Humanitarian Intervention
Authors to be commissioned

No single issue has stirred political debate in the 1990s and the new millennium more than the use of military force to sustain humanitarian action, perhaps the most crucial illustration of the fact that sovereignty is no longer sacrosanct.  The evolution of this concept includes:

  • The tension in Charter provisions for state sovereignty and human rights, and the evolution in two bodies of law in the last half of the 20th century.
  • The evolution of public international law and customary international law as a result of international responses to the crises of the 1990s.
  • The evolving views of secretaries-general toward the relative importance of human rights and sovereignty, with particular reference to the 1990s.
  • Evolving views and approaches to refugees, internally displaced persons, and other victims.
  • Sovereignty as responsibility.
  • Moral, legal, operational, and political considerations during the debates of the 1990s—governmental, inter-governmental, and non-governmental.
  • Global media and impact on international responses of communications technologies.

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