Arguments For And Against Humanitarian Intervention (A Case Study Of Libya)

Introduction

The purpose for humanitarian intervention is to support those in need and provide relief items to those deprived. Humanitarian intervention every now and then comes in two folds: it is either there is a military intervention or one that is actually humanitarian “assistance.” Over the years, globalization has now become the order of the day which has made the world a global village and liberalism is popularly responsible for such a phenomenon. According to Eleanor, Borton and Forley (2013) they held the view that, relating history within the humanitarian community. These scholars took the words of Valerie Amos, United Nations Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and emergency Relief Coordinator, we must understand our past (OCHA,2012:11.) Or, as Peter Walker and Daniel Maxwell (2009:13) to put it: understanding the history of humanitarian action can help us understand past humanitarian actions. Some scholars decide to denote the concept of humanitarian intervention-with the purpose of eliminate the suffering others. Nowadays, humanitarian aid is probably old but its development can be currently found anywhere especially the deprived countries and are usually temporally. Humanitarian aid has been targeted only towards natural disasters, poverty and providing relief items to those in need. Humanitarian intervention is a problem that many people cannot place a finger on which means that it has been quite a difficult. In the words of Rysaback Smith, (2016) humanitarian aid has been with us from time memorial and human history, yet it is only until recently that portion of it have started to appear or show up. Disasters be it as they may be are defined as violent, armed conflicts, devasting impact on people’s lives. Some scholars go on to say that humanitarianism is premised on the radical notion that every person’s worth is equal (p, 613). Some scholars hold the view that the issue of humanitarian aid is a serious problem and is usually a form of intervention which is against normal practice. In that regard, it has usually been observed that states must protect its citizens and they have to be sovereign this means that if states are not able to protect its citizens, they have lost their validity. When one consider an intervention to be of international concern and who is responsible for making such a decision? Some scholars assert that, the UN (United Nations) under international law that has the right to make an authorized intervention but even if the UN (United Nations) is solely responsible it is made up of member states and these members have interest at stake. The aim of this paper is to address the question as to whether humanitarian aid is necessary when considering the case of Libya, before I delve in deeper it would be good to have a good context of what humanitarian intervention is.

However, humanitarian intervention is arguably baseless as it is merely a form of intervention. To add on, the closing chapters of the Cold War threw questions that many international agencies had found hard to give precise answers to, as to whether it was intervention based on national interest or humanitarian aid. In the words of Chandler, (2004, p,59) This has, however, been a dilemma because whilst more than a million people are losing their lives at a split second, peculiar cases are given much attention than others. Humans are killed every day but why are some sidelined and others are taken with much interest?

Primarily, before examining the impact that NATO made which changed the entire course of history to leave a country leaderless. It would be trivial to take the NATO community at their word and not to have a little introspection into what happened. First, it is key to note that, NATO is a group of security communities that have their headquarters but no military forces of its own, it establishes a common understanding, shared practices and interest between member states, establishing document is based on shared Western identity and values. Equally, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) came into existence during 1949, NATO had intervened in some number of countries notably: Afghanistan and Bosnia. Not to mention, decision taken by NATO are usually ran through a “consensus” by all the 29 member states, as a matter of fact, the criteria for NATO membership is only to European state in the capacity to continue in line with the Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, n.d &Walt, 1998, p,31). Therefore, before the question of humanitarian intervention becomes a problem? The next question to ask is whether there is an interest involved?

A case study of Libya upon recent studies showed that civilians who experienced the violent attacks stated that it was of no help and that many lives were at risk and that there was a national interest at stake. NATO went to the UN for authorization to intervene in Libyan affairs in 2011. They proposed that they will declare a no-fly zone over Benghazi the NATO went to Libya and started bombing places, including Gaddafi compound. They searched and found him in sewage according to some reports. He was later confirmed dead but no one actually took responsibility for that and it was entirely seen as a “regime change.” For that reason, usually there are numerous amounts of challenges with relief aid and materials for development as well. When carefully looking at what transpired with regards to Libya, rules of international law were overlooked in the sense that, when Gaddaffi was found unarmed and had surrendered instead of the militants to take him in for interrogation as the law requires he was shot.

