Anti-Climacus

Apparently Anne-Marie Slaughter has suggested that humanitarian intervention might be the proper response to the situation in Libya. Opinio Juris links to another blog that links to a number of different scholarly resources on humanitarian intervention.*

Though I appreciate Slaughter's attempt to keep my dissertation relevant, it does not (yet) appear to me that Libya is a case where humanitarian intervention would be a good foreign policy option.** The reason is simple: what would a humanitarian intervention be designed to do? Ostensibly we want to prevent the violent oppression of the Libyan people, but I'm not sure how one could do so in a way that did not create as many problems as it solved. Nor does the situation in Libya appear to be widespread and systematic enough to overcome the possibility of those negative consequences. If the Libyan government's response to protest was to, say, systematically or disproportionately begin attacking citizens regardless of whether they were protesting or not, then the case would be stronger.

Questions of human rights, and the violation of those rights, are difficult because there comes a point at which we must say that a violation of someone's rights does not warrant the fullest possible response. Taking such a view is not incompatible with thinking the violation is still a serious wrong that demands a response. Run-of-the-mill violent oppression by a government is a serious wrong, should threaten the stability of the regime that wields it, and should not be allowed to occur without serious consequences on the domestic and international levels. But there are a number of other options in the foreign policy toolkit (referring the matter to the ICC, for example) which would be more appropriate to this situation.


*In pedantic scholar mode, I will confess to being confused about praise directed at both Simon Chesterman and Allen Buchanan. As best I understand their respective positions, Buchanan thinks that HI might well be a legitimate practice even if illegal. Chesterman thinks there should never be any humanitarian interventions for any reason. Cats and dogs, those two.

**I will avoid the thorny question of whether humanitarian intervention is ever legal or justifiable. Short answers: probably not, maybe.