MichaelWalzer’s Humanitarian Intervention Theory Applied to Multisided Conflicts: A Discussion of Intervention and Self-Determination in the Syrian CivilWar
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Paradela López, Miguel | 2020
Humanitarian interventions have often been employed to promote the intervener’s political
and economic interests. Given the issues around intervention’s morality, this article explores
MichaelWalzer’s humanitarian intervention theory in order to unravel the practical di culties of
legitimating humanitarian interventions in multisided conflicts. After exploring Walzer’s arguments
as they relate to unilateral and multilateral interventions, this article explains why, according to the
self-determination principle, intervening countries must share the victim’s cause. Later, the article uses
the Syrian CivilWar to exemplify the conundrum of crafting a legitimate humanitarian intervention in
multisided conflicts where the victims are internally divided and have opposing political, economic,
and/or religious views. This case study evidences how, in such contexts, humanitarian interventions
simultaneously protect the population and promote the group that best represents the intervening
state’s interests, thus turning internal conflicts into foreign proxy wars. Finally, the article argues
that, despiteWalzer’s proposal for a consistent theory of unilateral and multilateral humanitarian
interventions, unilateral interventions should be replaced in multisided conflicts by multilateral
interventions able to halt atrocities and provide a stable solution for internal conflicts.
Keywords: humanitarian intervention; MichaelWalzer; Syria; Civil War; self-determination
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