Module Identifier IP33220  
Module Title HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION IN WORLD POLITICS  
Academic Year 2002/2003  
Co-ordinator Dr Nicholas J Wheeler  
Semester Intended for use in future years  
Next year offered N/A  
Next semester offered N/A  
Course delivery Lecture   15 Hours (15 x 1 hour)  
  Seminars / Tutorials   10 Hours (5 x 2 hour)  
Assessment Semester Exam   2 Hours   50%  
  Semester Assessment   Essay: 1 x 3,000 words   50%  
  Supplementary Exam   Students may, subject to Faculty approval, have the opportunity to resit this module, normally during the supplementary examination period. For further clarification please contact the Teaching Programme Administrator in the Department of International Politics.    

Learning outcomes

On completion of the module, students will be able to:

- understand competing definitions of humanitarian intervention
- critically analyse conflicting views on the ethics of using force to end human rights emergencies
knowledge of the legal context
- an ability to relate conceptual issues to specific empirical cases
- an understanding of the political context of contemporary debates over sovereignty and intervention.
- an ability to relate the conceptual ideas discussed on the module to specific case studies.

Brief description

This module provides an analytical foundation for the study of humanitarian intervention in world politics. It develops a theoretical framework which is then applied to specific case studies.

Aims

This module aims to provide students with an undergraduate level training in the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention. The question of how the international community should respond when states commit gross and systematic human rights violation poses a fundamental challenge at the beginning of the 21st century. This module examines the political, legal, strategic and ethical issues involved in the use of force to stop such atrocities. Students explore how the political, legal, ethical and strategic considerations discussed in the earlier part of the module apply to specific cases of intervention.

Content

After discussing competing theoretical approaches to the subject focusing on the legal, ethical and political dilemmas raised by armed intervention to protect human rights, the module focuses on four specific case studies of intervention in the 1990s:
The cases selected for examination are the Western interventions in Iraq in 1991-1992; the UN/US intervention in Somalia in the period 1992-1995; the inaction over the Rwandan genocide in 1994; and NATO's intervention in Kosovo in 1999. The module concludes by reflecting on the lessons that can be learned from these interventions for future cases, and considers whether there is an emerging North-South consensus on the legitimacy and legality of humanitarian intervention.

10 ECTS credits

Transferable skills

Students will have the opportunity to develop, practice and test a wide range of transferable skills that will help them to understand, conceptualise and evaluate the case study material. Throughout the course, students should practice and enhance their reading, comprehension and thinking skills, as well as basic numeric skills and self-management skills. In lectures students will develop listening and note taking skills, as well as analytical skills. In seminars students will enhance their analytical skills and will practice listening, explaining and debating skills, as well as team-work and problem solving. Essay writing will encourage students to practice their independent research, writing and IT skills, and the examination will test these skills under time constraint conditions.

Reading Lists

Books
** Recommended Text
N J Wheeler. Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention & International Society. 2002. Oxford University Press