This thesis studies the rise of intra-state conflicts following the end of the Cold War and how these often unpredictable and intractable conflicts became the source of international concern in the 1990s. Human rights violations in other states were increasingly portrayed as a threat to international order, leading to an increase in calls from human rights advocates and political actors for greater involvement from foreign powers and increased optimism concerning states capacity to act within the international realm. In particular, there were hopes that the United Nations would take on more responsibility as a norm enforcer. Against this background, the present study explores how humanitarian claims in the 1990s challenged the understanding of sovereignty and non-intervention as the foundational principles of international relations, and the very basis of a statist international system. It questions whether the gap between states normative commitments towards human rights, and their respect in practice, has been addressed, and whether states are capable of acting as moral agents. This research has carried out two case studies of post-Cold War humanitarian interventions, which generate very different responses from international community: Kosovo in 1999, and Darfur from 2004 to the present. The present thesis suggests that two principal factors help explain states willingness or reluctance to intervene in each case: the perception of the conflict as (or not) a threat to international order and the existence of strategic interests that dictated different responses. The main argument developed here is that while morality plays an important role in motivating states to intervene, they are predominantly rational actors and humanitarian concerns are not sufficient when interests dictate a different response. It concludes that unless a determinate crisis is interpreted as a serious threat to states security interests, probably no intervention will occur. Consequently, human rights advocates did not succeed in dislocating the primacy of order over justice.