Military Intervention and Human Rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Military Intervention and Human Rights - Essay Example However, a general consensus has been developed about the basic idea behind humanitarian intervention; Humanitarian intervention is essentially an armed effort in which a state or a group of states intervene in the internal affairs of another state and it often involves the violation of international borders or airspace of that particular state. Moreover, the state against which the humanitarian intervention is being conducted does not necessarily pose a threat to the peace or security of other states therefore the military action is taken solely on humanitarian grounds for the protection of human rights. Humanitarian intervention is a matter of great debate today because it involves two of the fundamental pillars of the United Nations system; one of them being state sovereignty and other is the protection of human rights; and unfortunately the scenario of a humanitarian intervention involves dealing with very complex circumstances in which one of the two pillars mentioned have to be compromised for the greater good (Jokic, 2003). The proponents of humanitarian intervention argue that it is imperative in certain circumstances to conduct military operations in states where the people are being opressed by the government, particularly in states which are ruled by dictators because in such states the change of government is not possible without intervention from outside. However, the critics of humanitarian intervention argue that it can be used as a pretext for a military action for the achievement of the vested interests of strong actors in the international political scenario. The issue of humanitarian intervention is also important because of the fact that there are a large number of lives associated with a military action taken against a state. In this paper an analysis based on the scenarios in various countries various military interventio