Humanitarian Interventions after 1945: Multilateralism, Success Rate and the Impact of the Intervention on the Democratization Process of the Impacted States

Humanitarian interventions have long formed a controversial topic: they represent a violation of the nation-state’s sovereignty to fulfil a humanitarian mission. Intervening countries have always had to deal with suspicion of using humanitarian motives as cover for imperialism. Since 1945 it has become the international norm that the international community may act to prevent the most egregious acts of human rights violations. Modern developments and the UN’s acceptance of the Responsibility to Protect have advanced humanitarian intervention as a legitimate instrument to correct the most striking failures of states to uphold their responsibilities to their citizens. This study attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of humanitarian interventions. The goal of the study is to answer what impact an intervention has on the stability and democratization processes of the affected country. For this purpose, a quantitative analysis was performed using the publicly available data from the Humanitarian intervention dataset. This dataset contains data on 41 humanitarian interventions between 1945 and 2014. These were grouped based on whether there was a single or group intervening countries and whether the intervening side had the approval of relevant international organizations. The groups were then compared in terms of success in achieving a cessation of hostilities in a shorter and longer horizon as well as whether the intervention left behind a functional democratic state. The results indicate that a short-term, unilateral approach to intervention seems more effective than an immediate attempt at violence reduction. The countries targeted by humanitarian intervention almost universally fail to create lasting democratic institutions, however the multilateral approach has produced better results in terms of creating lasting peace.