This book focuses on just war and humanitarian intervention, both topics being controversial yesterday as well as today. The study covers the following:

1. International ethics and rules: irrelevant or essential? A review of a persistent debate.

2. The doctrine of just war from antiquity to the present day, with emphasis on Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Vitoria, Gentili, Suarez, and Grotius, culminating in Michael Walzer.

3. Intervention and the principle of non-intervention: an overview from the 18th century to today.

4. The roots of humanitarian intervention: just war against tyranny, emphasizing Vitoria, Gentili, Suarez, Grotius, the monarchomach, Bodin, and Vattel.

5. Humanitarian intervention in international law: a hundred years of controversy (1830-1939).

6. Intervention and non-intervention in international political theory during the long 19th century: Kant, Hegel, Cobden, Mazzini, and J.S. Mill.

7. Humanitarian interventions during the 19th century: the Greek case (1821-1831), the Lebanon-Syria case (1860-1861), and the Bulgaria case (1876-1878).

8. Humanitarian interventions during the Cold War.

9. Humanitarian interventions in the post-Cold War era (1990-today).

10. The contemporary debate on humanitarian intervention: the dilemmas involved; seeking an appropriate response at the UN level; and the main issues, according to its proponents, on how to proceed with humanitarian intervention if the need arises.