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Humanitarian Intervention - the case of Anfal and Darfur

Year: 2023
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Humanitarian Intervention (the case of Anfal and Darfur) is a book, written in Kurdish language, and was published by the KCIL in 2022. It focuses on Anfal and Darfur as two cases of 'inaction' of the Security Council despite grave violations of internationally recognized human rights being committed and reported. Anfal (in Kurdistan Region - Iraq) and Darfur (in Sudan) represent two cases of the dominance of geopolitical considerations over the principles and values that the international community and its legal order are supposedly based on them.

A number of diplomats and scholars are skeptics about even the existence of the category of 'humanitarian intervention', not to mention its inclusion into the international legal order. However, an established right to authorize intervention to guarantee international recognition of, and respect for, fundamental human rights seem plausible, taking the United Nations Charter and the wide authority of the Security Council into account. The research shall advocate a collective practice of humanitarian intervention through authorization of the Security Council. The maintenance of international peace and security is vested into the Security Council, most notably its permanent [five] members, and peace shall not be maintained without co-operation of these permanent members. To include humanitarian intervention within the competences of the Council, it needs to be perceived as having effect on international peace and security, and thus founding the Council’s duty to authorize use of force. The research will argue in favor of authorized humanitarian intervention in cases of grave violations of human rights, reflecting a collective security project. The thesis stands against the right of unauthorized or unilateral humanitarian intervention.

In an attempt to avoid reducing humanitarian intervention to means serving the interests of the intervening state(s), the research will argue for a collective practice of any operation that is conducted under the title of 'humanitarianism'. The best way to achieve this collectivism is to pursue authorization of the Security Council. Here is the troublesome point. What happens or should happen if the Council, due to whatever reasons decides not to act? Shall the other states have a right to intervene in order to halt grave violations of human rights?

This turn is not favored. Unilateral use of force, in this case unilateral humanitarian intervention, remains dangerous. For it may provide a chance of subjectivity in determining the cases which intervention is deemed necessary. The international community seems already suffering from this pattern of practice from the Security Council. Therefore, strengthening any unilateral discretion in the use of force for humanitarian purposes is likely to aggrandize the chaotic aspect of international relations.