal grounding for such an argument? Which actors are the most appropriate agents of intervention? In this reasonable and straightforward approach to the perplexing issue of humanitarian intervention, Eric A. Heinze incorporates insights from various strands of ethical, legal, and international relations theory. He identifies the conditions under which humanitarian intervention is morally permissible, establishes the extent to which such an ethical argument can be grounded in international law, and determines which actors are best equipped to undertake this task under prevailing political conditions. Heinze presents the reader with a number of empirical examples, including the 1999 Kosovo intervention, the 2003 Iraq war, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan. The result is a more theoretically consistent—and therefore more practically workable—approach to humanitarian intervention.

Ten new essays critique the practice armed humanitarian intervention, and the 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine that advocates its use under certain circumstances. The contributors investigate the causes and consequences, as well as the uses and abuses, of armed humanitarian intervention. One enduring concern is that such interventions are liable to be employed as a foreign policy instrument by powerful states pursuing geo-political interests. Some of the chapters interrogate how the presence of ulterior motives impact on the moral credentials of armed humanitarian intervention. Others shine a light on the potential adverse effects of such interventions, even where they are motivated primarily by humanitarian concern. The volume also tracks the evolution of the R2P norm, and draws attention to how it has evolved, for better or for worse, since UN member states unanimously accepted it over a decade ago. In some respects the norm has been distorted to yield prescriptions, and to impose constraints, fundamentally at odds with the spirit of the R2P idea. This gives us all the more reason to be cautious of unwarranted optimism about humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect.

Asks whether it is ethical to intervene in humanitarian crises, particularly when they occur in nation states alienated from the international community. Experts consider the moral and practical aspects of diplomatic, military, and armed humanitarian intervention in places such as Rwanda, East Timor, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

While the 1990s gave rise to a wealth of literature on the notion of ethical foreign policy, it has tended to simply focus on a version of realism, which overlooks the role of ethics in international affairs, lacking an empirical analysis of foreign policy decision-making, with relation to ethical values in the post-Cold War period. This book addresses this gap in the literature by exploring ethical realism as a theoretical framework and, in particular, by looking at US humanitarian interventions at an empirical level to analyse ethical foreign policy in practice. Furthermore, it moves beyond the debate on legality or legitimacy of humanitarian interventions and focuses on whether a state would intervene for humanitarian purposes. Chang provides a deeper understanding of ethical foreign policy in theory and practice by applying ethical realism as a theoretical framework to evaluate the Clinton administration's foreign policy on humanitarian intervention. She addresses concepts of moral leadership and pragmatic foreign policy in the field of international relations in general and foreign policy analysis in particular.

This book is a collection of original essays by some of the leading moral and political thinkers of our time on the ethical and legal implications of humanitarian military intervention. As the rules for the new world order are worked out in the aftermath of the Cold War, this issue is likely to arise more and more frequently, and the moral implications of such interventions will become a major focus for international law, the United Nations, regional organizations such as NATO, and the foreign policies of nations. The essays collected here present a variety of normative perspectives on topics such as the just-war theory and its limits, secession and international law, and new approaches toward the moral legitimacy of intervention. They form a challenging and timely volume that will interest political philosophers, political theorists, readers in law and international relations, and anyone interested in moral dimensions of international affairs.

New essays on philosophical, legal, and moral aspects of armed humanitarian intervention, including discussion of the 2011 bombing in Libya.