RETHINKING HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

Although the currently dominant concept of humanitarian intervention h as a long history, it is also distinctive in several crucial respects. This article analyzes its nature, historical specificity and presuppo sitions. It argues that the concept of humanitarian intervention is lo gically unstable in the sense that it both presupposes and seeks to go beyond the statist manner of thinking which has dominated political l ife for the past three centuries. The article exposes the incoherence of the statist paradigm and concludes by arguing that, although humani tarian intervention is justified under certain circumstances, it is to o limited, too late and too superficial to be of lasting value, and ne eds to be embedded in and undertaken as part of a larger project of cr eating a just and nonstatist global order.