are consciously made.
As the foregoing has shown, tensions in the normative structure surrounding
humanitarian interventions are a large part of what makes them so difficult, operationally. It
makes it difficult to craft politically acceptable solutions that will achieve the ends intended. In
moral terms, however, these interventions may be difficult for the “right” reasons. At the risk of
some simplification, I suspect we are finding these operations difficult in part because we are
demanding better (in ethical terms) policy solutions than we ever have before. Features of these
interventions that plague us now were simply not matters of great concern to policy makers or
publics 50 or 100 years ago. In earlier eras, peace simply got imposed, repression was part of
that process, and if a lot of locals got killed during these interventions, that was an unfortunate
but necessary part of political life. Many of the paradoxes and tensions I have outlined here
come about precisely because people are not willing to settle for this kind of solution any more.
Interveners cannot simply impose a peace of their choosing; some kind of consent is required.
International law now demands due process and other legal protections for perpetrators of
genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Current efforts to deal with these humanitarian crises according to these more demanding
ethical criteria may fail. Western interveners may get frustrated and simply stop intervening to
help in these situations. But before we turn our backs, we should consider that part of the reason
we are finding these situations so difficult is that we have raised the bar for ourselves and are
holding ourselves to more demanding criteria than we ever have before. This strikes me as a
reason to continue struggling with these contradictions and to be a bit more patient as we work
toward solutions for these crises.
Convention