Humane wars? International law, Just War theory and contemporary armed humanitarian intervention

The contemporary international law of war is torn between the pressure to incorporate a doctrine to legitimize limited armed humanitarian intervention and its traditional concerns for nations' sovereignty. Especially because of its organic, interconnected nature, the theoretical tradition of just war theory, when concretized through explicit linkage to specific standards of contemporary human rights law, offers an approach to resolving this dilemma that does not unduly privilege war-making. This approach is both consistent with international law and useful as an example of the relevance of drawing on humanistic reasoning about justice in international jurisprudence. The argument is illustrated by reference to the cases of the failure of humanitarian intervention in Rwanda in 1994, the armed intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and the US-led wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003.