Operations (DPKO) in New York were ignored or rebuffed, over concerns that the UNAMIR may, “exceed the mandate and endanger the lives of UN peacekeepers.”(Ibid) It certainly could be argued that the United States was particularly culpable and restricted the UN in its ability to act as the Clinton administration had made the conscious decision to stop supporting significant UN missions after the torture and televised death of 18 American soldiers in Somalia during a UN humanitarian assistance programme.(Oppong and Gritzner 2015, p60) However this has not stopped the lack of coherent humanitarian intervention in Rwanda being termed by Paul Kennedy as “the lowest point in the UN’s history” and “the single worst decision the United Nations ever made.”(Kennedy 2006, p103) The lack of action undertaken by the UN in the face of the Rwandan genocide sparked international debate surrounding the merits, legality and necessity of humanitarian intervention. Further to this, it raised the problematic debate surrounding unconditional sovereignty, questioning whether the international community had the right to intervene in the case of a humanitarian disaster. (UN, n.d)

These questions would yet again be raised by a second event which proved to be a further catalyst for the emergence of the responsibility to protect doctrine, was the so-called ‘humanitarian intervention’ undertaken by NATO in Kosovo during 1999. Unlike in Rwanda the international community or more specifically NATO undertook military action. This action first started with international condemnation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) as seen through Security Council resolutions 1160, 1199, and 1998 which compelled the FRY to find a political resolution to the matter. However, when this was not achieved NATO initiated military action, manifesting itself in an eleven-week programme of systematic bombing in Kosovo in order to cease the, “humanitarian catastrophe resulting from the excessive force being used by the FRY.”(Abomo 2018, p73) This NATO intervention can be seen as controversial as whilst it was vital in both ending the conflict and halting the mass killings and rights violations, it is considered by some as a violation of the prohibition of use of violence and a dramatic breach of state sovereignty. (GSDRC, n.d) This criticism is summarised by Weiss, Evans and Hubert who state that “the moral, legal, operational and political dimensions of humanitarian intervention