Convenor
Bhanu Pratap
Amity University
Abstract
The onset of Human Rights regime has posed a challenged to the traditional norm of sovereignty in international law. The idea of Humanitarian Intervention can be used to ameliorate the conditions of citizens who are facing suppression from a tyrannical regime, and at the same time it can be used as a Trojan horse tactics. The problem lies in anticipating a situation which is so imminent and apparent in nature that intervention on humanitarian grounds might be the panacea. The dilemma begs the question as to what is the most appropriate situation for international community to intervene ? how will such decisions affect the concept of sovereignty ? Is military intervention the only way possible ? Does it inculcate a responsible legal and political culture for failed/weak states. These are the perennial question that bothers policy makers and legal theorist alike and an endeavour shall be made to find out a working solution for these problems.
The panel seeks to investigate the subject of humanitarian intervention in a way that permits a synthesis among, legal, historical, philosophical, strategic and ethical dimension. It offers a normative argument for humanitarian intervention and articulates the conditions under which humanitarian intervention is legally permissible-establishes the interpretation of Article 2(4) of United Charter, changing aspect of sovereignty, the new doctrine of Responsibility to protect, which actors are best suited to undertake humanitarian intervention, the philosophical dimension –at what lever, the security of human suffering becomes intolerable, that allows the international community to break the fictional shield of sovereignty. The strategic dimension-how the idea of humanitarian intervention can deescalate a war situations into a negotiation matter and how it can act as a tool of social inclusion for the fail/weak states, and what is its role in the concept of ‘State Builders’ .Rather than developing on all encompassing theory of humanitarian intervention, a multi dimensional approach that is logically consistent and empirically precise is proposed.