Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and intervention

1
Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Disposition Lecture 4
• Humanitarian challenges and
  interventions
• The concept of Humanitarianism
• Evolution of the humanitarian Idea
• Humanitarian Law
• Human Rights

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Humanitarianism
• The concern for human well-being
• Humanitarian
• A person who actively engages in promoting human
  welfare
• Each humanitarian is free to determine what
  actions promote human welfare
• Hence, it is hard to say what humanitarianism is

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Evolution of the humanitarian idea
• Human rights have a long history in theory and
  have even been practised occasionally
• It was, however, the American (1776) and French
  (1789) revolutions that sought to create national
  politics based on broadly shared human rights.
• Despite the rhetorics of universality, human
  rights, however, remained essentially a concern
  for the sovereign national state, whether to be
  accepted or not, until the end of WW II when they
  were recognised in (global) international law

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Separate between
• International law (including human rights)
• and
• International humanitarian law (Laws of war)

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Humanitarian Law
• The battle of Solferino (1859) between Austria
  and France. More than 40.000 troops lay scattered
  on the battlefield
• Henri Dunant (a Swiss businessman and pacifist)
  saw the damages of the battlefield and started to
  help the wounded
• Convinced Napoleon III to render the first
  official proclamation regarding the rights of
  those suffering from war injuries

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Napoleon III ordered the release of all Austrian
  doctors and surgeons so that they could return to
  their regiments and threat their wounded
• For some Dunants response to the battle of
  Solferino marks the beginning of modern
  humanitarian action
• Dunant later founded the Red Cross in Geneva in
  1864 (ICRC)
• The same year the First Geneva Convention to
  protect the sick and wounded in war time was
  signed
• There is an intimately connection between The Red
  Cross and the drafting and enforcement of (later)
  Geneva conventions

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• In 1899 a treaty concerning asphyxiating
  (kvävande) gases and expanding bullets were
  signed
• In 1907, 13 separate treaties were signed,
  followed in 1925 by the Geneva Gas Protocol,
  which prohibited the use of poison gas and the
  practice of bacteriological warfare
• In 1929, two more Geneva Conventions dealt with
  the treatment of wounded and prisoners of war
  were signed

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• In 1949, four Geneva Conventions extended
  protections to those shipwrecked at sea and to
  civilians
• I) For the amelioration of the condition of the
  wounded and sick in armed forces in the field.
  Sets forth the protections for members of the
  armed forces who become wounded or sick
• II) Extends the protections to wounded sick and
  shipwrecked members of naval forces

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Lists the rights of prisoners of war
• Deals with the protection of the civilian
  population in times of war
• Two additional protocols in 1977
• Extends protection to victims of wars against
  racist regimes, wars of self determination, and
  against alien oppression
• Extends protection to victims of internal
  conflicts in which an armed opposition controls
  enough territory to enable them to carry out
  sustained military operations

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Hence, there is no one Geneva Convention. Like
  any other body of international law, the laws of
  war have been assembled piecemeal, and are, in
  fact, still under construction
• It is impossible to produce a complete and
  up-to-date list of war crimes. Even today, weapon
  systems such as land mines are being debated at
  the highest level of international politics
• But, the most basic protections and prohibitions
  are to be found in the four conventions and the
  two 1977 protocols

11
Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• International rules about soldiers
• Distinction between combatants and civilians
• A civilian who shoots a soldiers may be liable
  for murder while a soldier who shoots an enemy
  soldier and is captured may not be punished
• Combatants must wear uniforms and carry their
  weapons openly during military operations and
  during preparation for them

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Medical and religious personal are considered as
  non-combatants even though they may wear uniform.
  Medical personnel may also carry small arms to
  use in self-defence if illegally attacked
• Mercenaries are specifically excluded from
  protections
• Combatants who deliberately violate the rules
  about maintaining a clear division between
  combatant and non-combatant groups are no longer
  protected by the Geneva conventions

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Combatants who do fall within the guidelines of
  the Geneva conventions enjoy the following
  protections
• Prisoners of war must be treated humanely (No
  torture, medical or scientific experiments.
  Protection against violence intimidation (hot),
  insults, and public curiosity. The public display
  of POWs is also prohibited S. Hussein)
• POW must only give their names, ranks, birth
  dates and serial numbers
• POW must be immediately evacuated away from a
  combat zone . They may not be used as human
  shields
• POW may not be punished for the acts the
  committed during the fighting unless the opposing
  side would have punished its own soldiers for
  those acts as well

14
Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• International rules about civilians (during war
  time)
• Civilians are not to be subject to attack
• There is to be no destruction of property unless
  justified by military necessity
• Individuals or groups must not be deported,
  regardless of motive
• Civilians must not be used as hostages
• Civilians must not be subjected to outrages upon
  personal dignity (våld mot den personliga
  värdigheten)
• Civilians must not be tortured, raped or enslaved

