Humanitarianism, according to the famous Jean Pictet of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) should be identified as seven core principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. Humanitarian intervention is actions taken “in response to grave violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law.” Humanitarian work has a long history that most trace back to the Red Cross organization. However, intervention has a much longer history, shaped by the changing political thought of international society. In modern international system, humanitarian intervention is mostly carried out through the United Nations, with the Right to Protect Act, passed in 2005. This Act was passed as a result of several humanitarian crisis, most notably the Rwanda genocide. The field of humanitarianism, conjure thoughts of deeds of well doing, however, over the years, humanitarian aid and intervention has received increasing amounts of criticisms, ranging from accusations of hidden political agendas, to claiming that most interventions were an outright failures. This essay will attempt to tackle one underlying issue with humanitarian intervention and aid: the apolitical nature that underpins it. This paper will seek to answer numerous questions about the political history of humanitarian intervention and look at some of the consequences of it claiming to be apolitical. First, it will prove that it is historically very political, then, it will show how the same politics have transcended into the present day, lastly, I will conclude with a discussion on the role of ideas in international relations.
It is indeed important to look at the historical context in which ideas of intervention started to emerge in order to analyze how it evolved. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the idea of a ‘standard of civilization’ plagued the West, encouraging them to exclude states they deemed non civilized from their “family of nations.” The suffering of China in the century following the Opium Wars and the brutal colonial takeover of Africa are just some examples of non-Western peoples being forced to endure the most savage barbarities in the name of this standard. A narrative about the advanced West that started to expand to include non-European civilizations must be briefly disproved for the sake of this paper’s argument. Indeed, it could be argued that in the 18th century, there was more equality between states than ever before. This is evidenced with the Indo-Portuguese Dispute. The Portuguese wanted to secure the right of passage to Dadra and Nagar-Haveli because they claimed that, according to the treaty of the Marathas signed in 1779, they had sovereignty over it. India argued that this was an invalid treaty. The International Criminal Court of the time ruled that this was a valid treaty, on the ground that both parties had international legal personalities however, they asserted that this treaty did not grant the Portuguese sovereignty over the islands. This case proves that 18th century practices were respectful of non-Europeans.
This can be compared to the treaties implemented during the 19th century, with the British pioneering the abolition of the slave trade. The ensemble of treaties signed illustrated the clear hierarchy, with countries like France, the US and Britain with equal rights, then Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands with relatively equal rights but mixed courts of jurisdiction. Then, Denmark , Sardinia and Haiti had more rights than the Latin America Republics. Then the rights of the Muslim countries were much less than these ‘civilized states.’ The sloe of treaties contributing to the emerging concept of the ‘grading of power’ which clearly demonstrates that, in the 19th century, power was not solely based on material power such as economic or military force but rather on this conception of standard of civilization. The idea of intervention could only be conceptualized because of the establishment of this system.
International actors in the 18th and 19th century, simultaneously came to conceived themselves as equal sovereign states but occupying differential positions within a hierarchical ‘grading of powers.’ In the previous centuries, the structure of international society was not well suited for the development of a doctrine of intervention. In the 16th and 17th century, the system was primarily based on precedence and dynastic ties. This meant that one sovereign would not have to right to intervene in another sovereign state because this was not seen as a legitimate means to exert control. More importantly, sovereignty or states were not yet defined. For example, the the right to wage a just war was accorded to sovereigns. However sovereignty could range from small estates of the Habsburg empire or the Dutch East Indies Company. However, this changed with the emergence of republics. The Dutch Republic and states like Russia imposing themselves, paired with and the crumbling authority of the Pope and the Holy Roman Empire, challenged the dynastic system. Moreover, a new language of power grading based on capabilities and the standard of civilizations also added to fuel to the crisis. This culminated with the Napoleonic wars and the congress of Vienna, with focus on five main actors: France Britain, Prussia, Russia and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The idea that five actors were the main ones in charge would set the stage for the doctrine of intervention to take hold.
