Text(ing) Humanitarian Intervention: The Rule of Law, Mandate and Report
63 Pages Posted: 6 Oct 2011 Last revised: 9 Oct 2011
Date Written: October 5, 2011
Abstract
Humanitarian intervention requires massive mobilization of personnel and resources from around the world in complex projects of peacekeeping, nation building, protecting human rights, and re-establishing the rule of law. This substantial undertaking is authorized, set in motion, coordinated, and concluded through texts. This Article considers three central categories of texts in humanitarian intervention and their networks of interconnection as they organize and manage work in the field missions deployed on humanitarian grounds. These texts are examined not just for their substantive content but also for their active facilitating work in the intervention. These dominant texts — and networks of texts — in international law reflect both the global and local relations of power in humanitarian intervention. At the global or international level, there is the formal law — international treaties — that frames and authorizes the international intervention. Connecting international to national, there is the mandate — inscribed in U.N. Security Council Resolutions — authorized by law and implemented through international administrators. Finally, connecting global to local, there are the everyday texts of the field mission, the myriad reports prepared and used by field officers, also shaped by and responsive to the law and the mandate. Law travels to and through the field primarily via these essential texts of humanitarian intervention.
Keywords: humanitarian intervention, human rights, rule of law, social theory, international law, United Nations
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