Module Identifier IPM6530  
Module Title MILITARY DIMENSIONS OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION  
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 Seminars / Tutorials   22 Hours (1 x 2 hour seminar per week)  
Assessment Semester Assessment   3,000 words Essay:   45%  
  Semester Assessment   Book Review Essay: 1,500 words   15%  
  Semester Assessment   Briefing Paper Course Work: 3,000 words   40%  
  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 the concepts of peacekeeping/peace enforcement in UN peace support operations
- Critically assess the legal, moral and political argument for and against a right and duty of unilateral humanitarian intervention
- assess the strengths and limitations of the military instrument as a protector of human rights
- analyse the role of the UN and regional organizations in humanitarian 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 a Masters level understanding of the military dimensions of humanitarian intervention

Aims

This module aims to provide students with a Masters level knowledge of the role that the use of force can play in protecting human rights in cases of extreme humanitarian emergencies. Students apply conceptual material to specific cases of intervention.

Content

The module introduces students to the moral, legal, political and strategic issues raised by UN authorized and non-UN authorized interventions in the post-Cold War era. It examines the concepts of peacekeeping; peace enforcement; post-conflict rebuilding and humanitarian intervention before applying these to six specific cases of intervention.

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
N J Wheeler. Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society. 2002. Oxford University Press
William Shawcross. Deliver us from Evil: Warlords and Peacekeepers in a World of Endless Conflict. 2000. Bloomsbury