Rwanda, Kosovo, and the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

Examining the cases of Rwanda and Kosovo, this chapter explores the recent history, legality, and legitimacy of the normative architecture of a new, consensus-based, world order that seeks to bridge the divide between the competing norms of non-intervention and armed intervention. It begins by describing the default policy setting of non-intervention of the 1990s, and then discusses the policy challenge posed both by no action and unilateral action when faced with mass atrocities. After reviewing the controversy provoked by the claim of an emerging new norm of humanitarian intervention, the final section concludes with the successful effort of ICISS to reconcile, in R2P, the humanitarian imperative to protect civilians from atrocities with the normative prohibition on the use of force inside sovereign jurisdictions by external actors.