Title: Why Genocide? - TheHumanist.com
Headings: Why Genocide?
Why Genocide?
Content: Nonetheless, there are occasions when all these efforts fail. In such circumstances, “rules of engagement” or valid and workable “criteria for humanitarian intervention” are needed for guiding nations in deciding precisely when and how to intervene in the internal affairs of another country. Military action to stop crimes against humanity or genocide can be warranted. But safeguards are needed, since noble justifications have frequently been claimed for unwarranted invasions. Examples exist as far apart in history as Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars and George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. But in 2001, Canada’s International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty issued a report entitled The Responsibility to Protect. It takes the position that, when two criteria are met, there isn’t merely a right to intervene but a responsibility to do so. The criteria offered are: A. large-scale loss of life, actual or apprehended, with genocidal intent or not, which is the product either of deliberate state action, or state neglect or inability to act, or a failed state situation; or
B. large-scale “ethnic cleansing,” actual or apprehended, whether carried out by killing, forced expulsion, acts of terror or rape.