The paradox of humanitarian aid

Hard Choices argues that people on the global stage have modified their thoughts regarding humanitarian interventions after striving to assist in aid to Somalia. World leaders observed that initiatives crafted to help with basic problems and promote stability in the region ended up having unfortunate negative consequences. Groups wishing to assist in such matters including nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations, and sovereign armies found they were unclear as to the best method to apply to situations where countries require humanitarian aid. These problems, including those derived from economic inequity, are further muddied due to interests of multiple different stakeholders. The authors assert that further resources should be devoted to addressing moral challenges worldwide.

Humanitarian Intervention has been defined as a state's use of "military force (publicly stated that its use is for ending the violation of human rights) against another state."[1] This definition may be too narrow as it precludes non-military forms of intervention such as humanitarian aid and international sanctions. On this broader understanding, "Humanitarian intervention should be understood to encompass… non-forcible methods, namely intervention undertaken without military force to alleviate mass human suffering within sovereign borders."[2] There is no one standard or legal definition of humanitarian intervention; the field of analysis (such as law, ethics or politics) often influences the definition that is chosen. Differences in definition include variations in whether humanitarian intervention is limited to instances where there is an absence of consent from the host state; whether humanitarian intervention is limited to punishment actions; and whether humanitarian intervention is limited to cases where there has been explicit UN Security Council authorization for action.[3] There is, however, a general consensus on some of its essential characteristics:[4] Humanitarian intervention involves the threat and use of military forces as a central feature It is an intervention in the sense that it entails interfering in the internal affairs of a state by sending military forces into the territory or airspace of a sovereign state that has not committed an act of aggression against another state. The intervention is in response to situations that do not necessarily pose direct threats to states' strategic interests, but instead is motivated by humanitarian objectives.

Humanitarian bombing is a phrase referring to the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (24 March – 10 June 1999) during the Kosovo War used by its opponents as an ironic oxymoron in response to the stated goal of NATO to protect Kosovo Albanians, and later about other military interventions stressing human rights reasons. The closely related phrase humanitarian war appeared at the same time. The phrase (tough appeared in a 4 April 1999 New York Times article about the Kosovo War and attributed to Ruth Wedgwood[1][clarification needed]) is often ascribed to Václav Havel,[2] then President of the Czech Republic, strong proponent of the intervention and critic of Slobodan Milošević's regime. However, Havel forcefully refuted his connection to the phrase as such in May 2004, going as far as to call MEP candidate Richard Falbr (who criticised him for coining it) a liar: "Of course not only I haven't invented the obscure term 'humanitarian bombing', but also never even used it and could not have used it, since I have – I dare say – good taste."[3] Later on Havel marked the phrase as „a hokum which I could never have said not even in insanity.“[4]