Humanitarian Intervention, right or wrong

Introduction

The purpose of this to paper is to conduct a critical and comparative analysis of the articles related to the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. In this paper we have discussed the related issue in relation to a particular contemporary or historical example. Humanitarian Intervention is always met with criticism, both when it takes place and when it fails to happen. Paradoxically, both these objections are defendable, as evidence shows that the principle has been applied unjustly in some cases, and irrationally was not implemented in others; even in cases of compelling need. Taxes and death have always been part of our lives, so as the debate that whether nations should have the authority or right to intervene in the affairs of others. Humanitarian wars intended to protect potential victims whereas be neutral the whole time. Although, there has been incidents where human intervention has failed still there is a strong need for nations to opt for the alternative of human intervention. This paper will discuss three factors of human interventions; concept of human intervention, intention behind human interventions and lastly the failures of human intervention. By doing so, the discussion will highlight the relevance of the concept of human intervention while presenting the pros and cons of the intention behind human interventions. In order to do so adequately, the discussion will also elaborate on the failures of human intervention. In the next section, we will expand our boundaries of knowledge by exploring some contrasting facts and figures with reference to Waltzer's, Evans' and Mamdani's perspective on the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention.

Discussion & Analysis

In this section, we will present and analyze the three contrasting aspects of humanitarian intervention exhibited in Waltzer's, Evans' and Mamdani's article.

Mamdani's perspective on the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention

According to Mamdani (2010), those who face human rights as the language of an externally-driven 'humanitarian intervention' are required to contend with a legal regime where the very notion of human rights law is defined outside of a political process, whether democratic or not, that includes them as meaningful participants. Particularly for those in Africa, more than anywhere else, the ICC heralds a regime of legal and political dependency, much as Bretton Woods's institutions pioneered an international regime of economic dependency in the 1980s and 1990s. The real danger of detaching the legal from the political regime and handing it over to human rights devotees, shall we say human rights fundamentalists, meaning those who believe that the pursuit of human rights should not be qualified by any external considerations?-is that it will turn the pursuit of justice into revenge-seeking, thereby obstructing the search for reconciliation and a durable peace (Mamdani, pp.53-67).

Waltzer's perspective on the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention

Humanitarian intervention can be defined as the use or threat of power by an external force, or party to safeguard the citizens of a country or state from mass scale infringement of their human rights. Humanitarian intervention has both admirers as well as critics. Humanitarian intervention's detractors are of the ...