humanitarian intervention

noun

The deployment of army personnel for humanitarian-motivated goals.

Meanings

nounhumanitarian intervention (countable and uncountable, plural humanitarian interventions)

plural humanitarian interventions

  1. countableuncountableThe deployment of army personnel for humanitarian-motivated goals.

    But in some respects humanitarian intervention looks more like police work than war.

    2012, Ned Dobos, Insurrection and Intervention: The Two Faces of Sovereignty, Cambridge University Press, page 117
    3 more examples

    The events of 1999 in Kosovo and East Timor provide an important opportunity to reflect on the practice of humanitarian intervention.

    2004, Michael C. Davis (ed.), Tania Voon (chapter author), “Legitimacy and Lawfulness of Humanitarian Intervention”, in International intervention in the post-Cold War world, M. E. Sharpe, Inc., page 40

    We may be in the middle of a process in which some fundamental ideas or norms about international politics are being transformed, and the increasing willingness to consider humanitarian intervention may be part of this evolution.

    2010, Keith L. Shimko, International Relations: Perspectives and Controversies, Wadsworth Cengage, page 252

    Although realism fails... it provides some salutary warnings about the distortions that moral perspectives can produce [and] the malevolent action of states... [but] warfare destroys lives, property, infrastructure, and environment in ways that pressures do not.

    2015, C. A. J. Coady, The Ethics of Armed Humanitarian Intervention, U.S. Institute of Peace, page 14
Cite this entry
APA

humanitarian intervention. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/humanitarian%20intervention

MLA

“humanitarian intervention.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/humanitarian%20intervention. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “humanitarian intervention,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/humanitarian%20intervention.

Source: humanitarian intervention on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.