A Poggean Approach to Mass Atrocities. Political Will for Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect

Master’s Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, Deakin University, language: English, abstract: Hitherto, humanitarian intervention and R2P, have been plagued in practice by a pervasive lack of political will to action. To overcome this situation and supply determinacy for international responses to global manifestations of mass atrocities, a two-stage approach is required. Firstly increasing political will via the development of a new and encompassing moral edict, where humanitarian intervention and R2P are recognised as unavoidable obligations upon the international community. And secondly increasing political will via an achievable reform agenda that lowers political/material barriers, and diminishes the size and scope of future humanitarian challenges. An approach that fundamentally represents the creation of restructured global paradigm, whereby the ‘ethics vs. politics’ decision-making equation is tilted to the point that future emergent humanitarian emergencies will predicably and consistently meet with timely and decisive intervention. Such an approach is achievable, predominantly through an adaption and expansion of the work of cosmopolitan philosopher Thomas Pogge.