Intervention Essay, Research Paper

Intervene with the Violators

Over the past few decades, many Egos have been advocating and lobbying for

human rights. Organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch

have been participants in international affairs regarding Human rights violations and

mistreatments. It is the duty of the international community to intervene in any society

violating and mistreating its population. By intervening, not only do the violations become

publicly scrutinized, but these being mistreated receive indirect support and the

governments of the violator states are infected with foreign influences intending to

reestablish human dignity rather than creating war or more crimes against man.

The general belief in the 20th century is that the international community should

intervene in any society that violates generic human rights. Three reasons I find necessary

for intervention are ? to maintain international security; to uphold human rights, especially

the right to life; and to alleviate suffering caused by famine or other humanitarian

crisis?(Clemens 481). Intervention can be requested by a host government seeking aid,

imposed on a government that is threatening or endangering its own people or others, or

provided to states where anarchy has overran the government. Intervention is summoned

because there is an injustice occurring on the international level, and many times it can not

be stopped from where it is happening.

Three very important types of ?meddling? can affect the violations of human

rights. Through special reporters, periodic reports, and organizations such as the

European Court of Human Rights, mistreatment of people have decreased because of the

UN?s intervention. The United Nations created a subdivision within itself to monitor and

fix human rights violations that were spotted within the participating countries. In each of

the three types of meddling, there is intervention without intent of major conflict. Special

reporters are experts who operate by themselves and independent of their government and

with the UN backing them. They usually report on themes such as torture, executions, and

religious intolerance. Countries within the UN also have to sign periodic reports that

encourage government officials within the country to examine their human right policies,

and if found guilty, the country can be kicked out of the UN. The European Court of

Human Rights has imposed many judgments in most West European Countries. The

courts rulings have prompted many changes of domestic legislation such as when Britain

and France changed their laws on telephone tapping.

These three forms of ?meddling? with countries or peoples that are having human

rights violations are very simple and effective. Because many of the countries are

threatened by being scrutinized by outside interventions, (UN), they very easily fold and

change their human rights policy. Scaring tactics have proven to be very effective, even if

the violating states understand that they are just being threatened in order to alter their

existing policies on human rights. With simple and rather minor interventions like this, why

not have the international community jump in and regulate human rights within other

states?

Intervention for human rights protection was not always this simple. In the

International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg in 1945, twenty-two German leaders under

Adolph Hitler?s rule during World War II were tried for crimes against peace, war crimes,

and crimes against humanity. The judges held that an individual can be held responsible

for war crimes where, ? Individual ideals have international duties which transcend the

national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state?(Clemens 487). The

court, ran by the victors of World War II, sentenced twelve Germans to death, acquitted

three, and gave long prison terms to others. The direct intervention of many countries

against twenty-two individuals and their violations of human rights set a precedent for

other human rights violators to come. If the international community did not intervene

and prevent these individuals from acting further, these individuals would have attempted

to rise in power again and oppress those who they believed they were not in the master

race in Germany. Direct punishment is a definite form of tackling the violators of human

rights, since if both incarcerates them, and it shows to others that there are consequences

for violating human rights.

The United States has been nudging China to become, ?a force for world peace, a

dependable trading partner, and a supporter of human rights.?(Clemens 498). Each year,

Congress threatens to cut off ?most favored nation? treatment for Chinese exports unless

it conforms to US and International Human Rights demands. This threat of cutting off

severe trading from China to the Unites States, is a way of the United States to intervene

into China?s human rights platform. Not only does the US want to cut off trading if China

does not comply but it also scrutinizes China to other states that recognize its violations,

therefore teaching other nations to force China to develop a better human rights policy.

China, many times denying the violations of human rights, goes to huge lengths to avoid

criticism from other states, just so it can still take part in international business. However,

recently China has signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to

appease the trading states it is involved with, and once it ratifies the treaty, which China

has promised to do, it will submit reports and monitor its human rights code to the

international system. Using the ?scare tactic? was the only way to change China?s human

rights policy, and the only way to scare China was to directly confront it with other states.

States within the international system should intervene with states that possess

human rights violations. Intervention does not consist of possible war between the two,

but rather a ?meddling? and minor blackmailing. There has been many times when states

in the international system have intervened with a violator, and by ways of threatening,

punishing, and simple obligations, violators have improved, if not abolished types of

human rights violations. But it seems that the most popular form of converting the

violators is to publicize and to scrutinize their actions, since once the state is found to be a

human rights violator, they could loose their relations with other states that do not support

the violations. If other states do not intervene with states that violate the international

Human Rights policies, then the violator will end up self detonating and will hurt the

international system because of its absence. I believe it is completely necessary for Egos

and the International Community to intervene in states with human rights violations

because otherwise, there is no true way to catalyst a change in their human rights policies.

The states that have the violations do realize that they contain these crimes against man,

but do not want to change their policies. These states believe that, especially if they are

economically sound, (China) that they do not need a change in their policies because they

believe that they can prosper without fair treatment to its population within. As every state

should act as a police force on the earth for peace and cooperation, everyone has to make

random checkups on each other in order to reach global peace.