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Advocates and opponents of humanitarian intervention From the 1860s onwards, international law became an academic discipline in its own right in Europe and the Americas, taught separately from philosophy, natural law or civil law, and came to be written by professional academics or theoretically inclined diplomats. 1 Until then what existed was the droit public de l’Europe or ‘external public law’. Britain in particular had to
This book is an attempt at a comprehensive presentation of the history of humanitarian intervention in the long nineteenth century, the heyday of this controversial doctrine. It starts with a brief presentation of the present situation and debate. The theoretical first part of the book starts with the genealogy of the idea, namely the quest for the progenitors of the idea in the sixteenth and seventeenth century which is a matter of controversy. Next the nineteenth century ‘civilization-barbarity’ dichotomy is covered and its bearing on humanitarian intervention, with its concomitant Eurocentric/Orientalist gaze towards the Ottomans and other states, concluding with the reaction of the Ottomans (as well as the Chinese and Japanese). Then the pivotal international law dimension is scrutinized, with the arguments of advocates and opponents of humanitarian intervention from the 1830s until the 1930s. The theoretical part of the book concludes with nineteenth century international political theory and intervention (Kant, Hegel, Cobden, Mazzini and especially J.S. Mill). In the practical second part of the book four cases studies of humanitarian intervention are examined in considerable detail: the Greek case (1821-1831), the Lebanon/Syria case (1860-61), the Balkan crisis and Bulgarian case (1875-78) in two chapters, and the U.S. intervention in Cuba (1895-98). Each cases study concludes with its bearing on the evolution of international norms and rules of conduct in instances of humanitarian plights. The concluding chapter identifies the main characteristics of intervention on humanitarian grounds during this period and today’s criticism and counter-criticism.
The just war doctrine The original just war doctrine was not concerned with intervening in other states for humanitarian reasons, but with providing just reasons for resorting to an inter-state war. It was only by the sixteenth century, coinciding with the birth of international law, then known as jus gentium or law of nations, under the sway of natural law, that support for those suffering from tyranny and maltreatment was seen as one of the
Contrary to international law, international political theory and political philosophy paid scant attention to the ethics of intervention in the long nineteenth century. 1 As for humanitarian intervention per se, there is nothing, apart from cursory remarks by John Stuart Mill and Giuseppe Mazzini. On the wider question of intervention and non-intervention we will refer to their views and to those of Kant, Hegel and Cobden. Based on today’s distinction
’s many commentators and critics. Key features of the debates over NATO’s employment of military power have been concerned with its legality and legitimacy (i.e. the role of the UN and international law), its ethical basis and its impact on the doctrine of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of states. The conceptual debates that have raged over these issues are important not only within the context of European security but
is one of the vaguest branches of international law. We are told that intervention is a right; that it is a crime; that it is the rule; that it is the exception; that it is never permissible at all’. 3 Following the Second World War the problem with intervention continued to be discussed in the international law and international relations literature. 4 In the post-Cold War era, with increasing interventionism, interest hardly diminished, the main
remained partly naturalists 10 and, more crucially, the previous universality of international law under naturalism is debatable, given the foundation of Christianity as a ‘limiting’ and ‘excluding concept’. 11 There may not be a proven causal correlation between legal positivism and Eurocentrism but there is an obvious correlation and interaction between them. 12 International law for most of the nineteenth century remained mainly the law between European states and
–72. 8 N. Chomsky, A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (New York: Verso, 2001). 9 T. Ali (ed.), Masters of the Universe? NATO’s Balkan Crusade (New York: Verso, 2000). 10 A. Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003
International Law , 23 (1985), 246–59; I. Pogany, ‘Humanitarian Intervention in International Law: The French Intervention in Syria Re-examined’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly , 35 (1986), 182–90. 2 The only exception was Pellegrino Rossi (a naturalized French citizen and close friend of François Guizot, French Foreign Minister), who advocated non-intervention (see chapter 4
international law discourse from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1930s and in particular from the 1870s onward (see chapter 4 ). As regards the practice of humanitarian intervention in the nineteenth century, we will highlight a number of characteristics. 1 Within a period of nine decades (1821–1914), there were barely four military interventions justified on humanitarian grounds, contrary to the 1990s, with as many as seven within a decade. Clearly, this