ABSTRACT
According to Cynthia Weber (1995, 11), “intervention is an essentially uncontested concept. The uncontestedness of intervention has to do with its coupling with sovereignty.” Definitions of intervention are always controversial in the IR literature. Nevertheless, Weber is explicit in indicating the link with state sovereignty and the fact that intervention and sovereignty can contradict each other. Hence, even if the perspectives on international intervention provided by different theories vary greatly, no discussion of intervention could leave out the debate over sovereignty. If we look at intervention from the point of view of state sovereignty, we find that intervention always has two characteristics that are related to change of sovereignty: i.e., it is convention-breaking and authority-oriented.
