Is Humanitarian Intervention Driven by a Belief in the Idea of Universal Human Rights or a State's Self Interest?

After the holocaust the society of states formulated rules of international engagement which prohibited genocide, mistreatment of civilians, and recognizing basic human rights. (Baylis,2008,985) Among the most important notions of human rights the right of life, liberty, and security preceded all others (Kolb,2003,119), as claimed by the United Nations “Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, Human rights include the right to life and liberty, the right to work and education”. The humanitarian interventions in the international politics are desired to provide protection to people of any state who are a direct victim of political or social atrocities. The major powers feel burdened by the responsibility and hence react to eliminate such threats to society. The principles of intervention even if all are reached; still the most important point of engagement is left in the gray zone, which is right intention. The importance of normative values has been seen to grow since the cold war ended, but the notions such as maximization of power, self-interest, cultural biases still remain to affect the international political system. On the other hand the importance of human rights is being talked promoting the notions of natural law and making the world a constructive society of states. However there seems to be some truth to this but the humanitarian interventions of has not proven to be effective and leading to peace. Hence it is believed that humanitarian interventions are driven by sates self-interest, as the moral values are irrelevant in explaining international politics, the major powers exploit and feed on the weak states and deep down all this discourse is believed to be the law of nature.