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along with the Hague Convention, designate what constitute war crimes; the
Genocide Convention of 1948 defines crimes of genocide; and the
Nuremburg Charter and the 17 July 1998 Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court identify crimes against humanity. These instruments together
with the UN Declaration on Human Rights and various fundamental values
articulated in the UN Charter represent a combination of international law
agreements, principles and “highly developed human rights norms.”
(a phrase used by the Danish Institute of International Affairs in its report on
Humanitarian Intervention prepared for its government). These norms are of
a prescriptive rather than practiced nature, laudable “oughts” for the
treatment of human beings by governments. As such they sit uneasily
alongside “relatively weak mechanisms for their enforcement” (DUPI,
Humanitarian Intervention, ch 7). Humanitarian activity is thus about
reaching out to the victims of any of these three heinous crimes and
egregious violations of prescriptive international norms. It aims at rescue
and relief and is consistent with traditional notions of Good Samaritan
responses to the plight of someone victimized and injured. But it is the
means to that end, the manner of confronting the country or agents
responsible for the calamity - the use of force - that turns humanitarianism
into humanitarian intervention and moves questions about moral sensibilities
and responses beyond Good Samaritanism. (David Luban makes the same
point, DeGrieff and Cronin, 2002,p.94). The issues then are about when and
to what extent coercion can be squared with the practical ethics of
humanitarianism. They are also about who and how intervention is
authorized. The role of the Security Council, acting with the unanimous
support of its five principal members under Chapter VII of the UN Charter
to authorize an override of the general principle of non-intervention in cases
Convention