Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention Research Paper - 1

Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention - Research Paper Example Despite optimistic dreams, harmony was shattered in the early 1990s with the explosion of ethnic conflict and humanitarian tragedies on the grandest scale.   While ethnic conflict and humanitarian crises have existed since the dawn of time, for the first time ever images of extreme bloodshed, violence, and even genocide were broadcast into the millions of people around the world, from New York to New Delhi and from London to Lagos. Images of children being slaughtered, women being raped and people brutalized were beamed into the living rooms of concerned citizens all over the world, for all to see. For the first time, the public was confronted, on a near daily basis, with images of mass carnage, violence, and humanitarian crisis. People pressed their congressmen, parliamentarians and state representatives to act and, in varying degrees, a groundswell calling for a decisive role for governments in ending these humanitarian crises and conflicts emerged. Although some wanted direct military action, often French, British or American, in ending a particular conflict, most governments have traditionally favored other instruments of diplomacy: p olitical pressure, economic sanctions and imposed a settlement through international bodies such as the United Nations. As Carleton, & Stohl have emphatically demonstrated, a foreign policy rhetoric may be politically salient but not always political possible.  The purpose of this report is to provide an analysis of the human rights issue of genocide and humanitarian intervention.   With the aim of providing a thorough and concise overview of an incredibly timely issue, the following will explore arguments by two major scholars in the field regarding this important human rights issue.