Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T08:48:50.075Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Introduction to armed humanitarian intervention

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Don E. Scheid
Affiliation:
Winona State University, Minnesota
Don E. Scheid
Affiliation:
Winona State University, Minnesota
Get access

Summary

The chapters in this volume address normative issues concerning military interventions for humanitarian purposes. The modern debate about such interventions moved to a high point in the 1990s with a series of interventions and non-interventions, including Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Srebrenica/Bosnia (1995), and Kosovo (1999). This debate led to the development of a promising doctrine called “Responsibility to Protect” (RtoP). The RtoP rationale was implemented in 2011 when the UN Security Council approved military intervention in Libya, and this intervention again spurred debates about armed humanitarian interventions. The intervention in Libya provides the reference point for many of the chapters in the present collection.

Terminology and the concept of armed humanitarian intervention

The phrase “armed humanitarian intervention” (AHI) denotes a military intervention into the jurisdiction of a state by outside forces for humanitarian purposes. The humanitarian goal is to protect or rescue innocent people (i.e., non-combatants) from ongoing or imminent, grave, and massive human-rights violations – that is, from mass atrocities. The rationale is not punishment for past wrongs, but prevention. The intervention is conceived to be a last resort for averting or stopping atrocities such as genocide, crimes against humanity, or mass expulsions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Singer, Peter in “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (Spring 1972)Google Scholar
Singer, Peter, One World, 2nd edn. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004)Google Scholar
Huntington, S.P., “New Contingencies, Old Roles,” Joint Forces Quarterly 2 (Autumn 1993), 38–44Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John, The Federalist Papers, edited by Clinton Rossiter (New York: Penguin Group, 1961), Paper No. 51, 320
Annan, Kofi, Interventions: A Life in War and Peace (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 89–97Google Scholar
Annan, Kofi A., “Two Concepts of Sovereignty,” The Economist (September 16, 1999)Google Scholar
Annan, ’s Millennium Report to the General Assembly in 2000: We The Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-first Century (New York: UN Dept. of Public Information, March 2000)
Hilsum, Lindsey, Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), 39Google Scholar
Hauslohner, Abigail and Walt, Vivienne, “The War Between the Libyas,” Time (March 21, 2011), 30Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×