Conflicting Norms – How Great Britain Deals with Human Rights Protection and State Sovereignty

In social constructivist research norms influence the behavior of actors. The assumption that action is guided in accordance to what is seen as appropriate becomes problematic when following two conflicting norms becomes possible. This leads to a problem for an actor who internalized both norms and is therefore prone towards two conflicting, but appropriate actions. Within norm theory the problem of conflicting norms is underexplored. For this paper humanitarian intervention serves as a starting point to study how actors deal with this: While the human rights norm would favor an intervention, state sovereignty would favor a non-intervention. This is analyzed by looking at Great Britain and debates of humanitarian interventions and non-interventions from the early 90s onwards where massive human rights violations took place. The results suggests that the actor still struggles with both norms but finds ways to deal with the norm conflict and keeps his capacity to act.