Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of text boxes
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Human rights and state responsibilities
- Part II Empirical representations and explanations of human rights violations
- Part III Intervening and rebuilding in the wake of repression
- 6 Intervening to protect human rights
- 7 Rebuilding society in the aftermath of repression
- 8 Towards the future
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
6 - Intervening to protect human rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of text boxes
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Human rights and state responsibilities
- Part II Empirical representations and explanations of human rights violations
- Part III Intervening and rebuilding in the wake of repression
- 6 Intervening to protect human rights
- 7 Rebuilding society in the aftermath of repression
- 8 Towards the future
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
In the preceding two chapters we have shown where and why human rights have been violated, focusing in particular on the right to physical integrity. We have seen that human rights continue to be violated around the globe, and that the risk of such violations increases when governments face a real, or perceived, threat and when they assume that they won't be held accountable for their actions. In the third part of this book, we focus our attention on how human rights violations might be halted once they are under way, and what challenges lie in dealing with the aftermath of gross human rights violations.
The first chapter in Part III focuses on military intervention as a means of ending widespread human rights violations, while the second chapter examines attempts to rebuild society and to establish transitional justice in the wake of repression. There are, of course, other measures that states undertake in an effort to put an end to continuing atrocities in other lands, including economic sanctions and diplomatic negotiation. However, military intervention represents the most serious and committed response, and it is for this reason that we focus on this practice. On the other hand, there have been a number of problems associated with humanitarian intervention, and in the second half of this chapter we examine the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) initiative that places military intervention in a much broader context of state responsibility.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Politics of Human RightsThe Quest for Dignity, pp. 164 - 195Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010