030263 KU On the history and practice of humanitarian intervention (2021S)

The primary target of this course is to acquire a broad and critical understanding of the theory and practice of humanitarian intervention in historical perspective. In order to achieve this objective the course combines three methodological tools: contextualization, longue durée and diachronic approach. Looking at the subject matter in context means that we’ll investigate the history of humanitarian intervention as history of human rights, as diplomatic and military history, as history of communication and the public, as history of sovereignty and the international community and as history of international law. This approach does not only provide a broader understandig of the history of humanitarian intervention, but also an opportunity for the critical reflection of concepts and practices that are central to our understanding of politics and law, such as the „sovereign state, the „international community“, „public opinion“ or „human rights“. Looking at the history of humanitarian intervention in the longue durée, from the 16th century to the present allows us, to study different patterns of interventions on behalf of foreign persecuted citizens by military or alternative means. By adopting a diachronic perspective the course differs from attempts to construct a more or less linear evolution of humanitärian intervention. It rather makes use of the early modern period in order to highlight the contingency of the modern international order based on sovereign states and to provide a measure of orientation for challenges of current international law, which is characterized by the conditionality or even erosion of the classical sovereign state, which we got used to in the 19th and 20th centuries.