Abstract:

How is it that the international community mobilized itself to defend the fundamental rights of the population of a half-island in the Pacific Ocean with about 850,000 inhabitants, an area of 19,000 km2 , and situated 500 km from the Australian coast, against the will of the army of Indonesia, a country of more than 200 million inhabitants? What contribution did Portugal make, as a member of the EU, to the internationalization of the Timor issue? What can be deduced from the Eastern Timor experience about the future of multilateral action in resolving conflicts? What support can one hope to find for humanitarian interventions in other regions of the world, outside the so-called «Western world»?


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