HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND THE RIGHT T O SELF-DETERMINATION - MORAL GROUNDS FOR HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND AN HISTORICAL-PERSPECTIVE

The development and realization of human rights is bound to a concrete political community. Thus, for Walzer, only in cases of massacre, gen ocide, or enslavement the existence of a political community is threat ened and intervention justified. His critics, however, hold that human rights are universal and, therefore, intervention is generally legiti mate in cases of human rights violations. In this article the theoreti cal consistence of these positions is examined and confronted with the political and historical development of the international system, in which the juridical acknowledgement of the people's right of selfdeter mination has not led to its realization. After the East-West-Conflict many peoples claim the right of selfdetermination. A military paternal ism in the name of human rights would not only ignore this claim but i ts success would also be extremely unlikely.