Abstract
The author, Michael W. Doyle, is Professor of International Affairs, Law and Political Science at Columbia University, U.S.A. He is best known for authoring Liberalism and World Politics (1986). In his recent publication The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect, he asserts that the question of when to intervene in the affairs of any country by states and international organisations is highly contentious. Given humanitarian protection, national security and national self-determination considerations, what should the criteria or variables be for international intervention? (p.12) To analyse this, he opted to go back to the basics, that is, to an essay ‘A Few Words on NonIntervention’ written by John Stuart Mill in 1859.