Humanitarian intervention: legality, legitimacy, and morality-any prospects for a solution?

Humanitarian Intervention concept which began to be referred so frequently in the international relations literature after the end of the Cold War is a product of Just War tradition which has its roots in ancient ages and Humanitarian Intervention concept has changed into the present status which is contentious and without a standard definition.While the legitimacy and morality are handled in direct proportion, the legality of the intervention emerges as a conflicting value against the former two in the humanitarian intervention debates. According to the existing international law, the states are banned from using military force against each other except for the situations specified in the UN Charter. Humanitarian Intervention debate is between those who argue that existing international legal rules should not hinder the protection of the basic human rights and required reforms should be done and those who assert that superiority of existing international law and sovereignty rights should protected and should not be violated. Every intervention in the Post-Cold War period produced new problems and topics in these debates.In this study, a definition of humanitarian intervention concept was endeavored to be made and its legitimate, moral and legal development was sought to be presented in terms of historical process in the first chapter. In the second chapter, a problem focused observation of present day humanitarian intervention debates was established in terms of legitimacy, morality and legality. In the last chapter, a model for humanitarian intervention was sought to be presented through the solution propositions which can be suggested for the existing problems.