Desafios ao processo de institucionalização das intervenções humanitárias no pós-guerra fria: as consequências da Invasão dos Estados Unidos no Iraque (2003)

Abstract

After the end of Cold War, interventions in countries afflicted by humanitarian crises have become part of the international scene from the early 1990's on. On one hand, this approach brought greater humanization to security issues, adding international responsibility to conflicts. On the other hand, it raised the danger of legitimizing humanitarian justifications, whose convincing power began to be used as rhetorical device to justify practices which did not correspond to previews practices. Namely, the interventions promoted by former U.S. President George Bush, especially the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This paper aims at understanding the role of this invasion to the process of institutionalization of humanitarian interventions, taking into account the risk aforementioned. In order to achieve that, the approach of the English School was used, mainly studies of Hedley Bull and contemporary scholars affiliated with this theoretical approach. First, we attempted to understand the construction of these rule within the International Society and, just then, we assessed the effects of the action in Iraq on these practices. The methodology used is the classic approach of international relations theories. It uses analyzes by contemporary scholars of the English School, resolutions by the Security Council and other documents of the UN as well as speeches of the US ex-president George W. Bush witch deal with the American coactive actions in his administration. As a result, we came to the point that the use of humanitarian rhetoric is not consistent with the rule of intervention for the protection of human rights and that the U.S. unilateralist policy had negative effects on the process of institutionalization of the norm of humanitarian intervention. Despite these effects, it did not completely extinguish its legitimacy within the International Society.