Norm Emergence and Humanitarian Intervention

摘要

Despite efforts by the UN in the past two decades, the world has seen numerous intrastate conflicts emerge. Immediate worldwide reporting of such atrocities, evoking empathy for the plight of others, has led to an unseen measure of objection to repressive treatment, and the excuse of sovereignty as a defense against inhumane actions is being challenged. The relevance and importance of this topic is reflected in the origins of humanitarian intervention and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty's 2001 report titled The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the United Nations (UN) subsequent adoption of the report at the World Summit in 2005. This thesis uses the constructivist approach to norms and norm development to investigate whether a norm of humanitarian intervention has emerged in the international system that is shaping the behavior of states. It proposes that norms develop in a three-stage life cycle. I suggest that the norm of humanitarian intervention, since the end of the Cold War, has developed in a manner that was initially consistent with the norm-life cycle, but more recently has deviated from the life cycle. This thesis seeks to explain why this is the case and discuss the implications of the norm of humanitarian intervention for international society.