HUMAN RIGHTS, FOREIGN POLICY AND THE QUESTION OF INTERVENTION

Abstract

Since the emergence of the modern European international society of states with the treaty of Westphalia 1648 , international relations have been based on the principle of sovereignty. Mutual recognition of the sovereign equality of states requires each state to refrain from intervention in the sovereign rights of the other. Yet, in the contemporary world of complex relationships, not only the scope and content of 'sovereign' rights of states but also non-intervention as a guiding principle of international relations have become debatable. The emergence of human rights as an international issue has played a significant role in bringing the conventional norms and principles of inter-state relations into debate. From a state-centric view, as will be explored in this article, the internationalisation of human rights is regarded as a conflictive approach to international politics. But, in practice, the issues of human rights have been incorporated into the foreign-policy making of major Western governments. At a theoretical level, too, one can contend that the emerging role of human rights in international politics could not be justifiably rejected by a state-centric objection. This article questions the very foundations of such a conventional resistance, common particularly among developing nations, to the internationalisation of human rights politics.