The world has witnessed a series of humanitarian crisis and different responses have risen to such situations especially on international interventions on altruistic grounds. Force should be used against sovereign states for humanitarian reasons. Many of the countries where forceful intervention is demanded, violation of human rights by the ruling regimes is usually the issue at hand. There are no domestic jurisdictions that justify any genocidal acts against defenseless citizens (Sandvik, 2017). Notably, the sovereignty of any nation is anchored in the protection of human rights and the international community is obliged to overcome the international boundaries with the main aim of protecting human rights. Under the sovereignty discourse, independent nations should be the principles actors and centers of power and their objects of interest is to protect human rights (Catley " Hadrill, 2012). In any altruistic interventions, the primary factors are the humanitarian aspects and therefore, forceful efforts should be made to secure the freedom of the people and mitigating oppression in the event the concerned governments fail to act upon the violation of human rights (Sandvik, 2017). International aid organizations such as the United Nations should negotiate with the governments to gain access to the affected communities in the case of civil wars and humanitarian emergencies. Remarkably, military components in any intervention should be avoided since the civilians end up suffering more due to their defenseless nature. However, the presence of the peacekeepers should be accepted to avoid ambiguous situations where interventions turn into attacks that lead to conflict. In some circumstances like in the former Yugoslavia and Somalia, the international community is forced to engage in arbitration activities that they did not intend as a result of using military interventions.
There are various legal contestations concerning the use of force in humanitarian interventions. The international law should be concerned with the relationships between states and the treatment of nationals within their state. The use of force in the name of humanitarian basis should be exceptional to compromising with the sovereignty of the states (Davenport, 2015). Forceful intervention in a country should not be interpreted as a move to undermine the ruling government or a threat to territorial integrity and political independence. On the contrary, it should be understood as a way to ensure the protection of basic human rights. The domestic jurisdiction of a state is to protect the citizens from any form of prejudice or coercion and in case the government fails to provide the needed security, forceful international interventions by the United Nations are necessary. Just like any other interdependence of states such as military, cultural, or economic affairs, the domestic order should not enjoy autonomy (Davenport, 2015). The happenings of elsewhere including foreign states is a primary concern of many countries since whatever happens in a foreign country could be easily replicated in other nations. Remarkably, injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere and massive human rights violations affect other states through creating refugee situations in nearby countries leading to a humanitarian crisis.
The violations of human principles should not be left within the realm of domestic jurisdiction but should have an international component. Any act of aggression, breach or threat to the peace of the people should warrant nonmilitary and military international interventions (van der Linden, 2014). The United Nations should have the power to interfere with internal wars in a country especially if the warring nations invest their power and prestige in nuclear weapons that threaten international peace (Catley " Hadrill, 2012). Therefore, whenever it is necessary to eliminate such risks, the United Nations should be obliged to take action. The world community has fundamental preferences and some situations such as famine in a certain country might cause a massive migration of people across various state boundaries (van der Linden, 2014). Therefore, international bodies such as the united nations should have the right to intervene and offer support to the people through donating both food and non-food items. In such situations, the government should not interfere with the intervention but instead support to avert the humanitarian crisis. Some no-violent machinery such as the Human Rights Commission in the United Nations has been constituted to advocate for human rights all over the world. However, as presently constituted, past practices have revealed that the mechanisms employed by the commission cannot effectively deal with the issue of abuses of human rights all over the world (Haar, 2015). Notably, there are various nonviolent forceful interventions to deal with a humanitarian crisis in a country. However, the various mechanisms of enforcement do not work in a consistent, efficient, and a timely manner and thus the various diplomatic channels of the United Nations are used (Haar, 2015). The affected country can be forced to publicize the domestic abuses through calling for domestic boycotts by the member states. The boycott should be incapacitating to force the affected nation to act upon the contentious issue.
