The very phrase "humanitarian intervention" is but a semantic way to justify interfering in the affairs of another country. In fact, the traditional rule of international relations has been "non-intervention," which would seem to run counter to, for example, international operations in the early 1990s in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Somalia. However, sometimes atrocities can be so great that the collective "authorization" of collective bodies can be enough to justify intervention. Recently interventions have been largely carried out under the auspices of the UN Security Council. However, Security Council policy in deciding what constitutes a threat to security has been far from coherent, raising the question of selectivity by the body. Also, the purpose of interventions, often couched in "humanitarian" terms, is often vague and open to cries of ethnocentricism falsely applied as universalism. A clearer definition of the goals of intervention is needed.