| dc.description.abstract | All over the world internal conflicts take place where hundreds and thousands of innocent people suffer from human rights abuse, often committed by the state, or one or more of the parts in the conflict. In some instances the situations of human rights abuse are so grave and systematic that it can only be described as genocide. How can and will the international community respond to these situations? In this thesis I will take a closer look at the concept of humanitarian intervention. The aim of the thesis is will be to provide answers to the question: Under which conditions political, social, economic and moral - will there be humanitarian interventions and what seems to be the most crucial triggering factors?
The cases of humanitarian interventions taking place during the 1990s included in this thesis are all cases where the international community, through the UN but led by the United States, have intervened with military force as a reaction to humanitarian crisis within another state. The question I want to ask in this thesis is what made the international community decide to initiate a humanitarian intervention to put a stop to these incidents of grave and systematic human rights abuse?
Because of the United States position in the international community in the period, the focus will be on the US decision, and analysis will therefore focus on these interventions: Northern Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The framework of this analysis is inspired by Alexander L. George s (1979) structured, focused comparison method which makes it possible to draw generalizations from a small number of cases. The method stipulates that one must structure the analysis of each case around a set of standardized general questions and focus selectively on those aspects of each case that are relevant for the research question.
Based on this I have structured the thesis around how four selected factors have influenced the intervention decision.
In the general debate about humanitarian interventions several explanations and theories have been put forward to explain why individual states or the international community makes the intervention decision. I have been drawing on these when formulating the set of standardized questions I will ask in each case. I have decided to focus on these four variables:
Variable 1: The first variable concerns the so-called CNN effect. What role does the media play in the period leading up to an eventual humanitarian intervention? Does media focus trigger the use of force for humanitarian purposes? The media has also been said to have the reverse effect the so-called body-bag syndrome. The role of the media can even be that state leaders use the media to get domestic support for their policies.
Variable 2: The national interest is often mentioned in discussions about humanitarian intervention. According to Jakobsen (1996: 206), every post-Cold War UN peace enforcement operation has been followed by a discussion about whether it was driven by national interest calculations or not. In traditional theory of political realism the national interest is connected to narrow geo-political and strategic interests. To what extent has the concept of national interest in international relations changed with the end of the Cold War, and to what extent does it determine the use of force for humanitarian purposes?
Variable 3: What is legitimacy and what is a legitimate intervention? The question of legitimacy is prominent in the debate about humanitarian intervention, but how does it affect the decision of whether or not to use force for humanitarian purposes? Is a general agreement that military intervention is a legitimate use of force in the given situation necessary for the decision to be made? Is a UNSC mandate necessary and sufficient for an intervention to be legitimate, and does a UNSC mandate automatically lead to the use of military force?
Variable 4: The last variable focuses on the domestic situation in the intervening state. The foreign policy of a state cannot be seen independently from domestic policy, but in this thesis the focus will also be on the normative beliefs and the strategic thinking of the state leaders, and their implications for decisions about the use of force for humanitarian purposes.
The findings does not provide a straightforward answer to the question of why the international community decides to undertake a humanitarian intervention as a response some humanitarian crises but not other, the response of the international community does not follow a pattern. It is possible to draw some conclusions about how the different factors influenced the intervention decision. The findings indicate that while all the factors might be necessary for the decision to be made, none of them prove sufficient.
One of the most important conclusions to be drawn from this study of why the international community decides to respond to some instances of grave and systematic human rights abuse and not others is that in the end it all comes down to political will. Whether or not the international community will use military force to halt or put and end to grave and systematic human rights abuse, even genocide, is, and there are no indications of change in the near future, a political question.
As long as the international response to humanitarian crises, grave and systematic human rights abuse and even genocide, continues to be a question of political will a consistent pattern of response is not likely to emerge. The international community has in most cases been reluctant to get involved in other states internal conflicts, and the decision to use military force has not been easily reached, however, in every case it has been the result of political will. | nor |