Before justifying the claims for and against humanitarian aid. It is believed that NATO applied the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) to support the claim for humanitarian intervention, this intervention is the only one that had implemented the use of the concept of R2P which provides that every state has the first responsibility of preserving populations within its jurisdiction against acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and thought that it was enough reason to intercede claiming that the government had harmed more civilians. Some scholars say that, their reason does not seem valid enough because the basis for which they went there says otherwise. Some critics of the liberal school of thoughts held the stance that, the universality of human rights and that all human populations deserve the respect of human rights. Another point, would be the fact that humanitarian intervention does not justify itself because it has never been applied where the perpetrators are the great powers. However, humanitarian intervention has been criticized for violating the state sovereignty principles that were established by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Numerous realists’ scholars have held it dear that humanitarian intervention is a breach of international law as it shows a disregard for traditional respect for national frontiers.

However, with regards to what other schools of thoughts have to say about humanitarian aid being more about good than harm when one takes into consideration the case of Operation to Restore Hope (ORH) initiated by President Bush, which was an agenda to provide food aid too hard to reach places where the landlords forbade but was this a distraction to continue another agenda because it seemed that the US had other plans?

Detractors against humanitarian aid, raised some points that clearly states that the domestic issues of a state can no longer just be contained to the state for that reason, human rights violations are subject to international condemnation. For instance: some school thoughts of the liberals’ stance that all human populations deserve the respect of human rights. In the words of Chandler, (2004, p, 59)

“Those who are in the support of the right for intervention mainly Western states, have decided to support the liberal internationalist claims that new institutions ranking individual rights to protection promise a framework of liberal peace (Chandler, 2004, p, 59).”

In the quote above, this simply put means the liberals believe that there can keep the peace that the realist regime could not through their intervention through the use of institutions but this leaves rooms for questions.

According to Walt, (1998, p,31) some realists’ scholars have held it dear that humanitarian intervention is a breach of international law as it shows a disregard for traditional respect for national borders which means that the state would not want another state entering its border because this brings about the question of who has the right to intervene. Again, in the realist perspective, realism theory has a doubtful outlook towards the end of conflicts, do not believe that conflicts are avoidable, so they do not believe in stepping in another’s countries affairs to resolve them. Unlike, the liberals whom held the stance that, in order to maintain peace it is only best to cooperate through institutions and also liberals held or hold the stance that civilians are important and people are paramount. In light of that, some schools of thoughts would assert that, NATO came in the name of humanitarian intervention but rather had the agenda to push forward liberalism ideology which is all about Western ideologies. In one sense this could be true because in all the 29 member states that are present there are no Islamic or Muslim nation states.

In the long run, humanitarian intervention can be a problematic issue because whose responsible for claiming a state’s sovereignty on the basis that civilians are killed regularly. In international law, it is the UNSC (United Nations Security Council) under the UN who are responsible for such actions but as to what caused the NATO community to have a say in what has become the root cause of this problem at hand. The humanitarian intervention had become a tool to advance other ambitions instead of human lives and in other cases, human lives had been regarded but not entirely there was a sense of cultural imperialism. However, realism has become the reason why some states have decided to stay in their lane. A typical country that has taken the concept to heart will be that of America it had been a country that was isolated from the affairs of other countries until recently it had decided to make allies. The story of Libya is pretty much not that hard to understand it involves two sides the transition government and the puppet government. The story plays out as such that Libyans were in outburst and did not like the way that their dictator was acting out so the question posed will be who called for the USA or an intervention. Basically, there are two stories usually told about this and one side of the story states out that many civilians lost their lives drastically. More also, another account states that it was not a smart move to kill Gaddafi because the aftermath can still be seen up to date. However, Libyans have not been the same since, the NATO Led Intervention it was a defining moment which has made an impact on the way that countries react to saving lives. Humanitarian intervention is not totally bad practice but with this case aims and objectives were not clear.

References

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