The Committee for Humanitarian Intervention (CHI) was founded in December 2004, at first under the name of International Committee for Humanitarian Intervention (ICHI), to call for the protection of people who cannot defend themselves, in cases when military means are absolutely necessary to save and protect them.

We find it unacceptable that defenceless people are massacred, tortured, repressed and treated inhumanely, like in Sudan (Darfur), Syria and Myanmar (Rohingya) in more recent history – or wherever and whenever.

We observe in many cases a lack of interest in the Netherlands and other Western countries to act on a true responsibility to protect defenceless people. We thus support interventions to prevent, halt or at least curtail grave crimes against humanity – by military means if necessary if peaceful means turn out to be impossible or insufficient – such as:[1]

• genocide and other types of systematic murder against groups in society;
• aggression of states against other states when the aggressor commits most of the atrocities and the attacked state lacks the means to defend itself;
• other kinds of extreme injustice like terrorism against civilians, slavery, ethnic cleansing, largescale mistreatment, systematic torture and rape.

Humanitarian intervention should preferably take place under the umbrella of an internationally recognised organisation with a responsibility for peacekeeping and peace enforcement, like:

1. the United Nations (UN) and/or other international organisations that (may) represent a global consensus, like the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU); or
2. NATO or other (regional) security organisations with military capacities.[2]

However, history has shown that in many cases it appears not feasible to get the support needed for humanitarian intervention through such an organisation. In the case of the UN, Russia and China systematically block a coordinated activity to prevent or stem any largescale atrocities in certain countries and conflict areas. In these cases we are convinced that we should accept and resign to the existing situation in the UN Security Council, and instead advocate that individual states and/or a coalition of willing states should intervene. Also it can be the case that non-state organisations are needed to defend people, such as the foreign legion currently established by the Ukrainian government to help defend its country and people against the brutal onslaught of the Russian invasion forces.

We thus prefer intervention by or with approval from the UN, yet in principle we keep the option open to publicly support interventions by aforementioned actors  if the UN and/or other international or regional organisations are not willing to intervene: in our opinion humanitarian interventions without a mandate from the UN Security Council can be morally legitimate.

In each relevant case where an intervention should take place, we firmly believe that it should be:

• truly based on humanitarian purposes and should not be misused for other ends;
• grounded on facts i.e. on correct and verifiable information – thus there must exist a genuinely threatening situation against defenceless people;
• decent and proportional in its use of violence and must be directed solely at combatants, all this according to the letter and spirit of international humanitarian law on warfare; and
• timely, forceful and focused, while being prepared and carried out wisely. The committee disapproves of symbolic interventions that are too little and too late, and save little if any lives.

1] See esp. International Criminal Court (ICC) Rome Statute, Artt.5-8.

[2] See e.g. https://stability-operations.org/page/Code.

The committee seeks to realise its goals and principles through urgent letters, petitions, declarations, demonstrations, public forums and through other public activities and lobbying initiatives at national governments, ministries and parliaments, and institutions like the European Parliament.

We also participate, out of solidarity or interest in the issues concerned, in other activities, like the yearly Srebrenica commemoration in The Hague, the Netherlands, on the 11th of July.

Thus we also seek to foster an altruistic tradition within the societies and armed forces of especially democratic and free countries, whereby humanitarian intervention becomes an integral part of their moral mindsets and foreign policies.