The use of force for the protection of citizens against oppression should be an exception and the United Nations charter should outline the legalities of any form of external aggression geared towards solving a humanitarian crisis. As long as there is sufficient evidence to prove human rights violations, international interventions should be executed (Pagallo, 2016). Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola among other states in the world have experienced prolonged human conflict due to lack of external military intervention (Pagallo, 2016). Clearly, other states are unwilling to interfere with the undertakings of the warring states irrespective of proof of human rights defilements due to lack of a legal framework. The United Nations is the only body in the world that is mandated to fight wars on behalf of humanity and therefore if the member countries approve the use of force to mitigate further escalation of security in the member countries, the move should be supported (JANSE, 2015). The African Union Mission in Somalia has helped to bring order in a country where human rights violations are propagated by extremist groups that have vowed to take control of the country (Underwood, 2016). The peacekeeping mission in Somalia by the African Union with the approval of the United Nations was necessary for humanitarian reasons. The government of Somalia was unable to contain the terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab who continued to gather support from other extremist groups in the world such as al-Qaida.
The violation of the sovereignty of a nation through humanitarian intervention for the sole purpose of protecting human life from civil breakdowns, famine or government repression should be given a new lease on life. The use of force has been successful in countries such as Angola, Sudan, Haiti, Liberia, Mozambique, Zaire and Bosnia (Saleem, 2013). Outstandingly, the concept of sovereignty should not be a stumbling block to help people in need and therefore, the political and the legal controversies surrounding the sovereignty of a nation should be resolved (Heintze, Zwitter " McDermott, 2016). The end of colonization resulted in mushrooming of absolutist governments where the issue of sovereignty lied in the hands of the ruler and not the people. In many independent nations in the world, the rights to declare war is accorded to the rulers (Saleem, 2013). In the Nazi regime in Germany, the issue of national sovereignty that advocated the principle of non-interference of the affairs of a sovereign nation allowed the occurrence of activities that became genocidal. The coalition of states emerged to counteract the invasion of the Third Reich to other countries through subjecting their citizens to horrendous abuses and the threat to dominate Europe. Through external interference, the Nazis were defeated and neutralized (Teka, 2016). Once a regime turns violence against its own people, forceful humanitarian intervention should be sought without hesitation. The long-suffering of Iraq and Bosnia citizens should have been a by-gone if the respective governments were forced to retreat (Brown, 2015). Democracy demands that the governments should exercise sovereignty on behalf of the people and therefore, any efforts of subverting the initial plan of self-rule should be mitigated. Following the defeat of autocratic regimes in Europe and Japan, the United Nations was formed to link the peace of the world with human rights (Brown, 2015). However, world peace and coexistence as envisioned by the United Nations have not been achieved due to some governments going against the rule of law through continuously propagating actions that undermine human rights.
Humanitarian grounds have been used historically to execute military interventions around the world. The persecution of Christians in territories ruled by Muslims led to humanitarian intervention by Russia, France, and Britain in the nineteenth century. Also, idolatry and slave trade in Africa was mitigated by the call of the European missionaries to suppress the social vices (Schlosser, 2015). The intervention of the Christian missionaries assisted in spreading Christianity and civilization to the larger extent. The success of the interventions justifies their existence despite lacking the legal background. However, the use of force for humanitarian reasons should not be abused (Nikoghosyan, 2016). Therefore, cases that are not genuine and do not justify humanitarian intervention should be avoided and moderation should be observed when executing forceful interference with the sovereignty of a nation (Schlosser, 2015). The governments should always act in the best interests of the citizens and thus, abusive regimes such as the cases in Sudan should be stopped at all costs since they defend their actions that involve mass violations of human rights such as genocides and extremism and fail to be accountable to the people (Nikoghosyan, 2016). The sovereignty exercised by regimes should be interfered with by the international bodies such as the United Nations whose primary goal is to protect human rights (Schlosser, 2015). The United States led a coalition of states to occupy part of the Kurdish area of the Northern part of Iraq to persuade the government to respect human rights (Schlosser, 2015). Such interventions are a blessing to the world since their outcome presents genuine concerns of equity and equality and do not project the image of a selfish country that wants to manipulate a fellow sovereign state.
