Unit 8 Flashcards
(8 cards)
Which event is considered a positive humanitarian intervention?
Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia, which stopped the killings of millions. However, it was not backed by the UN although both the US and the USSR frequently invaded other countries (but they are both UN security council members).
Who questioned the absolute and exclusive sovereignty?
The UN general secretary Boutros-Ghali in 1992: The time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty, however, has passed. It is the task of leaders of States today to understand this and to find a balance between the needs of good internal governance and the requirements of an ever more interdependent world
Why were the UN and the ‘great powers’ so reluctant to intervene in Rwanda?
One answer is a standard ‘realist’ one: the powerful states that could have intervened did not think that their national interests were at stake
What criteria liberal internationalists use to determine whether humanitarian intervention is legitimate?
Only legitimate when military force can help to alleviate ongoing and widespread human suffering
How do liberal cosmopolitans see humanitarian intervention?
Sovereignty, in other words, should be seen as conditional on behaviour. States which fail to uphold a range of liberal values and norms are illegitimate
What is the consequentialist approach to international justice?
The motives behind actions and the procedures used to decide on them are less important than the results of the intervention
What is the proceduralist approach to international justice?
The fairness and correctness of the approaches to justice are important, not just the eventual results
How might liberal internationalists and cosmopolitans differ in their
interpretation of just outcomes?
For liberal internationalists, the critical outcomes are a question of preventing serious abuses (a negative aim). Cosmopolitans would aim at transforming the existing governing arrangements, putting in place those that are compatible with liberal democratic values
