Haiti Case Study Outline

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KANT PRINCIPLES VIOLATED…BAD INTENTIONS

According to Kant, if you are responsible, you have to account for your actions. The only thing to have is good will. The UN might have had good intentions before the outbreak, but that changed when the blame was shifted to them. They didn’t act and tried to shift the blame and attention away from them. They also violated the Haitian’s autonomy, you must always treat people with respect. They also violated policies they had made for themselves. When there are no checks to ensure the ethical behavior of authorities, they should have good intentions and follow their ethical objectives they set for themselves.

SUMMARY OF TWO PART:

The Haitians died unnecessarily bc the Haitians were not respected enough by the UN so that they would have given proper diligence to prevent the outbreak, and then act when it was clear the outbreak had happened.

THE LAWSUIT: The UN claimed immunity (convention on the privileges and immunities of the united nations): will have a process to deal with lawsuits, will have immunities from lawsuits in order to provide aid. CLEARLY: there is conflict with the fact they caused major damage. àhigher value needs to be adopted by the UN instead of allowing misdeeds because of the UN’s end goals.

COUNTER ARGUMENTS

Discourage other aid from coming

-The peacekeepers were not brought in as a result of the earthquake, they had been shuffled in since 2004. It was an isolated incident, there should be no discouragement of humanitarian aid. Properly responsible aid-givers would have nothing to fear.

OR

- While the overall intention to help the Haitians was noble, along with it came the reasonable expectation on the part of the Haitian people that the UN would conduct themselves responsibly. The UN workers should have had an intention to follow effective screening procedures for volunteers, create functional sewage systems, and implement water testing, and instead they seem to have acted on intentions to simply get some workers and some sewage system in place without due consideration of the risks. Universalizing to account for the point of view of those in the Haitians’ position, no reasonable being would agree with a rule for action that failed to take into account serious risk factors regarding their health. To grant immunity would condone highly reckless behavior simply because they were attempting to carry out humanitarian work. There should be a balance between encouraging humanitarian aid work and discouraging reckless behavior.

THERE IS A BIG PICTURE ISSUE: THE UN HAS NO CHECK, NO ACCOUNTABILITY.