Humanitarian Intervention after Iraq: Just War and International Law Perspectives

During the 1990s, particularly with reference to the context of the conflicts in Somalia, former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda, considerable sentiment favoring humanitarian intervention grew both in just war argument and in discussion of international law. This paper examines the arguments put forward in these two frames and their implications for international behaviour and law. But in 2002–2003, when US President Bush identified the egregious abuses of human rights perpetrated by Saddam Hussein and his regime over a long history as one of the reasons for using military force to oust that regime, this humanitarian intervention argument fell flat. Does this put in question the future of the idea of humanitarian intervention after the Iraq war of 2003? This paper argues that the experience of humanitarian intervention (or non-intervention) and its results during the 1990s must be taken together with the case of Iraq in thinking about the future of humanitarian intervention, and that this future may best be imagined not in terms of new developments in international law and international order but as a continuation of past practice.