This book began many years ago as an inquiry into the legal issues sur- rounding humanitarian intervention—which I define as the use of military force to protect the victims of human rights violations. As I delved into the matter, however, I found that the legal problems of humanitarian interven- tion were inextricably intertwined with important ethical issues, including whether or not all countries and their citizens have a duty to come to the rescue of those whose lives are imperiled by the malicious behavior of their own governments or by armed factions. Indeed, a number of legal scholars had written books that drew upon the works of prominent.
