Is military intervention ever morally justified ?

Résumé du document

Intervention has to be considered as a moral problem which has become all the more accurate that intra-state conflicts have dramatically increased. In the case of an inter-states conflict, military intervention can be both lawful and moral. But, in the case of an intra-state conflict, if no legality is possible, the issue of morality becomes the only criterion. Hence, is it possible to justify morally the principle of military intervention? Should intervention be considered justified as a principle or according to each situation?

Extraits

[...] The present debates about humanitarian action take place in the contrasted area where are opposed the individualism of occidental democracies and the morals of groups from the South, the conscious of a community of destiny at the scale of the planet and identity withdrawals, universal rights and attachment to particular cultures, intangibility of borders because of international order and the will to transcend them to improve economic efficiency or defend human rights. The issue of cultural diversity is given many defenders, but how far can relativism be extended? Mill argues that nation is incompetent to judge and act for another”[6] which is also what argue some nations such as Saudi Arabia. According to them, their societies are based on different basis of morality that should not be judged. They believe that western values are not universal contrary to what the Enlightenment claimed. [...]

[...] Mill also claims that a people cannot be given freedom, it has to fight to deserve it[3]. According to him, sovereignty is a right hold by the people of the State and rely on the basis of the social contract, which is why it cannot be morally enforced by another society. But if sovereignty is a right hold by a people, life and security is a right hold by any individual. If the right to life is not secure, how can the right to possess an independent State be ever meaningful? [...]

[...] Is military intervention ever morally justified ? The principle of non-intervention, which claims that no State is allowed to interfere in the examination and the solution of any other State's affairs, belongs to international positive law. It is indisputably linked to other principles proclaimed by the United Nations Charter such as self- determination, sovereign equality of States, interdiction to use threat or force (except in cases of legitimate defence). The UN Charter forbids the UN (and so its members) to intervene in the affairs which mostly belong to a State's national competence. [...]

[...] In fact, for military intervention to occur, if it does not need to be legal, it now has to be moral but also politically agreed. Bibliography: Mill, J.S., few words on non-intervention” in Dissertation and discussions Luban, David, “Just War and Human Rights”, in Beitz and al International Ethics, Princeton University Luban, D., Romance of the Nation-State” in Beitz and al International Ethics, Princeton University Walzer, Michael rights of political communities” in Beitz and al International Ethics, Princeton University Walzer, Michael Moral Standard of the State: a response' to four critics in Beitz and al International Ethics, Princeton University Nardin, Terry and MAPEL, David R. [...]

[...] In the case of an inter-states conflict, military intervention can be both lawful and moral. But, in the case of an intra- state conflict, if no legality is possible, the issue of morality becomes the only criterion. Hence, is it possible to justify morally the principle of military intervention? Should intervention be considered justified as a principle or according to each situation? In fact, it can be said that if intervention can only be justified in the case of humanitarian threat, military intervention imposes other restrictions to be moral. [...]