This paper argues that one of the principal legitimating reasoning of Burke’s plea for a military campaign against revolutionary France was for humanitarian considerations. Burke’s legitimation of intervention on humanitarian grounds marks his argument out as an early example of its kind in western theory.he motivation and evidence for this is to be found in his understanding of the law of nations, developed from customary practices that constituted a society of states or the Commonwealth of Europe as Burke termed it. In this respect, Burke departs significantly from better known codifiers of the law of nations such as Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel. As such, the basis for ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Burke’s writing is predicated upon common and customary law.
