My senior seminar class, which is required for graduation, is about how to help deaf people in Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake. As a result, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about that country.

There is one thing I think everyone can agree on: Haiti is a failed state. If you’re not familiar with the term, have a look at Wikipedia’s definition; you’ll note that the Fund for Peace has placed Haiti on its annual failed states list since the list’s inception in 2005. My own knowledge of failed states comes primarily from having read Jared Diamond’s excellent book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, but you need not have read that volume to understand the concept. Quite simply, a failed state is one that cannot provide basic public services to its citizens. Sovereignty is maintained, so some form of governmental infrastructure is required, but that infrastructure is unable to support the vast majority people who live in the state. Haiti has been a failed state for many years now.

In the twenty-first century, the appearance of sovereignty is paramount. Colonialism is still present around the world, but at all times, the international community seeks to maintain an air of equality by placing ultimate responsibility on the nation itself. As an example, Aruba achieved independence from the Netherlands Antilles in 1986 and was supposed to become fully independent ten years later, but it remains part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands even today. Aruba is very much a thriving country, however – its government provides services needed for daily life, and its industries are successful, providing a standard of living on par with that of many other western countries.

Haiti does not. Haiti cannot provide basic sanitation, water, and food, let alone education, justice, or medical care. The people of Haiti deserve all of these things and then some, but their sovereign government is not providing it. Other nations and organizations have tried to help over the centuries, but they have failed. The people of Haiti are among the poorest in the world, and suffer human rights abuses on a daily basis because their government cannot provide them with what they need. And here is my question: At what point do human rights needs in a failed state trump its right to sovereignty?

Obviously, in an ideal world, Haiti would be able to provide for its people. It cannot, and has demonstrated this over and over. How much do the Haitian people have to suffer before another country steps in and says “look, you need help, we’ll take over for you.” If disease and violence are so rampant that the country is at risk of depopulation, then is it bad enough that someone else can take control? Or is Haitian sovereignty more important than the lives of its people?

There are no easy answers here, of course. But it’s about so much more than just recovering from the earthquake. Haiti has been in trouble for a very long time – it has never been truly successful. When does the world say “enough is enough” and do something about it? To paraphrase a quote about Africa, Haiti’s problems must be Haiti-identified and Haiti-solved…right? But what if they can’t? Does the world stand by and let a country drive itself into the ground, just so we can preserve the ideal of sovereignty?