The Rwandan Genocide in the Justification of Humanitarian Intervention

What is it about?

This essay argues that the 1994 genocide in Rwanda is important for the debate about ‘humanitarian interventions’ in two different ways: on the one hand, as a signifier, ‘Rwanda 1994’ has served to justify an almost unlimited agenda of liberal interventionism; on the other, the Rwandan genocide represents the exceptional case where military intervention can indeed be justified—but precisely because it is not in need of a specifically liberal justification.

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