Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 The norms against genocide
- 2 European governments and the development of the international legal framework on genocide
- 3 European discourses on genocide during the Cold War
- 4 Bosnia and Herzegovina
- 5 Rwanda
- 6 Kosovo
- 7 Darfur
- 8 Is there a European way of responding to genocide?
- Appendix 1 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96 (I), 11 December 1946
- Appendix 2 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Bosnia and Herzegovina
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Tables and boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- 1 The norms against genocide
- 2 European governments and the development of the international legal framework on genocide
- 3 European discourses on genocide during the Cold War
- 4 Bosnia and Herzegovina
- 5 Rwanda
- 6 Kosovo
- 7 Darfur
- 8 Is there a European way of responding to genocide?
- Appendix 1 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 96 (I), 11 December 1946
- Appendix 2 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One norm of the international order that seemed to be in flux at the end of the Cold War was ‘non-interference’. As seen in the previous chapter, European governments cited this to justify not taking action in several cases of alleged genocide. At the end of the Cold War, however, there appeared to be a new liberal consensus in favour of fostering the protection of human rights and the spread of democracy, including through such interfering means as requiring aid recipients to meet political conditions, sending observers to monitor elections, and even, more controversially, using military force to protect civilians from their own government. UN peacekeeping missions – required more than ever to ‘clean up’ the mess left by superpower competition in southern Africa, south-east Asia, Central America, and so on – were given wide mandates to engage in peace-building, democracy building, and state building. The USA led a coalition under a UN flag to clear Iraqi occupying forces out of Kuwait in early 1991; even more strikingly, when the Saddam Hussein regime quashed uprisings against his rule by Kurds in the north of Iraq, the UN Security Council ‘demanded’ the end of repression (in Resolution 688, 5 April 1991). Western countries interpreted this resolution as allowing the deployment of military forces to protect a ‘safe haven’ in the Kurdish region.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Genocide and the Europeans , pp. 105 - 141Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010