ABSTRACT
When a government attacks its own people, or is unable or unwilling to protect them, should the international community of states merely stand by and watch? When can a threat to human rights be said to reach the level of a threat to the peace? This chapter first sets out the international rules governing the use of force and the attempts—largely unsuccessful—to fit humanitarian intervention into those rules. It then examines the claim that certain cases of alleged humanitarian intervention might best be seen as “exceptions” to the rule, or situations in which the rule can be disregarded. Third, it considers the emergence of the doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as an attempt at a new framing of these old questions.
