Francisco de Vitoria on Humanitarian Intervention. A Special Case of Just War
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Abstract
In his lecture De Indis, Vitoria advances a moral argument for justified violence against indigineous peoples in cases of humanitarian intervention. Here, he asserts the permissibility of intervening in the affairs of other peoples, if necessary, through military force, to protect human lives from immoral practices such as human sacrifice and cannibalism. This legal title is particularly notable because its legal foundation derives from natural law rather than from religious difference, as it seeks to address practices that violate the principles of the ius gentium.
This paper examines how Vitoria justifies humanitarian interventions within a normative framework that generally permits only defensive war as just. It addresses the nature of humanitarian intervention, its compatibility with the Just War tradition, and the extent to which it constitutes an exceptional case of just war.
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