Case 249 - The Problems of Doing Good

by ISD - Georgetown University
$ 4.50

Coll, Alberto

This case study, created for the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, describes the 1992-1994 humanitarian intervention by the United States and the United Nations in Somalia, then poses a number of complex ethical questions: Was the intervention truly humanitarian? Were the human rights abuses, or the degree of suffering, sufficiently egregious to justify violating the principle of national sovereignty? And does a country have a moral obligation to help a foreign people in distress—a responsibility to protect?