Are civil conflicts and coups d'etat matters of international concern, or questions of national interest only? How can the increasingly common practice of condemnation and intervention by the United Nations and individual States into situations of extreme political violence be understood? Will civil conflict one day be considered illegal under international law, in the same way as international war? Offering a penetrating analysis that unpacks the relationships between political violence, international policy and international law, and explores international practice in more than 30 civil conflicts, this book challenges many assumptions we hold about the dividing line between domestic and international affairs, whether democracy is an international norm, and how long the international community is prepared to sit on the sidelines and allow ruthless political violence to determine political leadership in nations. This book fills an important void and captures the complexities and tensions inherent in an area where practice has moved faster than theory, and pragmatism clashes with idealism.