Humanitarian Intervention in Syria: A Critical Analysis

Abstract

In academic and intellectual circles, Humanitarian Intervention (HI) and the duty to protect have historically been seen as morally and ethically right because of its contentious practices have been at the forefront of international relations discourse in recent years. Having failed to come up with a consensus set of rules, parameters and principles to justify intervention, the Just War logic of Humanitarian Intervention falls flat on the face of the sovereign rights of the states. In this milieu, this article critically examines the rationale of humanitarian intervention in Syria and evaluates the concept of just war to claim that it is outdated and its application in the name of humanitarian intervention needs to be assessed. This study adopts the theory of social constructivism to decode the liberal perspective of Humanitarian Invention as a just war or socially constructed to manipulate world public opinion and address the inherent national interests of involved countries or the diplomatic failure of the United Nations Organization.