Humanitarian intervention has always been more popular in theory than in practice. In the face of unspeakable acts, the desire to do something,anything, is understandable. States have tended to be reluctant to act on such desires, however, leading to the present situation in which there are scores of books and countless articles articulating the contours of a right—or even an obligation—of humanitarian intervention, while the number of cases that might be cited as models of what is being advocated can be (...) counted on one hand. (shrink)

This chapter argues that humanitarian intervention in Afghanistan provided much needed legitimacy to US military actions which were undertaken for partly humanitarian reasons. Operation Enduring Freedom, like most incidents claimed as humanitarian intervention, displayed a range of intentions — some genuine, some asserted, others claimed after the fact. It showed a recognition on the part of the acting state that such intervention cannot be purely military in character to be effective.

The law of military occupation, a doctrine developed at a time when war itself was not illegal, became something of an embarrassment after the UN Charter established a broad prohibition on the use of force.