Can humanitarian interventions help create global peace? Common practices, normative change and the end of nationalism

Abstract

Humanitarian interventions are an established practice in international relations, even though their proximate effects remain disputed. Some evidence suggests that they save lives and shorten hostilities, whereas other works in the literature call this into question. Instead of discussing these proximate effects, however, this essay focuses on their effects on long-term peacekeeping. Arguing that repeated practice changes norms and values in international politics, and that these affect how international relations are conducted, I outline how humanitarian interventions can promote values that are conducive to global peace. The practice of humanitarian intervention can foster ideas of global solidarity and weaken the support for national sovereignty. Both of these developments may help us overcome the current system of independent nation-states, which, as I will show, currently allows and even promotes wars. However, humanitarian interventions are currently carried out in the wrong way and do not fulfil their potential. This essay shows how they can be improved and become an important step towards achieving global peace.