Humanitarian intervention has predominantly been analysed in terms of an unsolvable dilemma between state sovereignty and human sovereignty, where intervention is always read as a choice in favour of human sovereignty. Proceeding from a poststructuralist approach, this article argues differently. It suggests that practices of intervention entail an important paradox, since intervention at one and the same time violates and reaffirms state sovereignty. Focusing in particular on the Kosovo intervention, it is argued that three strategies — genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of human rights — function to legitimize intervention and serve as imperatives for action. However, this does not take place at the expense of state sovereignty. Rather, legitimations of intervention simultaneously combine and give meaning to human sovereignty as well as state sovereignty.
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