"Saving Strangers": Human Security and Humanitarian Intervention (Social Sciences)

"SAVING STRANGERS": HUMAN SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
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Conflicts have wreaked havoc throughout history. From civil wars to ethnic ones, these conflicts have often resulted in serious casualties and even outright massacres. The rules of war tend to be broken during such times, and one group ends up bearing much brunt of the impacts of the conflict. Much of the collateral damage is often upon the people who don't take part in the war whatsoever. Humanitarian assistance or intervention typically happens when there is a desperate need for the same from such groups. There will always be a need for enough justification for international intervention into whichever conflict, especially if it infringes on human rights or has a spill-over threat to global security. Sometimes, the legitimacy and legality of intervention might not hold up to the UN's expected or conventional rules. Intervention due to human rights can be legitimate but not entirely legal, such as helping groups endangered in conflicts.
There is the most common overruling rule in international conflict, the nonintervention principle. This principle essentially safeguards an independent nation's sovereignty, shielding it from external meddling or interference. It has been the main overarching rule against all the others regarding international conflicts. While looking through this nonintervention lens, there is the other side of it when the rule doesn't necessarily cover all the aspects of human rights (Lee, 2013). In other terms, what if nonintervention results in serious human rights infringement and even massacres?
Secondly, there is the aspect of saving strangers. When nations come in, should they only save their own? Can they extend a hand and save even those who aren't their own? Such questions continue to pose serious dilemmas in the global community. Wheeler(2001) notes that one of the challenges facing most countries involved in humanitarian efforts is to convince their armies to save people who are not necessarily the citizens of their countries. It also brings to the fore the underlying debate on whether countries should use their hard-earned resources and human capital to save those who aren't their own.
There is a moral obligation to save victims of any conflict. This is perhaps the single most important responsibility of any humanitarian intervention. It is quite important since it covers 'saving strangers,' effectively taking them as part of the disadvantaged population that needs rescuing. This is in line with the responsibility to protect doctrine, which works to ensure every victim in a conflict is rescued and accorded equal protection (Hoffmann, Nollkaemper, & Swerissen, 2012). It has fast become a critical pillar in modern international relatio...