Legitimate intervention and illegitimate states

sanctions against South Africa

John Hoffman

pp. 157-166

in: Ian Forbes, Mark Hoffman (eds), Political theory, international relations, and the ethics of intervention, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1993

Abstract

It has been argued that questions of intervention involve both utilitarian considerations as well as wider philosophical questions about the nature of the state and the international order. It is suggested here that there is an important link between the two. Responses to the utility and practicality of sanctions against South Africa, for example, inevitably relate to the view taken concerning the nature of the South African state and its international standing.