In this chapter, I take up the difficult question of whether humanitarian wars are wars of aggression, as well as the related question of who, if anyone, should be prosecuted for initiating and waging such wars. In taking up this topic, I will indicate how it is that questions of tactics play into the determination of whether a war is aggressive, that is, how jus in bello considerations affect jus ad bellum judgments. Humanitarian intervention raises the issues we have been exploring in this book in especially poignant ways since civilian deaths, even targeted civilian deaths, have become a commonplace of the waging of these wars. Nonetheless, many theorists today see humanitarian wars as clearly justified wars. In this chapter I will also continue the discussion begun earlier about what moral priority to give to sovereign States. Humanitarian crises make it all the more important to think of basic human rights abuses and their prevention as much more important than territory or borders, although in some cases protecting borders also dovetails with protecting human rights.

Humanitarian intervention has replaced self-defensive war and become the new favored example of those who think there are clear cases of morally justified wars. Surely if there are morally justified wars, then wars fought to stop a genocide or to curtail crimes against humanity are more likely to be the ones, rather than wars fought to gain territory or convert heathens.