Humanitarian intervention and post-conflict reconstruction in the post-Cold War era: a provisional balance-sheet

Abstract

It is over twenty years since the ‘international community’ embarked on what seems to be an increasingly regular policy of intervening in the internal affairs of states on humanitarian grounds. A massive literature has developed that analyses the theoretical, political, legal, normative and strategic dimensions of humanitarian intervention. This article engages with that literature and attempts to draw a provisional balance sheet for this twenty-first-century activity by examining a number of key cases and analysing the motivations and drivers behind the decision to intervene as well as the practical consequences of the intervention itself. In the context of the recent crises in Libya, Syria and Mali, which are seemingly comparable situations but which have produced significantly different policy preferences on the part of the international community, the article concludes that there are few clear prescriptions as to when intervention is and is not appropriate or justified. The cases examined suggest that, all too often, intervention takes place hastily and in ad hoc fashion with too little thought about the medium- and long-term consequences, which often turn out to be in contradiction with the original motives for intervention.