The "Discourse" of International Law and Humanitarian Intervention

The essay analyzes the doctrine of “humanitarian intervention” in the frame of the second half of the 19th century international law and points out the ground of legitimation of this intervention in the violation of presumed universal laws of humanity. The analysis emphasizes the transformation of the paradigm of “humanitarian intervention” in the current doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” that legitimizes the limitations of the State’s sovereignty, conceived as “responsibility”, in case in which a State doesn’t guarantee the protection of its own population. The reconstruction of the genealogy of “humanitarian intervention” demonstrates the continuous exceptions to the principle of non-intervention, that means that the Westphalian principle of sovereignty has always been violated . Both the doctrines - humanitarian intervention and Responsibility to Protect - can be considered “hegemonic techniques” that use so-called universal concepts in order to legitimize unilateral power interests.