The United Nations should not be seen as a tool of the powerful countries in the world. Initially, the international troops deployed to maintain peace in Somalia were referred to as the Americans by both foreigners and the Somalis. The issue brought confusion since the whole agenda of the forces in the country was turned into the interest of one superpower foreign nation (Garelli " Tazzioli, 2017). Therefore, the misperception should not arise since the resolutions of the United Nations together with the instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be interpreted to represent the common good and will of the community of nations and not the foreign policy interests of the western nations. Besides, abusive governments should not use sovereignty as a plausible defense but should instead be aware that their power is not absolute and is subject to review by the international community (Garelli " Tazzioli, 2017). For the sake of Somalia, the government of Sudan was the most outspoken since they felt the intervention in the country was against the sovereignty of Somalia. When the governing power becomes tyrannous, the spread of crimes should be mitigated by the use of external intervention and the world community should be united in demanding respect of human rights.
Forceful humanitarian interventions can be executed using various forms such as sanctions where non-military pressure and coercion are sued to end obnoxious practices by the ruling regimes. Additionally, material assistance accompanied by the dispatch of military troops to counteract the human tragedies can also be used. Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Liberia, Zaire, and Sudan are some of the countries in the sub-Saharan Africa that are beneficiaries of international interventions such as material relief (Pallister-Wilkins, 2017). Notably, the motives of the interventions should not be counteracted by unproductive consequences through enriching the elite and propping up authoritarian governments (FREIMAN, 2012). Promotion of long-term stability and economic development is of the essence in empowering regimes to fight for human rights. The use of military force in pursuit of humanitarian goals is faced with many problems due to lack of support of the legal framework (Pallister-Wilkins, 2017). There are rigorous preconditions that should be met before intervening forcefully in a sovereign state to maintain peace. Serious blunders and missed opportunities should be avoided through proper planning of the forceful interventions. In cases of urgent humanitarian crisis, military intervention is the most practical international response since a delay of any form of intervention may lead to loss of lives and damage to property.
An independent and accurate evaluation of the nature and scale of human needs should exist. Exaggeration of the humanitarian crisis by the media and the relief agencies should be avoided to determine the nature of intervention to be employed. Therefore, the reports of the media should never be used to assess the severity of a crisis and to prompt an action (Sommers-Flanagan, 2014). Military interventions should be sought where all other avenues of involvement have proved to be futile and the human rights violation escalates. The humanitarian responses should be well calibrated to plan the appropriate response. A military occupation capable of counteracting the envisaged humanitarian crisis should be deployed to minimize unobjectionable responses. The military forces can do the job of maintaining peace if they remain militarily intact in the countries of occupation sustaining a politically low level of casualties (Sommers-Flanagan, 2014). The modern military forces should not only be trained in fighting high technology wars that are short-lived but they should also acquire skills in securing a long-lasting victory. Many people stereotype military intervention as potentially dangerous due to the way the forces deal with civilians. Therefore, a different set of abilities is demanded by the humanitarian troops to carry out missions that are widely supported by the locals (Nikoghosyan, 2016). The British in Malaya in the 1950s and the French in Morocco in 1910-1925 present excellent examples of constructive and comprehensive interventions (Sommers-Flanagan, 2014). Extreme patience was demonstrated by the troops instilling a high level of confidence between the people and the troops. The military strategy was part of the intrinsic economic and political plans of the countries. Use of force should be mitigated to maintain low levels of casualties and the military commanders should be constrained by the rules of engagement to the use of firearms. Additionally, insensitive and aggressive force should not be applied since it potentially alienates the local people (Kalokairinou, 2016). There are notable radical changes that must be made in the doctrine of the military training if the armies are to be used to carry out humanitarian interventions. Therefore, the demands of the constituents and the politicians for low casualties and quick fixes should be changed and instead support long-term solutions. The relief logistics should be integrated with the military assistance in responding to a humanitarian crisis. Notably, external aid is not sufficient in advocating for human rights and self-help efforts by the locals should be encouraged. Use of force in sovereign countries does not change the diplomatic problems but only shifts the diplomatic agendas (FREIMAN, 2012). Collaboration is key to ensuring the success of forceful interventions to avert situations that lead to a humanitarian crisis (Fan, 2016). Accountability is key to ensuring that the intervening forces are neutral to the situation on the ground. Remarkably, failure of diplomatic arbitrations prompt the use of force and therefore, forceful interventions should be used as the last resort.
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