Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Problems of Genocide
- PART A THE NATURE AND VALUE OF GROUPS
- PART B THE HARM OF GENOCIDE
- PART C ELEMENTS OF GENOCIDE
- PART D RESPONSIBILITY FOR GENOCIDE
- PART E SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF GENOCIDE
- 12 Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention
- 13 Reconciliation, Criminal Trials, and Genocide
- Bibliography
- Index
12 - Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Problems of Genocide
- PART A THE NATURE AND VALUE OF GROUPS
- PART B THE HARM OF GENOCIDE
- PART C ELEMENTS OF GENOCIDE
- PART D RESPONSIBILITY FOR GENOCIDE
- PART E SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF GENOCIDE
- 12 Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention
- 13 Reconciliation, Criminal Trials, and Genocide
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Even among those who are strong critics of humanitarian intervention, exceptions are often made for cases of genocide. Michael Walzer, for instance, puts genocide at the top of a very short list of exceptions to his general condemnation of humanitarian intervention for having violated the rights of a people to manage their own affairs. In this chapter I will try to explain why genocide is seen as so important that it can justify wars that otherwise would be roundly condemned. Indeed, genocide is often the example that is appealed to when one wishes to justify almost any strategy that might have hope of success, and this is true even for those who are not generally sympathetic to consequentialist strategies of justification. I will provide a limited defense of humanitarian intervention, but only a limited one.
When the term “genocide” is used popularly, it is often indistinguishable from mass atrocities in which thousands of people are killed. But the term genocide also has several specialized meanings that separate it from other atrocities, even from those that necessarily involve mass slaughter. I will continue to employ the term genocide as it is used in international law, namely, as the intent to destroy certain protected groups. When critics of humanitarian intervention make an exception for genocide, they typically have the more technical meaning in mind.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- GenocideA Normative Account, pp. 223 - 241Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010