Chapter 12: Globalism, Nationalism, and Marginalized Communities

12.4: International Responses: Advocacy and Human Rights Protections

The way the international community responds to human rights crises can mean the difference between protection and persecution for marginalized communities. Around the world, millions of people face displacement, violence, and oppression, often at the hands of their own governments. While some nations prioritize national sovereignty over external involvement, others argue that protecting human rights is a global responsibility. The debate over how the international community should intervene in humanitarian crises has shaped global politics for decades. In the film Children of Men, the absence of international responses is glaring—Britain, overwhelmed by social collapse, isolates itself and actively suppresses refugees rather than providing aid or protection. The film’s dystopian world illustrates what happens when global advocacy, humanitarian intervention, and international cooperation break down. In reality, efforts to protect vulnerable populations come in many forms, from the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to international commitments like the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). By examining these mechanisms, we can better understand the strengths and limitations of international responses to human rights challenges.

Imagine waking up to the sound of bombs, or watching floodwaters swallow your village—knowing that staying could mean death, but leaving means losing everything. This is the reality of forced displacement, which affects over 100 million people worldwide, according to the UNHCR. Unlike voluntary migration, forced displacement is not a choice but a survival strategy, driven by war, political violence, ethnic persecution, or increasingly, climate disasters. One of the starkest examples is the Syrian civil war, which since 2011 has displaced over 13 million people, both internally and across borders. Families fleeing cities like Aleppo and Homs faced immense danger—not just from airstrikes and chemical attacks, but from the lack of safe exit routes. While displacement is often a byproduct of conflict, in some cases, it is the very goal—used systematically to erase communities and rewrite demographic realities. This brings us to the devastating practice of ethnic cleansing.

What happens when violence isn’t just about winning territory, but about erasing an entire people from it? Ethnic cleansing is one of the most brutal tools of modern conflict—a calculated effort to erase entire communities from the map. Unlike general violence or displacement, ethnic cleansing is intentional: it targets people not for what they’ve done, but for who they are. In the 1990s Bosnian War, Serb forces carried out a campaign of mass killings, rape, and forced expulsions to drive Bosniak Muslims from regions like Srebrenica, culminating in what is now recognized as genocide. These atrocities were not incidental—they were strategic, aimed at creating ethnically “pure” territories. Similar patterns have emerged in places like Rwanda, Gaza, and Sudan, where ethnic or religious minorities have been violently uprooted. While ethnic cleansing often stops short of total annihilation, the line between it and genocide is thin—and, tragically, often crossed.

Genocide is often called the “crime of crimes”—not just because of its scale, but because of its intent. It’s not about battlefield victories or political power; it’s about the deliberate, systematic destruction of a people. The United Nations defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” including killing, causing serious harm, creating conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children. History offers chilling examples: the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered by the Nazi regime; the Rwandan Genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsi were killed in just 100 days; and the Armenian Genocide, where over a million Armenians were exterminated by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. More recently, atrocities against the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uyghur population in China have raised urgent international debates over whether genocide is occurring in real time.

But officially labeling something a genocide carries enormous legal and political weight. Under the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, states that recognize a genocide are obligated not only to punish it, but to prevent it. This creates intense pressure on governments and international institutions, because acknowledging genocide isn’t just symbolic—it implies a legal duty to act. That’s why states and even the UN have historically been hesitant to use the term. During the Rwandan Genocide, for example, the international community deliberately avoided the word “genocide” to avoid triggering obligations for intervention. Even today, accusations of genocide are often mired in geopolitics: states may deny atrocities committed by allies or fear setting diplomatic precedents. The legal implications also extend to international criminal prosecutions, such as those conducted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) or the International Criminal Court (ICC), which can indict individuals for genocide. In theory, the Genocide Convention stands as a bold commitment to “never again.” In practice, political interests and global inaction continue to challenge its enforcement.

When governments fail to protect their citizens, independent organizations often step in to fill the void. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) play a crucial role in advocating for human rights, providing humanitarian aid, and supporting marginalized communities. Organizations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and the International Rescue Committee operate globally to offer legal assistance, medical care, and shelter to displaced populations. Check out the video below to learn more about what the work of Human Rights Watch. In Children of Men, such organizations are notably absent, leaving refugees and immigrants at the mercy of an authoritarian state. This reflects real-world situations in which NGOs struggle to operate due to government restrictions, as seen in Myanmar, where humanitarian groups face severe obstacles in delivering aid to the persecuted Rohingya population. Despite these challenges, NGOs remain essential in crisis zones, often serving as the first responders when state institutions collapse. However, their ability to act is limited without broader political or military intervention, which leads to the question of when and how states should engage in humanitarian intervention.

The decision to intervene in another country’s crisis is one of the most complex and controversial aspects of international relations. Humanitarian intervention involves diplomatic, economic, or military actions taken to prevent or stop human rights abuses. For example, during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the international community largely failed to intervene, allowing mass killings to unfold. By contrast, NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo in 1999 was justified on humanitarian grounds, aiming to prevent further ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serbian forces. While humanitarian intervention can sometimes prevent atrocities, it is also highly controversial—critics argue that it can be used as a pretext for military aggression or regime change, as seen in the 2011 NATO-led intervention in Libya, which led to long-term instability. The debate over intervention has led to the development of international norms, most notably the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which seeks to balance state sovereignty with the moral obligation to prevent mass atrocities.

The idea that the international community has a duty to protect populations from crimes against humanity is a relatively recent but increasingly important principle in global governance. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was formally adopted by the United Nations in 2005, establishing that when a state fails to protect its people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, or crimes against humanity, the international community has a responsibility to step in. This principle reflects the moral and political dilemmas explored in Children of Men, where the British government fails to uphold basic human rights, and no international body intervenes to stop its abuses. While R2P has been invoked in some cases—such as the international response to the Darfur crisis in Sudan—it has been inconsistently applied, with critics arguing that political interests often dictate when and where intervention occurs. The Syrian Civil War is a prime example: despite overwhelming evidence of mass atrocities committed by the Assad regime, international efforts to intervene have been largely ineffective due to geopolitical divisions among powerful nations. This inconsistency highlights the need for stronger international advocacy, which often comes from transnational advocacy networks.

Now that you’ve made it through this section, you’ve probably realized that understanding advocacy and human rights protections requires mastering a mountain of acronyms—because in this field, knowing your NGOs from your R2P and ICC from your UDHR is basically a survival skill. The international response to human rights challenges is shaped by a tangled web of advocacy, intervention, and political interests. NGOs provide critical aid and amplify the voices of the oppressed, but without state cooperation, their ability to halt large-scale atrocities is limited. Humanitarian intervention, while sometimes necessary, remains controversial as governments juggle national interests with moral imperatives. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) offers a framework for action in extreme cases, but its selective application raises concerns about inconsistency and political bias. At the same time, transnational advocacy networks work tirelessly to keep human rights on the global agenda, ensuring that injustices are not ignored. Children of Men offers a chilling vision of what happens when these systems fail—when security trumps humanity and the world turns its back on suffering. Ultimately, understanding these international responses is essential for ensuring that human rights protections remain a priority in an increasingly uncertain world.