Protection of human rights and armed conflict Essay

Protection of human rights and armed conflict - Essay Example Humanitarian intervention is primarily motivated by humanitarian objectives but in most of the cases there are strategic motives attached to the military action and the integrity and sovereignty of the state against which the action is taken is challenged which is totally against the UN charter and international law. There are no criteria established for humanitarian intervention to decide when, how and under what circumstances it becomes inevitable to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. The issue of humanitarian intervention has become the most debatable one ever since the end of the Cold War period because there are two schools of thoughts, one which considers it to be very legitimate, legal and essential for the establishment of UN human rights charter in each and every country of the world while others challenge its legality on the grounds of being against the sovereignty of a state (Murphy, 1996). The essay discusses the legality and effectiveness of the huma nitarian intervention with reference to various incidents of humanitarian intervention and peace operations in different regions of the world. Various different definitions have been presented by scholars from different schools of thoughts. ... The supporters of humanitarian intervention make the objective of provision of fundamental human rights to each and every individual in this world the basis of their support of external interference in the affairs of a state. The scholars and debaters who do not support the idea of humanitarian intervention argue on the basis of the Article 2(4) of the UN Charter which restricts the use of force against any sovereign state. They further argue that humanitarian intervention for the restoration of fundamental human rights can be used as a way of achieving the political and strategic goals by the countries that are imposing a military expedition on a country and this kind of abuse of humanitarian intervention is very easy to carry out. Under such circumstances the humanitarian intervention can never be effective enough to achieve the primary goals of the protection of human rights (Jokic, 2003). There are incidents in which humanitarian intervention has aggravated the violation of human rights in the affected areas. The military personnel of the peace keeping forces are sometimes involved in the violation of human rights. The deciding authority, the UN Security Council in most of the cases is a big question on the legitimacy and efficacy of the humanitarian intervention because certain states have political and strategic motives associated with the governments of certain states. For example recent scenario in Sudan where most of the states in the United Nations Security Council were in favor of a military intervention by UN forces, China had other plans because of its ties with the Sudanese government based on oil supply contracts between the two. In the following pages the effectiveness of humanitarian intervention