The United Nations (UN) was established with the explicit goal of “maintaining international peace and security” and providing “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms”. These principles were governed by national sovereignty which held that every state had the right to control its domestic political, economical and social order without foreign intervention.
This notion was created in order to put an end to the Thirty Years War by the signing of Westphalia Treaty in 1648, and to minimize the number of wars between rulers. Sovereignty has been the guide line in the operation of the UN and that is why interventions, up to the end of the Cold War, were highly criticised by both Realists and Pluralists. Post Cold-War brought a new type of wars (intra-state wars) into the international sphere; these wars are characterized by militia’s parties fighting each other within the territory of one state and, in the most part, humanitarian crisis. Because of that, interventions in recent conflicts have been authorised on humanitarian grounds, with the question of sovereignty being set aside in favour of providing humanitarian relief for those who suffer and are unprotected. Although more legitimized today, past experience has shown that humanitarian interventions are not the correct methodology in stopping conflicts, and there has been a growing debate on whether or not humanitarian intervention is only a temporary solution to humanitarian crisis. In this essay I will explore the evolution of humanitarian intervention, I will show, using study cases, that contemporary interventions are not useful in preventing or stoping conflicts and I will outline what I believe is a successful intervention.
Intervention is not a new concept. During history we have witnessed many examples of interventions; wether it manifested through political and financial control by super-powers in third world countries (which lasts up to recent times) or by the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions. During this time, interventions were criticized by international relations (IR) theorists on many different grounds. Pluralists’ thinkers argue that in the absence of a general consensus on principles of humanitarian intervention the most powerful states would be free to impose their own moral values. Hence, non-intervention is better for the general well being of all individuals. The Restrictionists is a legal approach which argues “that humanitarian intervention violates Article
2 (4) of the UN Charter and is illegal under both the UN Charter and customary international law”; the Rule-consequentialism argues that “International order and hence general well being is better served by a general prohibition against humanitarian intervention than by sanctioning humanitarian intervention in the absence of agreement on what principles should govern a right of unilateral humanitarian intervention”; while the Solidarism argues that intervention is not a legal methodology under today’s international law but sees the need to develop “consensual moral principles that would legitimate a practice of humanitarian intervention in international society”.