Permissible and Obligatory Humanitarian Intervention Conditions

The phrase humanitarian intervention can be employed to characterize the states usage of military force against a different state. This is under the condition where the principal publicly affirms the aim of such an action ending with brutal violation of the human rights of persons where the use of military forces is directed. In the past, there have been dilemmas on the conditions under which the use of a humanitarian intervention can be considered to be permissible or obligatory. This essay is a discussion of why the third parties should know the conditions of permissible and obligatory humanitarian interventions when offering humanitarian intervention assistance to affected states or nations.

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Permissible Conditions for Humanitarian Intervention

According to Jeff McMahan, there are several conditions where the morality of a humanitarian intervention can be deemed to be permissible. First, the ostensible beneficiaries of the external assistance must clearly welcome the assistance of the external power for the humanitarian condition to be considered as permissible. According to McMahan, the populations in the affected community must demonstrate a dire need to receive aid as a remedy for their disadvantaged situation perpetrated by military forces from a different state. This is even at an expense of compromising their national philosophies aimed at protecting the integrity and humanitarian policies of all citizens in the state.

This philosophical approach in addressing the permissibility of a humanitarian intervention is valid and goes in an accordance with the stated guidelines by the United Nations of sanctioning a humanitarian intervention. In addition, according to McMahans arguments the other condition that must be met for a humanitarian intervention to be considered permissible is that the intervening state must be in a position to be trusted. This means that the state should not abuse its acquired power of intervention by unduly using its influence to profit from the resources of the affected state. This means that the intervening state should not participate in the intervention process for the sole purpose of benefiting at the expense of the suffering state.

However, the affected nation can accept the risk of being abused by the intervening state in the event their situation is so desperate and they are willing to risk the abuse at the cost of being rescued. According to McMahan, a humanitarian action should be considered to be permissible if the affected state knowingly accepts the assistance of a different state; even though such an acceptance could make it abused by the intervening state. In addition, McMahan states that for a humanitarian action to be deemed permissible it should not be a violation of the collective self-determination rights of a single nation.

This argument by McMahan suggests that the willingness of all the potential beneficiaries of a humanitarian intervention to place themselves at the risk of the intervening power suggests that they may not recognize themselves as part of the political community. Such is a political community structured by either the government or its supporters. From a philosophical perspective, such beneficiaries must have distanced themselves from recognizing the government and its constitution as the supreme guidelines of protecting the public from all forms of violent forces. Such violent forces could either be intrastate or from international communities.

Also, under the permissible humanitarian intervention conditions, for the beneficiaries to receive the aid inform of intervention, they should welcome it as a requirement of consent. Nevertheless, in the event the affected state prohibits a third party from offering its assistance in form of a humanitarian intervention, the intervening party has no legal obligation to force a humanitarian intervention on the perceived beneficiaries. McMahan offers an illustration to support this argument through an example of a child who is lethally assaulting his mother. According to the example, the only way to protect the mother would be to kill the child. Nevertheless, in the event the mother asks her child not to be killed, an intervening party has no moral obligation to stop the assaulting child by killing him. For such a reason such a humanitarian action should not be deemed as permissible.

From McMahans publication, it is evident that over the years most nations participation in the humanitarian intervention efforts have solely been built on the gains that the intervening nations would attain upon offering their aid. McMahan offers an example of the Rwanda Genocide crisis in 1994 when thousands of persons from the Tutsi community were murdered by the members of the majority Hutu community. At the time, Rwanda was a small and insignificant nation to all the superpowers in the world, and most of them refused to offer any humanitarian intervention assistance to the nation. At the time, the Rwandese communities affected by the civil war would have accepted the assistance. Nevertheless, such efforts were denied to them because they did not have any major resources that could be traded for humanitarian intervention assistance from the super powers.

The aftermath of the Rwanda genocide illustrated that in most cases, most intervening states or nations fail to know the conditions under which a humanitarian intervention should be performed because of its permissibility. This is because it was evident that since Rwanda did not have any major resource that could benefit any superpowers, no nation was willing to offer any humanitarian intervention aid to the nation as a remedy for combating the civil war. According to McMahan, any intervention that might have been offered to the Rwandese government could not have affected the economic or military position of the intervening superpower. In addition, the negligence in following the permissible conditions of the humanitarian actions can also be supported by the United States participation in the Iraq war during the former President Bushs administration.

According to McMahan, Bushs efforts to control war in Iraq was faced with a lot of controversies due to the catastrophic number of deaths that were reported in the nation at the time. In the past, some philosophers have argued that the usage of the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq by the United States forces caused the genocide in Iraq. Nevertheless, it is arguable that the United States intervention efforts in Iraq were founded on the reason that the United States wanted to protect its interests in the extensive oilfields that are present in Iraq. In respect to this argument, it can be stated that the United States was keen to exploit the oil, a primary natural resource in Iraq in return for military intervention. This phenomenon further supports the argument of this research that the intervening nations should have a background knowledge of the permissible conditions of humanitarian intervention.

Obligatory Conditions for Humanitarian Intervention

According to McMahans publication, there is no definitive instance when a state may feel to have an obligation to offer a humanitarian intervention to another state during the times of war. This is more so because the intervention of a single state in offering humanitarian intervention aid to a different state may cause the intervening state a considerable amount of loss. Such losses could occur inform of a significant destruction of the military forces of the intervening state or loss of lives of the citizens of the intervening state. Nevertheless, according to McMahans argument, Kor-Chor Tan offers one of the best possible examples of the instance when a humanitarian intervention should be considered to be obligatory.

According to Kor-Chor Tan, for a humanitarian intervention to deemed as obligatory, the causes of conflict or violence within a state should be immensely critical to creating a violation of the human rights in the state. It should also cause an override of the sovereign rights of the other states to a state of neutrality. According to Tan, whenever a humanitarian intervention is morally permissible it should also be considered to be morally obligatory to be executed by a state in aid of another state. That is only in case the humanitarian rights are the public members of the affected state are being compromised by the acts of violence perpetrated by a specified group within that state.

Nevertheless, according to Tan, the intervening state must be in a position to successfully conduct a humanitarian intervention without suffering from any form of prohibitive costs. Nevertheless, according to McMahan, Tans theory pertaining obligatory human interventions poses two critical problems. First, the sovereign right of one state against the acts of intervention should be varying from its rights to neutrality. This means that the persons from one state should not be morally obligated to place their lives in line in an effort to save the lives of other persons. This is because they have no responsibility to the plight of the residents of the affected state.

Second, according to McMahans argument, the rights to neutrality should also be considered as the claim-rights whereby they should not be coerced to undertake actions that are permissibly not obligated for them to do. This means that persons from a state that has the capabilities of offering a humanitarian intervention towards another state should not be forced by doing so by any statute from the other states. From these arguments, it is essential for any state to know the obligatory conditions under which they can offer a humanitarian intervention towards the troubling state. They should know the conditions to consider before offering a humanitarian intervention.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is essential for states and nations to know the conditions to consider when offering permissible or obligatory humanitarian interventions to different states that are in crisis. According to McMahan, there are several conditions that govern the usage of permissible humanitarian interventions. First, the ostensible beneficiaries of the external assistance must clearly welcome the assistance of the external power for the humanitarian condition to be considered as permissible. Secondly, the intervening state should not abuse its acquired power of intervention by unduly using its influence to profit from the resources of the affected state. In addition, when offering obligatory humanitarian interventions, for the intervention to deemed as obligatory, the causes of conflict within a state should be immensely critical to creating a violation of the human rights in the state. It should also cause an override of the sovereign rights of the other states to a state of neutrality.