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All 11 Flashcards — Humanitarian intervention
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Question
What is humanitarian intervention?
Answer
Outside action, often military, inside a state to protect its people from atrocities — usually without that state's consent.
Question
What tension does humanitarian intervention create?
Answer
Human rights (protect people) against sovereignty and non-intervention (don't interfere in another state).
Question
What is non-intervention?
Answer
The principle that states do not interfere in each other's internal affairs.
Question
What are atrocities?
Answer
Extremely cruel acts, such as genocide or mass killing — the kind of crimes intervention aims to stop.
Question
Why is Rwanda 1994 a key example?
Answer
The world failed to stop a genocide that killed ~800,000 — a symbol of the cost of inaction that drove the push for R2P.
Question
What are the arguments FOR intervention?
Answer
It stops atrocities and saves lives, sovereignty shouldn't shield mass murder, and the world has a moral duty to act.
Question
What are the arguments AGAINST intervention?
Answer
It breaks sovereignty, can be a cover for a great power's interests, is applied selectively, and can make things worse.
Question
Why is intervention called 'selective'?
Answer
Because the world acts in some crises but not others — often where powerful states' interests are involved.
Question
Does sovereignty protect a government committing atrocities?
Answer
This is the core debate: sovereignty says stay out, but human-rights advocates say some crimes are too terrible to ignore.
Question
What did the Rwanda failure lead to?
Answer
The later development of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) — a clearer rule on when the world should protect people.
Question
What is the balanced view of intervention?
Answer
It is justified for the worst atrocities, especially if UN-authorized, but must be guarded against becoming a cover for power.
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Topic 1.4 hub
Sovereignty
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