Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political

It has become clear that the principle of sovereignty no longer affords protection to governments that systematically abuse their citizens. Particularly after NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, it seems that humanitarian intervention has become the norm rather than the exception in international relations, while some have even considered it an emerging norm of international law (Alexander 2000: 404-405). This essay defines humanitarian intervention as the projection of military force by a state or group of states in another state, without its permission, for the purpose of halting or averting gross human rights violations. Indeed, when humanitarian intervention has occurred, it has been in response to widespread and grave human suffering generally perpetrated or augmented by the de facto authorities within a given state. However, as Jonathan Moore’s volume illustrates, there are human rights contingencies that clearly must be addressed, though using military force to do so is morally questionable and/or based on dubious legal foundations. Based on this insight, I believe it reasonable to suggest that exceptions to the general presumption against the use of force under the UN Charter framework1 must be sensitive to 1 While the UN Charter’s general prohibition against the use of force (Article 2:4) is construed as the rule, the Charte