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Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and intervention

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Title: 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

2
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

3
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

4
Conflict Theory Humanitarian challenges and
intervention
  • Separate between
  • International law (including human rights)
  • and
  • International humanitarian law (Laws of war)

5
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

6
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

7
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

8
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

9
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

10
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

12
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

13
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

15
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

16
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

17
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

18
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

19
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/

20
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

21
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?

22
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

23
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

24
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.

25
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

26
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

27
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

28
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?
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