Thakur, Ramesh. "Humanitarian Intervention", In The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, edited by Sam Daws and Thomas G. Weiss. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Thakur, Ramesh. "Humanitarian Intervention", In The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, edited by Sam Daws and Thomas G. Weiss. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

• Humanitarian intervention is different than all other forms of armed conflict. Whereas traditional war is against states, peacekeeping is between states, collective security is all against one, and peace enforcement is against spoilers in the peace process, humanitarian intervention is on behalf of victims to stop the perpetration of crime (388).
• The argument against humanitarian intervention usually focuses on pragmatism and the potential risks of intervention. Very few arguments against humanitarian intervention exist in theory, usually disputes arise over implementation (388).
• The original conception of sovereignty dates from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, based around state authorities. However, by the late 1800s, there was a growing distinction made between state sovereignty and the national sovereignty of people living in a territory. In the 20th Century, this distinction became more radical, with some Western theorists arguing that sovereignty could not exist without the democratic consent of the population to the rule of that state (389).
• Contemporary disputes are between two different conceptions of sovereignty: "National sovereignty locates the state as the ultimate seat of power and authority, unconstrained by internal or external checks; constitutional sovereignty holds that the power and authority of the state are not absolute but contingent and constrained" (389).
• The most significant change in modern history has been the transition to an idea that in cases where a state is unwilling or unable to discharge its duties to protect and support the lives of its citizens, then the international community is both allowed and obliged to intervene (390).
• State sovereignty has been privileged over human rights for the first 4 decades of the UN, with the only exceptions being international measures against White minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia. During the 1990s, largely driven by the collapse of states in Yugoslavia and Somalia, this balance began to shift in favor of human rights over state sovereignty (391).
• During the Cold War, the international system generally valued peace more than human rights, largely because of great power dynamics. After the collapse of the Cold War, state became more willing to use force in conflicts they increasingly saw as unsolvable with limited tools. This included a rejection of peacekeeper impartiality, as recommended by the Brahimi report, as ineffective and resulting in complicity with evil (391).
• Humanitarian intervention has existed since at least the 1800s, with European power frequently intervening in the Ottoman Empire to protect the rights of Christians there. This 19th and early 20th Century history of humanitarian intervention as a cloak for colonial ambition has discredited it to large portions of the world (392).
• Although rare during the Cold War, states did use a number of justifications for the intervention of that time period, sometimes claiming that they were humanitarian in nature (393):
• The Soviet Union issued the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1968 regarding intervention in Czechoslovakia, arguing that fraternal assistance to a fellow‐socialist regime was not intervention.
• the USSR and the People' Republic of China argued that there assistance and aid to the Vietcong, technically not a country and therefore constituting an intervention in the State of Vietnam, was a legal counter-intervention in response to French and American intervention.
• Several countries, including Israel, South Africa, and the USA, justified short military incursions under the doctrine of hot pursuit, despite the fact that this was specifically meant to apply to maritime law.
• Israel justified several attacks on military facilities in Syria and Iraq on grounds of preemptive self-defense. It has also justified punitive actions as part of a doctrine of self-defense.
• America, Israel, and some European states have intervened in limited military engagements to rescue imprisoned nationals, arguing that they have jurisdiction to free hostages regardless of location.
• The US justified its intervention in Vietnam and the USSR justified its intervention in Afghanistan using the argument that occupation was legal under invitation by a legitimate government.
• What would now be termed humanitarian interventions, like the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia or the Indian intervention in East Pakistan, were then justified in terms of self-defense, citing either trans-border aggression by militias or the destabilizing effect of the resultant refugee crisis.
• The group most supportive of humanitarian intervention is the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, founded by Canada is 2000 to advocate and justify the international Responsibility to Protect [R2P] (397).
• The idea behind the Responsibility to Protect is that not only do affected states have a responsibility to conduct humanitarian activities, but the global community has a responsibility to intervene in cases when states are unable or unwilling to provide basic services and security for their population (398).
• "The issue is not the ‘right to intervene’ of any state, but the ‘responsibility to protect’ of every State" (398).
• The developing world is the most strongly united against the concept of humanitarian intervention, viewing state sovereignty as their last boundary against exploitation. After the Third World, many American legal theorists have been the most active group denouncing the 'right' to humanitarian intervention (396-397).
• This groups argues against the Responsibility to Protect as another method of justifying the use of force to accomplish national aims or as a pursuit of imperialism, similar to the interventions of the colonial era. They also argue that the pro-intervention side has shifted the debate into ideological terms, casting them as anti-humanitarian rather than anti-imperialist (397).
• The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect was endorsed by the UNGA at a summit in 2005, although only under very strict circumstances. The community made clear that intervention could only be justified in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, or crimes against humanity, and then only as a last resort where it was proportional and the consequences were not severe (398).
• Although typically considered 'interventions', the withdrawal of aid and investment can certainly constitute a form of 'soft' intervention. This form of intervention has become nearly universal as a response to unacceptable behavior (399).