Human Rights Imperialism

[Yu Ming Zai]

What do people think about the policy of using the issue of human rights as a justification for intervening militarily or economically in another country's affairs? I feel like the claim of the universality of human rights from the understanding of Western culture is a moral disguise to cover the imperialistic nature of Western governments, especially the United States to maintain its hegemony over the world after the end of the Cold War. Since the concept of human rights was established by Western governments when they were at their peak of power from the Enlightenment Era to WWII, how much of that is just a reflection of Western dominance within the area of international relations? Is the norms of international conduct really international or does it actually secretly favors the West?

[Questionable]

I think your description pretty much nailed it to be honest.

Aren't things like commerce considered to be human rights by the UN as well? I think I heard that from somewhere but I'm not sure.

[Charles Marxley]

Damage to property is considered a violation of human rights. That, to me, takes away all meaning of the phrase. I agree, Questionable, Yu Ming Zai is spot on.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

On the other hand, a rejection of certain bourgeois rights as "Western" (ignoring the contribution of Asian thought to the formulation of these rights, of course) is often used as a justification by neoliberal and theocratic governments in Asia. I don't think there's anything wrong, per se, with a universal condemnation of misogyny etc. etc.; but "human rights" imperialism uses that condemnation as a cynical ploy, and more importantly, does not help women and other oppressed groups in the targeted states at all.

[Philosophos]

First of all if you think about it human rights don't really exist in the first place at their current form. If someone comes in Greece and he's human he has the right (theoretically) to use his human rights. Yeah... That's not happening... Also it's not happening in lot's of countries... You shouldn't be an illegal immigrant and stuff... But hell yeah they are called human rights....

Anyway the main cause that human rights are used today is to control other countries and have an excuse about the wars the USA, France, Great Britain and other capitalist puppets want to make.

It's pretty much the same as you did ;)1

[Yuppie Grinder]

Imperialism has almost always had a humanitarian ideology to go alongside it. Ever heard of the white man's burden?

[Illegalitarian]

It helps to dress up imperialism as a moral or ethical question, rather than an economic one. The vast majority of "activists" in the west are social-justice-espousing liberals who just so happen to be huge supporters of human rights and human rights groups, so invading a country on the grounds of "human rights abuses" not only sounds better than "they didn't want to be a colony", but it also gets them praised by organizations such as Human Right's Watch, etc, and thus all of the bleeding heart humanitarians come out in droves to support said actions, keeping the apolitical from asking questions and doing any real critical thinking.


And if the powers that be are lucky enough, sometimes they'll even get a convenient front for their imperialism such as the "KONY 2012" movement.

[Labor Aristocrat Killer]

The theoretical physicist Jean Bricmont wrote a book on it called Humanitarian Imperialism: Using Human Rights to Sell War (http://www.amazon.com/Humanitarian-Imperialism-Using-Human-Rights/dp/1583671471).

[Lord Hargreaves]

There are two questions here:

#1) Is there a defensible moral/philosophical doctrine of humanitarian interventionism?

#2) Are Western governments, when they appeal to things like "human rights", genuinely appealing to #1 (if we can conclude that there is such a doctrine) when they make such public pronouncements?

In response to the first question #1, the answer is Yes. It is fairly easy to construct hypothetical scenarios in one's head where such intervention would be justified. And there may be a good case for saying that such situations have actually existed in history - the Vietnamese intervention into Cambodia to overthrow Pol Pot, for example.

However, while such arguments may be somewhat respectable, there are good moral reasons for nevertheless rejecting the position. As a general, universalizable policy, human rights are better protected in the long run by respect of state sovereignty - by which I mean, respecting the integrity of the national space vis a vis outside violence.

(An exception to this "peace rule" may be the international class struggle. However, since it is very difficult to know in practice what this genuinely means - where it has in fact been used as a concept, it has served as propaganda for the Soviet state and other Official Marxist states to defend imperialism, resulting in much humanitarian disaster - we can leave this aside for now. Perhaps a discussion for another time.)

The humanitarian-moral case against the doctrine of humanitarian interventionism involves advocating for an international federal order which constrains the use of state military force, defending international law, building regional political and economic union, etc. Humanitarian intervention still ultimately relies on the state itself (the state with the military capability, i.e. nearly always the United States) deciding for the use of violence on a kind of ad hoc basis, without any real accountability. This is bad for the prospects of peace in the long run.

In regards to #2, then the answer is a very clear No. Simply reading Noam Chomsky's back catalog is antidote enough to counter any idea that the Western governments which use humanitarian-esque language actually mean it. As any real understanding of history would show: no, of course they don't mean it.