The Legitimacy of Humanitarian Interventions

Abstract

According to many international lawyers, humanitarian interventions without authorization by the UN Security Council are unlawful, but are sometimes morally justified. This discrepancy between legality and legitimacy has led to proposals for making international law more congruent with morality. This article examines the legitimacy of humanitarian interventions by discussing the major justifications by Walzer, Rawls, and Tesón. It argues that these justifications are open-ended: they fail to show that intervention should be limited to cases of violation of basic human rights, and do not categorically rule out intervention in the name of liberal and democratic rights. This is one more reason for being cautious with attempts to establish a law of humanitarian intervention.