Humanitarian Military Intervention Research Articles

The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda

In 1994 genocide in Rwanda claimed the lives of at least 500,000 Tutsi --some three-quarters of their population --while UN peacekeepers were withdrawn and the rest of the world stood aside. Ever since, it has been argued that a small military intervention could have prevented most of the killing. In The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention, Alan J. Kuperman exposes such conventional wisdom as myth. Combining unprecedented analyses of the genocide's progression and the logistical limitations of humanitarian military intervention, Kuperman reaches a startling conclusion: even if Western leaders had ordered an intervention as soon as they became aware of a nationwide genocide in Rwanda, the intervention forces would have arrived too late to save more than a quarter of the 500,000 Tutsi ultimately killed. Serving as a cautionary message about the limits of humanitarian intervention, the book's concluding chapters address lessons for the future.

Altruism, Foreign Aid and Humanitarian Military Intervention

The stated objectives for countries in providing foreign aid have been strategic, economic and humanitarian. The end of the Cold War and the recent disintegration of territorial states has increased the prominence of the humanitarian objective. Therefore, the paper concentrates on the transfer of resources from wealthier and politically stable countries to poorer and politically unstable ones. The amount of foreign aid provided by governments and international relief agencies is determined by the altruistic desires of individuals. Within a median voter framework, it is found that foreign aid is increasing in the degree of altruism of the median voter, their income, the similarity the median voter has with the ethnicity or religion of the recipient group, and the number of civilian casualties resulting from armed conflicts in the recipient nation. Foreign aid is inversely related to the size of the recipient country and the extent that international relief is being pilfered. This latter result explains "foreign aid fatigue." An implication of this analysis is that donor nations may have an incentive to intervene militarily in civil conflicts which reduce the welfare of their altruistic citizens in order to establish order in the relief effort or to stabilize or establish a government capable of controlling the domestic unrest. This option will be chosen if the welfare of the median voter is greater under military intervention than under the status quo of continuing to send only aid. Intervention will occur, the more effective the military option is in reducing the unrest, the greater the degree of altruism of the median voter, the larger the size of the donor country, the lower the cost of intervention, the larger the extent and size of the group being victimized, the lower the relative valuation placed on alternative domestic uses of foreign aid, and the greater the size of the transfer being provided.

Humanitarian Military Intervention

Government-sanctioned mass killings in Kampuchea and Uganda in recent years argue forcefully for military intervention on humanitarian grounds. While international law does permit such intervention in special circumstances, there remains the need to devise satisfactory procedures for carrying out this intervention as well as effective international mechanisms to ensure that it is not used to promote a nation's own self-interest.

Justification: Legal and Political

Previous articleNext article No AccessJustification: Legal and PoliticalVirginia HeldVirginia Held Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 86, Number 1Oct., 1975 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/291976 Views: 7Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1975 University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jess Kyle Protecting the World: Military Humanitarian Intervention and the Ethics of Care, Hypatia 28, no.22 (Mar 2020): 257–273.https://doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12004David Lewis Feldman Public Choice Theory Applied to National Energy Policy: The Case of France, Journal of Public Policy 6, no.22 (Nov 2008): 137–158.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X00006462Friedrich Kratochwil Alternative criteria for evaluating foreign policy, International Interactions 8, no.1-21-2 (Jan 2008): 105–122.https://doi.org/10.1080/03050628108434571

Note

NotePublished Online:28 Jan 2014https://doi.org/10.1259/0007-1285-15-179-338-bSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail AboutAbstractChange of Address. Members are earnestly requested to keep us posted as to any change of address, temporary or permanent; in so doing they will facilitate considerably the prompt despatch and safe arrival of the Journal and other communications. Previous article Next article FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited byPreventing Military Humanitarian Intervention? John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas on a Just Global Order6 March 2019 | German Law Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 Volume 15, Issue 179November 1942Pages: 307-340 © The British Institute of Radiology History Published onlineJanuary 28,2014 Metrics Download PDF