In the backdrop of this configuration is this standard of civilization. In order to meet this standard, certain requirements had to be met like the ability to exert power and control over a given territory. In addition, there was also legal obligations like participating in the (European) practices of diplomacy. A more ‘attractive’ side to this standard is the outlawing of 'uncivilized' behavior which placed substantive moral restrictions on the actions of sovereign states, including Western states, and established explicit ethical principles within the mainstream of positive international law. 'Civilized' states were expected to conform to the laws of war. Civilized' states were expected to “protect the rights of aliens to life, personal dignity, property, and freedom of commerce and religion.” 'Civilized' states were also expected to outlaw 'uncivilized' practices such as slavery, piracy, polygamy, infanticide and 'barbaric' penal practices. Economic interests, power politics, and a host of related ideas and interests coalesced into a distinctive imperial system of what Foucault called power/knowledge that had as one of its more striking elements the classic standard of civilization. In addition, Social Darwinism and 'scientific' racism gave an ‘objective scientific' basis to the superiority of Western culture, making Western dominance a necessary expression of scientific laws rather than an accident of power politics. More generally, the Enlightenment idea of progress, along with liberal ideas of the pacifying and civilizing influence of trade, provided an integrative intellectual context.
This goes to show that intervention emerged during a time when legally, states began to see themselves as equal paradoxically when inequalities in political thought cemented into place. This political history of inequalities carry weight. One could argue that the visions of one society being more civilized and therefore needing to intervene in a less civilized society could transcend. Indeed, it should be noted that in the General Principles of the UN, article 38, the word “civilized” is used. The language points to the undeniable history of intervention based on prejudice and racism. This essay does not seek to demonize intervention since, it can be strongly argued that the intend of intervention is, for the most part admirable. The point I am making is that intervention emerged through a system of disproportionality and according to a racist standard of political thought. It cannot be denied that this history tainted humanitarian intervention, since some of the language continues on in the UN charter.
A blatant example of imposing Western values to save the ‘less civilized’ is the American intervention in Afghanistan that aimed to liberate the Afghan women. Lila Abu-Lughod’s article highlights that, after all the attention given to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, there was a recurring “resort to the culture.” Similarly to the 19th century standard of sivilization, there is an assumption that the Afghan culture itself is not ‘civilized’. Even in Laura Bush’s address on November 17th she makes the distinction between the “civilized people throughout the world” whose hearts break for the women and children of Afghanistan and the Taliban-and-the-terrorists, the cultural monsters who want to “impose their world on the rest of us.” As Chakravorty Spivak (1988) cynically put it: its a case of white men saving brown women from brown men.
Indeed, the Americans took an initiative to get rid of the Burka which they saw as the symbol of unfreedom. This is of course extremely ignorant for obvious reasons, mainly that it is a gross violation of women’s own understandings of what they are doing. By this I mean that Americans were simply saying that the Burka is wrong for them. The continuation of the concept of a standard of civilization here is apparent: there is little interest in listening to the Afghan women and Americans just see their way of thinking as irrelevant, in other words, uncivilized. This example is perhaps a little unfair to humanitarianism since America had political objectives in invading Afghanistan. Although the movement to free women was framed as being humanitarian. Again, I should reaffirm that I am not critical of humanitarianism in itself but I am asserting that it carried a political past that is continuous and apparent in current interventions. In this case, it is fair to argue that this project of saving others depends on and reinforce a sense of superiority by the Westerners dated back to the 19th century, that deserves to be challenged.
Although the idea of saving lives and relieving suffering is hardly a Western or Christian creation, modern humanitarianism’s origins are located in Western history and Christian thought. Consequently, tensions have always existed between the presumed universality of humanitarian organizations and their Western roots. These challenges have become more pointed in recent years, as a number of agencies have become more closely linked to Western states and committed to a politics of transformation that diffuses and protects values associated with the West. The growing critique of humanitarianism’s universalism represents a mortal threat to its very identity. There was been numerous suggestions, and successful attempts at redirecting humanitarian efforts so as to make it less about the superior West aiding the poor uncivilized ‘rest’ and more about solidarity and even servitude by the West. David Rieff suggests that our belief that we can be global managers and architects of the human future may be one reason there are so many victims. Indeed, there seems to be a need to fix the underlying conditions, and often without consulting the local population. While the gesture is to do more than to just put a bandaid on a situation, most of the time the situation is misunderstood and the consequences are both political and disastrous.
I would like to conclude with some closing remarks on the role of norms and ideas in international relations.The standard of civilization had a profound impact on international relations in terms of how states saw themselves and how they interacted. The legacy of this standard can be seen in many ways, most notably through humanitarian intervention. Its ironic, in a way, that a field that is seen as the better side of humanity has such ominous roots. While organizations like the Red Cross did not emerge directly from this policy, the ideas it embodies and the politics it carries fall in line with the standard of civilization. It is clear now that humanitarianism cannot be separated from its political history. There needs to be a shift away from the West helping the rest. There needs to be a move towards solidarity and servitude instead.