drastic changes to global governance . Perhaps a new kind of world state would have to be established , which raises moral problems in its own right ( Laberge , 1995 : 22 ). Nevertheless , legalist arguments do not demonstrate that the permissibility of humanitarian intervention should be separated from its purely moral status .
Non-Intervention arguments Sovereignty and community
Moral arguments for nonintervention are often predominantly focused on notions of sovereignty and community . The major proponent of this position is Michael Walzer . He develops a principle of John Stuart Mill ’ s that states are “ selfdetermining communities … whether or not their internal political arrangements are free ” ( 2015 : 87 ). No external polity has a right to disrupt another community ’ s right to self-determination . That right comes from historical ties which bind members of a community together and to their state . A government that acts
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illiberally may still be legitimate in the eyes of a majority of its citizens . Those citizens , it should be expected , will resist any outside intervention against their community ( Laberge , 1995 : 25 ). Walzer , while acknowledging the possible permissibility of intervention in a small number of exceptions to be addressed below , arrives at a general principle of nonintervention as the only way to uphold sovereignty . It is morally significant , he claims , that “ the citizens of a sovereign state have a right , insofar as they are to be coerced and ravaged at all , to suffer only at one another ’ s hands ” ( 2015 : 86 ).
Walzer ’ s arguments against intervention on this basis are questionable for a number of factors . Beitz ( 1980 ), a critic of humanitarian intervention himself , rejects community sovereignty as irrelevant to the moral debate . The particular history of a polity does not grant it license and protection to abuse human rights , as that history is “ arbitrary from a moral point of view ” ( Beitz , 1980 : 387 ). By the same logic , Walzer should conclude that any form of humanitarian
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