Humanitarian war: military intervention and human rights

Abstract

Both these questions fall partly within the field of the legitimacy, or otherwise, of the resort to force in particular circumstances-the jus ad bellum. These particular questions are, to some extent at least, separate from the laws of war-or jus in bello-but the membrane between these fields is less permeable in fact than in legal theory. These two questions also take us beyond law, and into the fields of historical interpretation and prudential judgement. They involve ancient problems which have been debated since time immemorial. With respect to both questions, international thought and practice seem to be changing.