This essay is concerned with the motivations that drive states to intervene, and argues that their actions are never wholly disinterested. The scope of this essay will be limited to interventions which third-parties have justified on humanitarian grounds, looking in particular at the case of the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999.
This essay examines the international intervention in Croatia, arguing that while Western powers did achieve some minor victories, international diplomacy failed to accomplish its main objectives and in several cases even exacerbated the violence and disintegration in Croatia.
Does Somaliland exhibit modern state qualities? Are we witnessing the development of a ‘beacon of light’ in an otherwise war-torn area of Africa? Or is this an overly positive analysis, resulting in an idealistic, rather than realistic, approach to the problematic of statehood in the region?
Access to information is a vital building block for lasting peace, yet media interventions are not a ‘quick fix’. While they may not be able to solve conflicts, there is certainly an important role for them in spurring debate, reconciling communities and changing behaviour towards peacebuilding.
The primary method of globally managing environmental issues is through the use of carbon trading. This has resulted from the hegemonic success of the ecological modernisation discourse – a discourse immortalised in the Brundtland report in 1987.
Sub-national politics is playing an ever more significant role in the way international policy is developed. Para-diplomatic theory provides a compelling thesis in describing the National Assembly for Wales on the international stage. The development of the Welsh Assembly since devolution in forwarding Welsh culture, language, and economic prosperity can be seen as a significant example of sub-state growth.
NGOs have been voicing concerns that the military have intruded into their domain by conducting short term aid work and long term ‘hearts and minds’ projects that have blurred the lines between aid workers and military troops. This has had worrying consequences for humanitarianism.
At the root of poverty, lies a lack of access to modern energy. Most of the Millennium Development Goals cannot be fulfilled without first meeting the energy needs of the 1.6 billion people without access to modern energy services. How could South-South Cooperation initiatives help to overcome this problem?
There is an urge now, on a social as well as political level, to settle the Darfur question lest it eventually goes down the same route as the South. But the question here is whether Darfur can actually be compared at all with the South; is separation even an option for ending the conflict?
In the context of the Middle East uprisings of 2011, Libya was the only example in which foreign intervention was deemed necessary because of the potential human cost. This paper will attempt to rationalize the theoretical concept, or the reasoning, behind the humanitarian intervention which led France and the UK to enforce the ‘no-fly’ zone mandate.
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