When Theory Meets the Janjaweed - An Analysis of the Factors that Determine UN Humanitarian Intervention in Africa

Abstract: Although many may argue that there is a developing norm of "the responsibility to protect", there has not been any decision by the UN Security Council to intervene militarily in the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The aim of this thesis is to examine the factors that concern UN humanitarian intervention in Africa, and why the Security Council has not intervened to stop the atrocities committed by the government of Sudan and its allied Janjaweed militias. My hypotheses are that the response by the Security Council is determined by legal considerations, humanitarian concerns and political will. The standpoint in the dilemma of humanitarian intervention varies between positivists and counter-restrictionists in international law and between pluralists and solidarists in international theory. I compare the case of Somalia, where the UN intervened in 1992, and Rwanda, where the UN acted too late to stop the genocide in 1994, to the Darfur crisis that erupted in February 2003. I analyze the belated discussion on Darfur in the Security Council up to February 2005, which was a critical time period for the crisis and for a possible intervention by the UN. "The responsibility to protect" may exist in theory but in practice "political will", and all that underlies this factor, explains the passivity of the Security Council.