Abstract
The protection of human rights is now considered as an important element of International Law. However, if there are frequent calls for "humanitarian interventions" (that is "coercive action against a state to protect people within its border from suffering grave harm" ) like in Darfur, and if the debate concerning this notion has a long history, the real emergence of modern humanitarian interventions is relatively recent. The concept has been criticized and challenged, it has evolved and several notions are almost synonymous: "right of intervention", "humanitarian intervention" and now "responsibility to protect". • The contrasted etymology of the notion of "humanitarian intervention"
The first use of the notion of "humanitarian intervention" can be found in the actions organized by the European "Holy Alliance" in 1815 against the Ottoman Empire, "in favor of presumably persecuted Christian populations."
