Intervention to stabilize and reconstruct failed, failing, fragile, and even re-orient hostile countries may not be avoidable for the U.S. and also for its E.U. partners. But for intervention to be successful it must be undertaken cautiously, preemptively when possible, and swiftly, with coalitions of willing partners.
Why does my heart sink when I hear the current UN-mandated action in Libya described as “humanitarian intervention”? After all, over the last 20 years the term has acquired currency — not only among Western politicians but also academics — as a description of coercive, usually military, intervention ostensibly for humanitarian purposes.
Traditionally, the promotion of Human Rights and the concept of state sovereignty have been fundamentally opposed. The institutionalisation of Human Rights in the international system is a relatively new concept. It wasn’t until after the Second World War that the challenge of Human Rights upon state sovereignty emerged.
The threat posed by extreme terrorism to the United Kingdom is both serious and ongoing, specifically since the catastrophic events 9/11 and 7/7. Security and liberty are both essential to modern democracy, but they do not hold equal value. Thus, security should be given greater weight than liberty in order to secure the state and prevent future terrorist attacks.
The candidacy of Iran for the UN Human Rights Council is comparable to electing apartheid South Africa to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination or to awarding the US for humane treatment of detainee’s right after the world was shocked with pictures revealing sexual torture and humiliation of naked prisoners.
As a power such as China come to rise, it can at its discretion take the role of a rival, a partner, or disguise itself and ultimately be both. Therefore, an emphasis on human rights through public diplomacy and positive interaction with both China and the international community may be the key that opens the door to building positive relations between the United States and China in the future.
Twenty years ago this week the Romanian revolution was making international headlines. Yet those who tortured, killed and humiliated continue to hold the power, abuse the law, and live opulent lives, without showing the slightest trace of guilt.
The recent clashes between Han Chinese and Uyghurs illustrate dramatically the difficulties facing China as the existing chasm between the Han majority and the Uyghur minority deepens. Both incidents constitute an enormous setback to China’s minority policy and to government efforts at persuading the minority Uyghurs that they are citizens with equal rights in the new China.
Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, its Communist Party leadership has repressed dissident political views and organized political opposition. Nevertheless, today’s China is not the China during the rule of Mao Zedong (1949-1976), when people were persecuted and imprisoned not only for what they said, but for who they were.
On 12 June, the Islamic of Republic of Iran officially died. Even if hardliners in and outside the government thought that they could get away with the usurpation of the election without causing a major popular upheaval, it was evident that governance after “election-day” will largely have to rest on authoritarian rule. In fact, for those who have always advocated an almost totalitarian interpretation of the velayat-e faqih, this was the very motivation of rigging the election in the first place.
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