When Duty Calls: A Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention

When should the United States and other members of the international community intervene to stop a government from harming its own citizens? Since World War II, the main standard for intervention has been the high bar of genocide, although the international community has rarely acted to stop it. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International security 2012-07, Vol.37 (1), p.41-80
Main Author: Pape, Robert A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Casualties
Citizens
Civil war
Civilians in war
Crises
Damage
Decision making
Despotism
ECONOMICS
GENOCIDE
Government
Government intervention
Homicide
Human rights
Humanitarian Intervention
International community
International cooperation
International politics
International standardization
Intervention
Killing
Libya
Military Intervention
Military service
Morality
Murders & murder attempts
National security
Population
Pragmatics
Pragmatism
Qaddafi, Muammar
Responsibility
Security
State capacity
United States
VICTIMS
War
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Summary:When should the United States and other members of the international community intervene to stop a government from harming its own citizens? Since World War II, the main standard for intervention has been the high bar of genocide, although the international community has rarely acted to stop it. The main alternative—the "responsibility to protect"—would set the bar so low that virtually every instance of anarchy or tyranny would create unbounded obligations beyond the capacity of states to fulfill. A new standard— the pragmatic standard of humanitarian intervention—can help guide decisionmakers on when to intervene to stop governments from targeting their own citizens. The standard has three requirements: (1) an ongoing campaign of mass homicide sponsored by the government; (2) a viable plan for intervention with reasonable estimates of low casualties for the intervening forces; and (3) a workable strategy for creating lasting local security for the threatened population. The pragmatic standard was met in the recent successful intervention in Libya as well as in other cases over the last twenty years, and it should become the basis for deciding which humanitarian crises justify international intervention in the future.
ISSN:0162-2889
1531-4804
DOI:10.1162/ISEC_a_00088