Humanitarian Intervention in the Long Nineteenth Century: Setting the Precedent

266 Pages·2015·10.033 MB·English

by  Alexis Heraclides, Ada Dialla

Humanitarian intervention
in the long nineteenth century
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HUMANITARIANISM
Key debates and new approaches
This series offers a new interdisciplinary reflection on one of the most important and
yet under studied areas in history, politics and cultural practices: humanitarian aid and
its responses to crises and conflicts. The series seeks to define afresh the boundaries and
methodol ogies applied to the study of humanitarian relief and so-called ‘humanitarian
events’. The series includes monographs and carefully selected thematic edited collections
which will cross disciplinary boundaries and bring fresh perspectives to the historical,
political and cultural understanding of the rationale and impact of humanitarian relief work.
Calculating compassion: Humanity and relief in war, Britain 1870–1914
Rebecca Gill
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Humanitarian intervention in
the long nineteenth century
Setting the precedent
Alexis Heraclides and Ada Dialla
Manchester University Press
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Copyright © Alexis Heraclides and Ada Dialla 2015
The rights of Alexis Heraclides and Ada Dialla to be identified as the authors of this work
have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 0 7190 8990 9 hardback
First published 2015
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external
or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any
content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset in Arno and Univers by R. J. Footring Ltd, Derby
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For Argyris
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Contents
Preface and acknowledgements ix
 1 Humanitarian intervention today 1
Part I: Theory
Introduction 11
 2 The origins of the idea of humanitarian intervention:
just war and against tyranny 14
 3 Eurocentrism, ‘civilization’ and the ‘barbarians’ 31
 4 International law and humanitarian intervention 57
 5 Intervention and non-intervention in international political theory 81
Part II: Practice
Introduction 101
 6 Intervention in the Greek War of Independence, 1821–32 105
 7 Intervention in Lebanon and Syria, 1860–61 134
 8 The Bulgarian atrocities: a bird’s eye view of intervention
with emphasis on Britain, 1875–78 148
 9 The Balkan crisis of 1875–78 and Russia: between humanitarianism
and pragmatism 169
10 The US and Cuba, 1895–98 197
Part III: Conclusion
11 Assessment 225
Select bibliography on international law until 1945 231
Select bibliography 234
Index 241
A table summarizing the stance of publicists regarding humanitarian intervention,
1830–1939, appears on pages 60–2
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Preface and acknowledgements
The nineteenth-century precedent of humanitarian intervention was little known
until recently. Most international relations and international law scholars as well
as diplomats are unaware that humanitarian intervention has a longer history
and is not simply a post-Cold War phenomenon. In the nineteenth century it was
invoked and recognized by European states, public opinion and international
jurists, from the three-power intervention in the Greek War of Independence
(1821–32) until the more controversial US intervention in Cuba in 1898, but also
with regard to other instances short of the use of armed force in cases of humani-
tarian plight from Peru to the Congo and from Naples to Russia.
But even among the few who are aware of the nineteenth-century experience
there has been a reluctance to include it as a precedent, in view of the different
circumstances and standards reigning prior to 1918, not least the embarrassing
‘civilized–barbarians’ dichotomy. Only a handful of international lawyers have
used the nineteenth-century ‘doctrine’ of humanitarian intervention to butttress
contemporary thinking on the idea.1
In recent years the claim that the nineteenth century was a heyday of humani-
tarian intervention has been made more convincing with Gary Bass’s Freedom’s
Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention (2009). Lesser known is a lengthy
paper by Tonny Brems Knudsen given at a conference in 2009.2 These two works,
as well as a lecture by André Mandelstam3 in the inter-war period and a chapter
by Martha Finnemore4 in the mid-1990s, convinced us that a book on our part was
in order.
The idea for this book matured following a workshop on humanitarian inter-
vention at the University of Malmö in March 2010, where a paper on humanitarian
intervention in the nineteenth century by one of the authors of this volume was
well received.5 By the time we had secured a contract with Manchester University
Press, a second book appeared, edited by Brendan Simms and D. J. B. Trim,
Humanitarian Intervention: A History (2011) and when writing our book, a
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