Abstract
The paper considers the legality of armed interventions to protect compatriots under current international law. The first chapter shows that such interventions come about from time to time, or that countries at least threaten to undertake them.
The second chapter documents that interventions to protect compatriots cannot be subsumed under the right to self-defence; nor do they constitute as autonomous exception to the prohibition on the use of force and threat of force enshrined in the UN Charter. Interventions might only be lawful if the kin-state has been given authorisation by the UN Security Council.
However, this has never happened in practice; interventions to protect compatriots are thus legally problematic.