Humanitarian intervention?

Humanitarian intervention raises the challenging question of whether one or more States may use military force to stop or forestall mass atrocities or other grave humanitarian crises inside another State. Although humanitarian intervention remains deeply controversial as a matter of law and policy, States have periodically turned to it as a justification for military action. Over the past few decades, in fact, it has gained new adherents in the form of States that have affirmatively accepted humanitarian intervention as a legal basis for the use of force in certain limited situations, as discussed below. Given the use - and potentially growing legal arguments in favor - of humanitarian intervention, exploring its use and the contemporary debates is an important aspect of understanding the current international framework regarding security, atrocity prevention, and human rights, among other core issues. To do so, this chapter will offer a brief tour of key historical examples of humanitarian intervention, introduce the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and then highlight the contemporary debates about the international legal status of humanitarian intervention as a viable justification for the use of force. These debates about humanitarian intervention go to the heart of core pillars of the international system: sovereignty, protection of human rights, and the preservation of order and stability.