Human Rights and the Rights of States: Terry Nardin on Nonintervention

Abstract

This article examines Terry Nardin's account of the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. Nardin argues that states ought to adopt a presumption against intervention in the affairs of another state but he claims that, under certain circumstances, this presumption may be overridden to further human rights. This article calls into question both his defence of the norm of nonintervention and his account of when humanitarian intervention is legitimate. It argues that his proposals do not go far enough and that a cosmopolitan theory of intervention is more plausible.