The essay “A Few Words on Non-intervention” by British philosopher and politician John Stuart Mill, published in Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country in December, 1859, has been translated into Russian for the first time for this issue of the Russian Sociological Review. Here, Mill justifies the foreign policy of the British Empire, and considers the criteria when the doctrine of non-intervention may be ignored in the sphere of international relations. There are three cases that make legitimate military intervention possible: (1) the overcoming of the doctrine of non-intervention when it is necessary to confront humanitarian disasters such as slavery; (2) an intervention allowing people to be given their freedom and to protect their right of self-determination; (3) an intervention as a tool to fight against tyranny.