Book excerpt: International intervention on humanitarian grounds has been a contentious issue for decades. First, it pits the principle of state sovereignty against claims of universal human rights. Second, the motivations of intervening states may be open to question when avowals of moral action are arguably the fig leaf covering an assertion of power for political advantage. These questions have been salient in the context of the Balkan and African wars and U.S. policy in the Middle East. This volume undertakes a serious, systematic, and broadly international review of the issues.