The intervention in Grenada in 1983 by a joint task force composed of US forces and soldiers of member States of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States is the latest in a series of armed interventions carried out by members of the United Nations without being authorized by competent UN organs but nevertheless claiming to be non-violative of the UN Charter. The reason for this claim was allegedly (among others) that the interventions were ‘humanitarian’ in character. In this recent instance, the intervention was said by US officials to be necessary ‘to stop an authentic reign of terror’ ‘to assist in the establishment and the restoration of democratic institutions, particularly when they have been cruelly and violently destroyed’ and to ‘rescue others from bloodshed and turmoil and to prevent humankind from drowning in a sea of tyranny’