CONCEPTUALIZATION OF HUMANITARIAN INTEVERNTION
2.4. Conditions That Requires Humanitarian Intervention
According to Gibbs (2009), the advocates of humanitarian intervention have always harboured qualms and distrust about the notion of interventionism. These suspicions and distrust were/are informed by the deleterious aftermath of the external intervention in the Vietnam War, and also the ousting of the democratically elected Allende government of Chile. Be that as it may, these suspicions and distrust toward humanitarian intervention do not seek to substitute or overcast the reality that in many parts of the world exist human suffering. Moreover, that human suffering is brought about by both natural and man-made events. It is during these events that intervention for humanitarian purposes is required. The atrocities that occur during war are ordinarily classified as war crimes and crime against humanity. It is those crimes that are deemed as dangers that need to be averted through humanitarian intervention before the unquantifiable and unnecessary sufferings, and damages which are most of the time qualified as ‘collateral damage’ occur.
Any sovereign state is trusted with the primary responsibility, which is to protect and provide for its citizens. This responsibility, inter alia, protection of human rights, preventing ethnic cleansing, curbing genocidal attempts, suppress any form of violence and refraining from using sovereignty as the veil to carry out killings of its own people. The foregoing responsibilities are anticipated from any sovereign state that is a member or non-member of the United Nations. The failure of any sovereign state to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens, or the act of the governing bodies that entails violations of human rights begs the international community to act for reasons that are altruistic or intervene for humanitarian reasons. Hence, Stahn (2007), postulates that the inability or unwillingness of sovereign state[s] to protect their own population from avertable cataclysm that responsibility ought to be borne by the broader community of states. Be that as it may, the carrying out of that responsibility should be facilitated by the right body, which in the case of humanitarian intervention is the United Nations Security Council.
Humanitarian intervention as the last resort after all other means, inter alia, political and economic sanctions have been exploited and failed to work, can be exercised. During armed conflicts, it
inevitable that human rights are trampled upon. Hence, the state as the custodian of these rights has to act in the interest of protecting them. The failure of the state to protect human rights as the primary custodian invites the international community to exercise this responsibility (Deng, Kimaro, Lyons, Rothchild and Zartman, 2010). Furthermore, that right is ceded to the international community by the precepts of the UN Charter. As the international legal framework outlines the forms of activities that threaten human rights and subsequently pose threat to the international peace and order. Various ways in which human rights violations are termed include war crimes or crimes against humanity, which ultimately pose danger to international peace and security.
Additionally, either non-state actors or the state itself can commit these condemned acts or the government can perpetrate such crimes. In such cases where a government commits these crimes utilizes sovereignty as the veil. However, in differing instances human rights violations are perpetrated by small groups that rise against the authorities (insurgence) or it could be in instances where two or more groups are fighting over resource or drawn borders.
2.4.1. War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
The international law divides these crimes into two, namely crimes against humanity or war crimes. War crimes are classified as the global crimes perpetrated during armed conflicts (May, 2007). These crimes are deemed to be against the humanness rather than just defilement of justice or the rule of law. In contemporary conflicts people on a daily basis are witnessing the horrifying handiwork of torment, of slaughterers and of genocidaire. More often than, not such actions come from the poorly trained combatants. Furthermore, it is ordinary civilians who suffer from such unjust actions. The failure of belligerents to adhere to the principles of the just war doctrine (to be discussed later) has undermined human rights more than anything else. These unlawful acts are committed during the war and some are carried out deliberately, and as the means to achieve ends.
It is such conditions that beg for humanitarian intervention, however, that intervention should be procedural in the sense that all other pacific means were exercised and proved to be abortive. It is the failure of pacific means and continuation of human suffering that gives the UNSC the authority to consent humanitarian military intervention. War crimes and crimes against humanity are a classification of the conditions that underscores humanitarian intervention. According to Scheffer (1999), theories of war and other relevant international treaties appear to mean very little to the perpetrators of barbarism if they are cognizant of them at all. Their behaviour seems to suggest that belligerents and their commanders target ordinary civilians and apply disproportional force.
a) War Crimes
War crimes refer to deeds or blunders that are perpetrated in the progression of an armed conflict and during the perpetration of such acts international customary law was contravened (Paust, Scharf, Sadat, Bassiouni, Gurulé, Zagaris and Williams, 2000). For these atrocious acts to be qualified as war crimes should consist among other things, the breach of the international customary law and entail grave consequences for the victims. The perpetrators of war crimes intentionally contravene the values that constitute international treaties on war. While people carry out war crimes individuals suffer and their human rights are flouted. The acts that constitute war crimes among other things include, murder, atrocious treatment of individuals, deliberately attacking civilians as the primary targets of war, rape, arbitrary detainment and pillage. The perpetual continuation of such acts infringes on the rights of individuals. It is the responsibility of the concerned states to protect their citizens and the failure to do that or if the crimes are carried out by the governments the international community yields the responsibility to protect. However, that responsibility to protect should be preceded by other means that are not inclusive of force. The employment of humanitarian military intervention should be the last resort (Walzer, 2004).
b) Crimes against Humanity
Crimes against humanity, under Rome statute, Article 7, are qualified as the actions deliberately perpetrated as the part of extensive or methodical assaults aimed at noncombatant population (Burns, 2007). Similar to war crimes, carrying out of crimes against humanity is the contravention of the international treaties and eventually the international law. Moreover, crimes against humanity are categorized as the inhumane acts or persecutions carried out premised on the basis of religious, racial or political grounds (Lippman, 1997). These crimes involve among other things murder or extermination of a large group of people, enslavement, deportation, torture, and sexual violence such as rape, prostitution and forced pregnancy. In cases where a large number of people are killed, it could be genocide or ethnic cleansing. International law makes provisions for the wider community of states to act in unison without hesitation to rout out such actions where they exist or when there are elements that exhibit signs of such acts. Human rights are the core drivers for the international community to protect. The categorization of atrocious acts the crimes against humanity constitutes the effort by the UN and all other relevant bodies to preclude human rights
violations. Humanitarian intervention is one mechanism employed to achieve the protection of human rights.