World Class Podcast Episode 5: The Warm Fuzzies: Universal Values and Humanitarian Intervention

The UN is the world’s most idealistic organization: a place where representatives of countries all over the world can get together and talk about governance, peace, human rights, and a bunch of other nice stuff. As fluffy as these conversations may seem, they have a life or death impact on millions of those suffering from the hardships of war and oppression around the world. In this episode of World Class Podcast, we talk about the golden age of humanitarian intervention, its apparent slow down since 9/11, and ask one of the toughest ideological questions of all: can we as a global society possibly share some universal values? Should human rights be prioritized over the sovereignty of countries? Where has humanitarian intervention succeeded and failed? We ask ourselves these questions and also pass them on to Tonny Brems Knudsen, political scientist and an decade-long expert on the UN and humanitarian interventions. He gives us his perspective on why there has been a lack of action in the face of atrocities in Syria and recently during the Rohingya-crisis in Myanmar.