Legal debates about humanitarian intervention—military intervention by one or more states to curb gross human rights violations occurring in another state—tend to assume that its legitimacy is irrelevant to its legality. Debates among philosophers and political theorists often assume the inverse, that the legality of humanitarian intervention is irrelevant to its legitimacy. This paper defends an alternative account, one that sees the legality and legitimacy of humanitarian intervention as intertwined. This account emerges from a conception of international law as a legal domain that structures global politics by treating sovereignty as a legal entitlement that it distributes among the multitude of legal actors that it recognizes as states. Drawing on a long standing debate among domestic legal theorists about the rule of law, it first identifies formal constraints on the UN Security Council's discretion to authorize the use of force to end human rights violations. Developing a distributive conception of international human rights, it then identifies substantive considerations that shed further light on the legality of intervention. It suggests that members of the Security Council must give reasons when exercising their discretion to authorize the use of force and that some reasons might divest a member's vote of legal validity.
To read or purchase the full text of this article, click here.
More in this issue
Winter 2008 (22.4) • Feature
Human Rights and Global Democracy
This essay argues that human rights are a necessary condition for global democracy. Human rights constrain power, enable meaningful political agency, and support and promote ...
Winter 2008 (22.4) • Review Essay
Apology, Forgiveness, and Moral Repair
These works provide a rich introduction to some of the processes needed in transitions from injustices to more humane relationships. They address different levels of ...
Winter 2008 (22.4) • Review
Briefly Noted
This section contains a round-up of recent notable books in the field of international affairs.