The Rise and Decline of Humanitarian Intervention and Responsibility to Protect

Abstract

This article contends that, the concept of Humanitarian Intervention that gained wide recognition and acceptance in post-cold war era has lost its value and efficacy due to its inability to meet up with its stated objective in the wake of the recent humanitarian crisis in North African and the Middle East. This paper predominantly reflects on the liberal school of thought that informs the modern principle of Humanitarian Intervention and Responsibility to Protect. The analysis answers the question, "why has the concept of Humanitarian Intervention lost its value amidst recent human atrocities" The analysis cuts across four different cases of humanitarian intervention from 1990s up to date. The cases analyzed suggest that the concept has lost its value and efficacy mainly because military humanitarian intervention has been transformed into a liberal technique of global governance used by powerful states (mostly Permanent Security member states) to pursue their geopolitical and strategic national interest. The article ends by underpinning the need to device new modalities within the UN operational framework that would restrain the political will of P5 member states in matters of humanitarian concerns.

International Law and Humanitarian Intervention in the Syrian Civil War: The Role of the United States

“…The realist perspective to humanitarian interventions stipulates that interventions are devoid of ethical and moral considerations and, as such, serve as tools for achieving strategic interests (Ngwa, 2017). In harmony with this, Taraboulsi-McCarthy et al (2016) argued that there are ties between a country's national interest and its decision to engage in humanitarian interventions.…”