Humanitarian intervention remains a highly controversial concept that is central to many seminal current events in contemporary international politics. This book"s underlying premise is that the debate surrounding this issue has stagnated due to the restrictive parameters presently acting upon the discourse. This study identifies why the dominant pro-intervention position has not and cannot serve as a progressive template for establishing a viable model for humanitarian intervention. In doing so, this book goes beyond the more traditional realist and left-wing critiques and advocates a new direction for the debate to follow. Hehir"s book will open with a critique of the normative interventionist thesis and argue, through the examination of salient case studies, that events since the widely heralded intervention in Kosovo demonstrate the flaws inherent in this thesis. There is a pressing need for a radical redirection within the humanitarian perspective. Effective and consistent responses to humanitarian crises require institutional reform at the international political and legal level and specifically the creation of an independently regulated approach to halting humanitarian crises with powers vested in a judicial, rather than a state-based political, organ. It is towards this goal, as opposed to the `application-of-moral-pressure" approach espoused by the normative thesis, that those committed to the prevention and cessation of humanitarian crises should orientate their advocacy. Humanitarian Intervention after Kosovo will be required reading for students in this field.