摘要：The goal of this paper is to illustrate how the European Union’s decision for military and humanitarian intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003 (Operation Artemis) was based upon an European consensus that was crystallized around humanitarian norms as constitutive norms of collective behavior. Our research exploits the theoretical constructivist perspective of Martha Finnemore, who demonstrates that the norms upon which humanitarian interventions are carried out may change in the course of time and that the protection of material interests is not the sole explanation for the decision to intervene military for humanitarian purposes. We consider that an explanation for the intervention that is founded on the emphatic character of norms is susceptible of suggesting compulsory instruments to counterbalance the statocentric thesis and to make up the explanatory model for the European intervention within the framework of Operation Artemis.
