Syria: Humanitarian Intervention in the Context of Human Rights

While I was reading an article about the potential of intervention in Syria, I realized what an important (and controversial) issue this has become in today's world. Considering recent events in the Middle East, a lot more people are beginning to think about the consequences of international intervention.

A little bit of background:

Humanitarian intervention is generally defined as the use of military force in another state for the purpose of ending human rights violations.

At the 2005 World Summit, the member countries embraced the idea of "the responsibility to protect."
Essentially, this means that these world leaders agreed to the notion that the international community has a responsibility and an obligation to intervene in order to protect populations from human rights violations such as genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

This "responsibility to protect" is in contrast to the long-standing principle of state sovereignty, which favors the notion of non-intervention based on the right of an individual country to have autonomy. In other words, one country shouldn't get involved in the affairs of another. This notion of sovereignty was established in the UN Charter - signed in 1945.

Considering these varying ideas, when is it appropriate to intervene? And when is it necessary?

A little bit of history:

When troops pulled out from a US-led intervention in Somalia in 1992 in the midst of conflict, the results were devastating. Somalia was left in a state of turmoil that has persisted and still affects the country today.

After such failure, the international community seemed resistant to intervene again, which led to situations like Srebrenica, Rwanda and Darfur, in which the international community stood by and watched as thousands of deaths could have been prevented.

With the US already involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, many Americans are worried about the consequences of intervention in another country in the Middle East. Facing much criticism, the intervention in Libya is still often debated about whether or not it was the right decision.

The future of Syria:

So far, the international community has strongly "denounced" Damascus and has acted to implement economic sanctions, but has not stated an intention to intervene militarily. However, condemnation and sanctions have yet to weaken Bashar al-Assad's regime enough to bring it down. In fact, there is evidence that due to the reduced ability to trade with other countries, there have been spikes in the prices of food and energy. In this way, the international community is actually hurting the citizens of the country while still not having an effect on the regime.

As the number of lives lost in Syria is beginning to exceed the number in Libya when the decision to intervene was made, more pressure is being put on the subject of intervention there. Why intervene in Libya but not Syria?

While the decision to intervene should be based on the existence and degree of human rights violations within a country, it is questionable whether intervening countries have other motives to intervene based on their own individual interests - for example oil and the maintenance of allies.

So then, where do human rights come in?

Where human rights are being violated and people do not have the means to fight for themselves, it seems unethical to to take no action on their behalf.

At the same time, intervening militarily will undoubtedly result in some civilian casualties. And by intervening, we are putting those soldiers' lives in danger as well. By saving numerous more lives (those of innocent civilians), but still sacrificing others (those of the soldiers), is intervention then justifiable? From this perspective, are we putting a value on human life?

As the oppression in Syria worsens and the death toll continues to increase, what will the international community do? At what point will we be forced to make a decision about intervening? By then, will it be too late?