Intervention, according to Hedley Bull, is 'dictatorial or coercive interference, by an outside party or parties, in the sphere of jurisdiction of a sovereign state, or more broadly of an independent political community'. And if there is any principle on which the international community can be said to agree, it is that intervention, so defined, is legally and morally illegitimate. Every nation, no matter what its size or power, is entitled to internal sovereignty. All states have an obligation to refrain from violating the sovereignty of others. It is one of the epochal changes in the nature of International relations that this idea, so recently dismissed as a visionary dream by many of the world's most powerful nations, has become the foundation of modern international law.

LRB 7 March 1985 | PDF Download