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Civilians must not be subjected to collective
  punishment and reprisals
• Civilians must not receive differential treatment
  based on race, religion, nationality, or
  political allegiance
• Warring parties must not use or develop
  biological weapons and must not not allow
  children under 15 participate in hostilities or
  to be recruited into the armed forces

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• International rules about journalists
• Journalists are considered civilians and must
  therefore not be deliberately targeted, detained
  (kvarhållna), or otherwise or mistreated any
  more than any other civilian
• May not wear uniforms and openly carrying firearms

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Grievance procedures (klagan)
• If a person or group fells that their rights have
  been violated, there are a number of agencies and
  organisation to whom they may turn to for help
• ICRC
• UN
• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Watch
• Doctors without Borders, et cetera

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• How are war criminals prosecuted under
  humanitarian law?
• On becoming party to the Geneva conventions,
  States undertake to enact any legislation
  necessary to punish persons guilty of grave
  breaches of the conventions
• States are also bound to prosecute in their own
  courts any person suspected of having committed
  any grave breach of the conventions, or to hand
  that person over for judgment to another state
• Hence, suspected war criminals must be prosecuted
  at all times and all places, and States are
  responsible for ensuring that this is done

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• What happens when a state does not fulfil its
  obligations? Does there exist any international
  legal order?
• Nuremberg and Tokyo after the end of WW II
• Ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals
• Rwanda (Arusha) and former Yugoslavia (The Hague)
• Ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals
• International Criminal Court (The Hague)
• Established by the Rome Statute (1998)
• Permanent court
• Entered into force 1/7 2002
• See www.unorg/law/icc/

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• The International Human Rights Regime is an
  established feature of contemporary world
  society, and a good example of the processes of
  globalisation
• Modern thinking distinguishes between three
  generations of rights first, broadly political,
  second, economic and social, third, the rights of
  peoples
• One major set of contemporary problems concerns
  compliance and enforcement

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• More recently, the universal status of human
  rights has come to be challenged by critics who
  stress the western, masculine, intolerant nature
  of this universalism.
• We need to establish the status of rights what
  a right is, what kind of rights people have,
  whether rights imply duties, and why?

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• The distinction between rights as claims,
  liberties, powers, and immunities helps to
  clarify these questions
• The origin of thinking about rights can be traced
  to two features of medieval political and
  intellectual life, the doctrine of natural law
  and the political practice of extracting charters
  of liberties

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Natural Law generates universal rights and
  duties, while a Charter confers local and
  particular liberties. The actual rights and
  liberties conveyed by Charters may be compatible
  with natural law, but this compatibility cannot
  be relied upon and a potential conflict exists
  between these two sources of the idea of rights

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• From out of Medieval theory and practice a
  synthesis emerged, the Liberal Position on Human
  Rights, which combines universal and
  particularist thinking universal rights
  established by a contract between rulers and
  ruled.
• This position is conceptually suspect, but
  politically and rhetorically powerful.

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Nineteenth century liberalism supported
  international humanitarian reform but within the
  limits of the norms of sovereignty and
  non-intervention.
• For some liberals these latter norms did not
  apply when the Standards of Civilisation were in
  question. Twentieth Century thinking on human
  rights has been less restrictive, largely because
  of the horrors of the World Wars and the
  Holocaust

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• 1948 and the modern agenda
• UNDHR (1948) OH
• The politics of the Universal Declaration of 1948
  allow us to identify the three major human rights
  issues of the post 1945 era
• First, there is the contest between the old norm
  of sovereignty and the new norm of universal
  domestic standards
• Second, there is the contest between political
  and liberal and social and economic formulations
  of human rights
• Finally, there is the assertion of the rights of
  peoples to be different

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• The Politics of Human Rights promotion
• The politics of rights varies according to
  whether constitutional or non-constitutional
  regimes are involved
• In any event, the international community rarely
  acts on human rights cases unless public opinion
  is engaged
• Economic and social rights are conceptually
  different from political rights, and present a
  more basic challenge to existing norms of
  sovereignty and non-intervention

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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Universalism challenged
• The human rights template severely limits the
  degree of acceptable variation in social
  practices.
• This universalism can be challenged on feminist
  grounds as privileging patriarchy.
• More generally, the liberal position on rights
  privileges a particular account of human dignity.
  
• Cultural critics of universal rights such as
  proponents of Asian Values can be seen as
  self-serving, but, by definition, no neutral
  criteria for assessing this criticism can exist.

29
Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention

• Conclusion
• Separate between Humanitarian law and Human
  Rights
• Luxemburgs figure
• Humanitarian intervention --gt
• What is the problem with humanitarian
  interventions?