Right of humanitarian intervention. Interplay between morality, law and politics

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - Topic: Public International Law and Human Rights, grade: 9.00, University of Sarajevo (Center for Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Studies), course: Human Rights and Democracy in South East Europe, language: English, abstract: This paper aims to examine the so-called doctrine of ¿humanitarian intervention¿ in accordance with the changing character of state sovereignty. It focuses on legal and moral challenges posed by this doctrine and considers its justification and legitimacy in practice. I argue that humanitarian intervention cannot be divorced from self-interest of intervening states and that it would be unreasonable to think that these actions come only from pure altruism, but that humanitarian motivation should be prevalent in actions of this kind. I also briefly consider the uncertain future of humanitarian intervention and how its practical implementation can be amended to better serve humanitarian goals.