Legitimacy of the "Humanitarian Military Intervention": An Empirical Assessment

This article represents an innovative perspective on the controversial issue of legitimacy of the "humanitarian military intervention" (HMI), by situating the normative debate into a quantitative perspective. It evaluates legitimacy of HMI by assessing a degree of "humanitarianism" behind the "motives and means" and the "outcomes" of military interventions from the post-WWII era. The "motives and means" of the interveners are evaluated based on the theoretical framework of the Just War Theory (JWT), more particularly based on the quantified "jus ad bellum" JWT criteria; and they are compared with the existence of "humanitarian outcomes" of these interventions in the light of consequentialist ethics. An overall goal is to generate a comprehensive picture of the dynamics and relationships within the HMI concept based on the empirical evidence.