ABSTRACT
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, countless writers, scholars and politicians have weighed in on the relationship between sovereignty and the idea of using military force to protect fundamental human rights. The Security Council meeting immediately after the beginning of the Kosovo intervention saw a clash of different conceptualizations of sovereignty and the legality and morality of intervening with force in the name of human rights. Military intervention for human protection purposes is an exceptional and extraordinary measure. Relative silence surrounding the Responsibility to Protect, it somewhat abruptly found its way into two Security Council resolutions on the ensuing civil war in Libya and one on the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis. The protection and promotion of the universal values of the rule of law, human rights and democracy are ends in themselves. They are also essential for a world of justice, opportunity and stability.
