Ethical Conduct in Humanitarian Intervention

Abstract

This chapter defines the criteria by which to define the virtue of the soldier’s and the contractor’s conduct in humanitarian intervention. Both the soldier and the contractor, when employed by the liberal state to support its ambition to live up to its cosmopolitan responsibility, have to adhere to standards of ethics and operational effectiveness. These norms and standards derive from a set of ethical jus in bello principles and operational effectiveness-related criteria. This chapter outlines the normative significance of these criteria in determining the righteousness with which the liberal state lives up to its cosmopolitan responsibility by employing either the soldier or the contractor as the cosmopolitan security provider.