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Humanitarian Intervention

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DOES HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION HELP RESOLVE CONFLICTS?
CASE STUDY ON THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO.

INTRODUCTION

This essay will point out the definition of humanitarian intervention and the lack of definition or misinterpretation of the legality of humanitarian intervention. It will give a historical description on the nature of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the exploitation of the country and the main instigators fuelling this conflict. It will analyse the humanitarian intervention efforts by the international community and how has it helped in the conflict resolutions to protect the nation’s citizens. It will also give you the different organisations, a description of the contributions the international community are trying to achieve to alleviate the suffering of the population as well as the measures to help the nation from ceasing the continuation of this ongoing conflict.

The definition of what constitutes humanitarian intervention can be questioned both legally, morally and politically, it has been defined as a states use of military force against another state or within the state, aim at ending human rights violations but should be best understood as intervening without military force to alleviate mass human suffering within sovereign borders. (Wikipedia, 25th Sep 2013)

Another excellent definition as stated by Holzgrefe, J.L is a “threat or use of force across state borders by a state (or group of states) aimed at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamentals of human rights of individuals other than its own citizens, without permission of the state within whose territory force is applied”, this excludes two important factors associated with this definition, they are: “non-forcible interventions such as threat or use of economic, diplomatic or other sanctions and forcible

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