Citizen Killings: Liberalism, State Policy and Moral Risk by Deane-Peter Baker

Author:Deane-Peter Baker [Baker, Deane-Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472575456
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2016-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

Humanitarian conscription

While estimates vary, the Rwanda genocide of 1994 is widely believed to have resulted in the mass murder of between 800,000 and a million Rwandans over a period of ten months. Though there is debate in the literature on humanitarian intervention as to what level of atrocity is necessary before a humanitarian intervention is justified,30 very few scholars would contest the claim that a humanitarian intervention would be justified in the face of a looming Rwanda-scale event.

What is contested is whether or not there are conditions under which it might be morally acceptable for a state to conscript its citizens into the armed forces in order to meet the military challenges of such an intervention. Most scholars accept that a force composed of “mission specific” volunteers31 would certainly be appropriate under these circumstances; an intervention conducted by members of an all-volunteer force (that is, those who have volunteered for military service in general) who are ordered to participate might possibly be appropriate;32 and perhaps even a force composed of private military contractors (“contracted combatants”) might be acceptable.33 But what about circumstances where a conscripted force is the only available option? Here most scholars draw the line.34 Daniel Bauer, for example, contends that

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