Halting genocide in a post-liberal international order: intervention, institutions and norms

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on history and International Relations, this article considers how states might respond to genocide in a more realist, post-liberal international order (LIO). It argues that even within an emergent realist international order (RIO) that downgrades normative commitments to fundamental human rights, unchecked genocide will continue to pose a threat to international peace and security and states will be interested in halting it. Within an emergent RIO, many of the non-coercive tools for halting genocide made available by liberal order will be constrained. Yet, scholars have in any case found that where genocidal-type violence has already begun, non-coercive tools are rarely effective (Bellamy and McLoughlin, 2022; Broache and Cronin-Furman, 2021). This article suggests that within an RIO which encourages greater amounts of self-help, regional and local actors will have realpolitik motivations for undertaking military interventions which halt genocides occurring in their neighbourhood. While such dynamics are observable during earlier period of international history, an emergent RIO will also benefit from the persistence of fundamental norms such as the prohibition on genocide. Given these factors, and while it will be highly non-ideal, an emerging RIO might retain the possibility of effectively responding to some genocides.