humanitarian intervention

English

Noun

humanitarian intervention (countable and uncountable, plural humanitarian interventions)

1. The deployment of army personnel for humanitarian-motivated goals.
   • 2004, Michael C. Davis (ed.), Tania Voon (chapter author), “Legitimacy and Lawfulness of Humanitarian Intervention”, in International intervention in the post-Cold War world, M. E. Sharpe, Inc., page 40:

     The events of 1999 in Kosovo and East Timor provide an important opportunity to reflect on the practice of humanitarian intervention.

   • 2010, Keith L. Shimko, International Relations: Perspectives and Controversies, Wadsworth Cengage, page 252:

     We may be in the middle of a process in which some fundamental ideas or norms about international politics are being transformed, and the increasing willingness to consider humanitarian intervention may be part of this evolution.

   • 2012, Ned Dobos, Insurrection and Intervention: The Two Faces of Sovereignty, Cambridge University Press, page 117:

     But in some respects humanitarian intervention looks more like police work than war.

See also

• Appendix:American Dialect Society most outrageous words of the year

References

• Most Outrageous Word of the Year, American Dialect Society

Further reading

• Military intervention and the European Union, Chaillot Paper No. 45, March 2001, European Union Institute for Security Studies
• The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention U.S. Institute of Peace August 2002
• The Argument about Humanitarian Intervention By Michael Walzer