This paper looks at the contentious debate surrounding humanitarian intervention through a critical, narratological lens. By questioning the roles cast and identities constituted, in what could be compared to a theatrical drama, focus is given to the unreliable narration of the most powerful characters on the international stage – from the US to the UN – and its impact on the political and legal stances taken in various contexts. On a meta-level, it examines the conditions that enable this unreliable narration, by pointing out a problematic flexibility owing to the paradoxes and conflation entrenched in human rights rhetoric; what some call a budding ‘humanity’s law’. Attention is meant to be drawn to the power of mental imagery conjured up by intervention narratives, based on the story of saving innocents, as embodiments of |