CHAPTER ONE RESEARCH DESIGN         Background to the Research Problem

War over the centuries is a containing feature of international relations. While mortality is considered sacred and can only be affected by God or by the necessary earthly authorities; war has often been deemed a necessary evil as a means to dominate, prevent a greater calamity, or protect altruistic values and principles.

The world was taken by surprise in the 1990s about the terrible violence in countries of which the former Yugoslavia, Somalia and Rwanda were intricate in. The concept of ‘sovereignty’ crippled the international system in such a way that it was unable to do much to forestall the violent acts in these countries however, the founding of the United Nations (UN) during 1945 has had a cardinal goal of preventing conflicts between states and a dawning era of global security as well as peace. The stub of the Cold War also saw a drastic reduction of inter-state wars. In place of inter-state aggression, there is an increasing occurrence of war and violence within states.1

Thus, giving rise to the need for humanitarian intervention which characterizes intercessions in the domestic affairs of states by powerful states or collectively by powerful states. The concept of intervention has been previously engaged with reference to the annals of ancient political thought and its notable concept of the just war theory.2 Political thinkers such as John Stuart Mills, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel have proffered “when a state’s sovereignty should be disregarded and when it is respected by other states with reference to global concerns such as

humanitarian causes, national self-determination, and national security”.3 These political philosophers judged intervention not only as tolerable but mandatory. The Just War theory that emerged in the 16th and 17th Centuries permitted the right to wage war and punish tyrannies, enemies, enemies’ friends, rescue the afflicted or uphold revered values.4 However, humanitarian interventions span across several issues which include non-military interventions as captured by the international committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Actions such as Doctors without borders and relief supplies sent to naturally devastated areas (flood, earthquake, hurricane, landslides, etc.) which are highly commendable among other acts in general that are geared towards the global alleviation of human suffering.

In contrast, intervention in practice has been the locus of various controversies and is often seen as big-power politics. Political philosophers such as R Vincent were very skeptical about humanitarian intervention.

During the Cold War, given the realpolitik climate of the ideologically East-West divide, UN Charter 2(7) dominated and prevented ‘interference in the domestic affairs’ of state members. That era was marked with great suspicion for the incentives for intervention and it was forcefully rejected. Yet, it was marked by serious rights abuses in places like Chile, Zaire, and Cambodia when the states turned their war and egregious torture machines against parts of its population with impunity. The changed profile of threats to global peace, mostly transnational and the cusp of the Cold War resulted in the Boutros Boutros Ghali’s “Agenda for Peace”, a ground-breaking doctrine that sought to redefine sovereignty as a responsibility and called for forceful interposition in the domestic affairs of UN states members to maintain a long sought-after peace. The bound of the Cold War witnessed increased intervention as peacekeeping multiplied. UN

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