TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Lesson from humanitarian intervention in Syria
A simple question then arises: what is more important, protecting civilians’ human rights or respecting a state’s sovereignty?
Change Size
Smoke billows following Syrian government bombardments on Kafr Batna, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on Feb. 22, 2018. (Agence France -Presse/Amer Almohibany)
T
hat many Syrian civilians and innocent people were treated inhumanely by their own government through the use of chemical weapons would never be imagined, let alone accepted by the Indonesian people. That the United States, supported by the United Kingdom and France, responded by launching missile attacks against Syria is similarly intolerable to most Indonesians and the government alike.
A simple question then arises: what is more important, protecting civilians’ human rights or respecting a state’s sovereignty? The discourse was and is ongoing over whether it is legally and ethically acceptable to protect human rights for the sake of state sovereignty. As anticipated, the discussion is not likely to reach a unanimous agreement by all students studying conflict resolution, nor would it in global politics. Contrasts are quite clear.
Liberalist like-minded students highlight the importance of protecting human rights upon which the state was naturally and culturally established and for which the state is relevant and significant. They argue that failure to provide security and protection to its own people renders the state meaningless.
On the other hand, realist like-minded students argue that the primacy of state sovereignty is the fundamental principle of international relations. They further say that any form of intervention in domestic affairs of other countries is against international law and such practices will lead to anarchy.
