RIGHT TO HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION

INTRODUCTION

The concept of the Right to Humanitarian Intervention highlights two

fundamental principles in public international law- state sovereignty and
human rights.

Humanitarian Intervention has been defined as the threat or use of

force by a state, group of states, or international organization for the
purpose of protecting the nations of the target state from widespread
deprivations of internationally recognized human rights.1

In other words, Humanitarian Intervention refers to the military or

forceful intervention by one state against another state for the purpose of
protecting austere violations of human rights within the latter state.

STATE SOVEREIGNTY

Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, specifically prohibits use

of force, thus:

All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or
use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any
state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United
Nations.

Likewise, Article 2(7) of the UN Charter recognizes a norm of non-

interference, it provides:

Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United

Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic
jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such
matters to settlement under the present Charter.

In Nicaragua v United States of America,2 the International Court of Justice

(ICJ) held as follows:

acts which breach the principle of non-intervention will also, if they

involve the use of force, constitute a breach of the principle of non-use of
force in international relations.

1 M. FINNEY, Is There a Right to Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention in Public International Law?, 2017, citing SD
Murphy, Humanitarian Intervention: The UN in an Evolving World Order (University of Pennsylvania
Press, Philadelphia, 1996) 11-12, accessed at
https://www.academia.edu/32090812/Is_There_a_Right_to_Unilateral_Humanitarian_Intervention_in_Public_Inte
rnational_Law
2 Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v United States of America)
(Merits) [1986] ICJ Rep 14, 109-10.
However, it is important to appreciate that Article 2(4) is subject to two
exceptions. These are provided for by Chapter VII of the Charter which
outlines when a use of force will not be caught by the prohibition: when
such an act is authorised by the UN Security Council, or when a state is
acting in self-defence

Article 42 of the UN Charter allows the UN Security Council to use force to

maintain or restore international peace and security. Since the UN does not
have any direct control of military forces, it does so through Security
Council Resolutions that authorize states to use force on its behalf.46
Crucially, this power can only be exercised if the Security Council has
determined, under Article 39, the existence of any threat to the peace,
breach of the peace, or act of aggression

file:///C:/Users/DPM-
CBP/Downloads/Is_There_a_Right_to_Unilateral_Humanitar.pdf

NOTE: Good Read

http://www.obranaastrategie.cz/redakce/tisk.php?
lanG=en&clanek=20103&slozka=23581&xsekce=19470&

1. The Scope of the Prohibition of the Use of Force

12 Art. 2 (4) UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the
United Nations. Does humanitarian intervention actually fall within the scope of this prohibition?
The UK argued in the Corfu Channel Case that only force directed against the territorial integrity
and/or political independence of a State is prohibited by Art. 2 (4), and that very limited uses of
force for narrow purposes do not have this characteristic (Territorial Integrity and Political
Independence). Similarly, an argument has been advanced that a use of force that is consistent
with the purposes of the UN (Art. 1 UN Charter), one of which is the promotion of human
rights (Arts 1 (3); 55 (c) and 56 UN Charter), is ipso facto not prohibited under Art. 2 (4) UN
Charter (United Nations, Purposes and Principles). In this narrow reading of Art. 2 (4),
humanitarian intervention would not offend the territorial integrity or political independence of
the target State, because the intervening State withdraws immediately upon the aversion of the
humanitarian catastrophe that provoked the intervention, and does not in any way undermine or
attack the government of the target State. Further, the reference to the purposes of the UN in
Art. 2 (4) UN Charter is read so as to qualify and limit the scope of the prohibition of the use of
force, with the result that humanitarian intervention is permissible because, in aiming at the
prevention of massive human rights violations, it advances the purposes of the United Nations.

http://opil.ouplaw.com/view/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/l
aw-9780199231690-e306
c) A New Exception Allowing Forcible Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention?
26 In view of the difficulty of fitting humanitarian intervention undertaken in the absence of
Security Council authorization or of an armed attack against a State within the traditional
exceptions of the prohibition of the use of force, arguments have been put forward that an
additional, new exception may have emerged to the prohibition of the use of force. This would
have to be an exception carved out through subsequent practice of UN Member States resulting
in a new interpretation of the relevant Charter provisions (cf Art. 31 (3) (b)Vienna Convention on
the Law of Treaties [1969]; VCLT), or possibly through the emergence of a new customary rule
(supervening custom). The reinterpretation might, for example, require the reference to
territorial integrity and political independence in Art. 2 (4) UN Charter to be read as qualifying
the prohibition on the threat or use of force, in the manner described above (where it was
rejected as a correct reading of the Charter as originally drafted). Such a reinterpretation, it
might be said, is not an amendment of the Charter, which would have to follow Arts
108 and 109 UN Charter. The alleged new rule would bring about a qualification of the clear
provisions of Art. 2 (4) UN Charter as currently interpreted, and thus would require that the
membership of the UN accept this reinterpretation of the Charter, evidenced through the
widespread (if not complete) support of the UN Member States.

27 If the argument were not based on a reinterpretation of the Charter, it would have to
emerge as a new rule of customary international law through the practice and opinio iuris of
States. But when cast as an exception to the prohibition of the use of force, which has achieved
the status of ius cogens (at least in its core, ie the prohibition of aggression), the new customary
law exception to the prohibition would have to achieve the same status, making the
requirements for its emergence (assuming it to be logically and legally possible) even more
exacting than those for an ordinary rule of customary international law (cf Art. 53 VCLT).

28 A number of instances of practice since 1945 have been invoked by authorsand to a

lesser extent by Statesas evidence of a general practice of the assertion of a unilateral right to
intervene to avert or put an end to a humanitarian crisis or to widespread violations of human
rights. The instances commonly cited include, among others, the Indian intervention in East
Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1971; the Tanzanian intervention in Uganda in 1978; the Vietnamese
intervention in Democratic Kampuchea in 1978; the French intervention in the Central African
Empire (later the Central African Republic) in 1979; the US interventions in Grenada (1983) and
Panama (1989); the ECOWAS/ECOMOG interventions in Liberia (1990) and Sierra Leone
(1997); the US, UK, and French intervention in Iraq to protect Kurdish and Shia populations
from 1991 to 2003 (France intervening until 1998); the interventions in Somalia (1992); Rwanda
(1994); and East Timor (1999); and of course the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

29 In order to support the argument that a new rule of customary international law has
emerged, it would be necessary that States made claims that these instances of the use of force
were lawful because of the doctrine of humanitarian intervention. The ICJ asserted in
the Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua Case that no one has the
authority to ascribe to States legal views which they do not themselves advance (at para. 207).
States may, nonetheless, act in the belief that they are entitled to do so, and only later articulate
the precise justification for their action. But such practice is limited. No opinio iuris in favour of a
new customary law exception to the Charter prohibition can be deduced from State action
authorized by the Security Council, such as the interventions in Somalia, Rwanda, East Timor,
and arguably the ECOWAS/ECOMOG interventions in Liberia and Sierra Leone (which were
explicitly condoned, and at least arguably in part explicitly authorized, by the Security Council).
Only instances of unauthorized intervention could provide evidence of opinio iuris in favour of a
new exception allowing unilateral humanitarian intervention. But again, in none of the instances
above did the intervening States argue that their actions were justified by a rule of customary
international law that allows intervention on humanitarian grounds. In the interventions of India
in East Pakistan, Tanzania in Uganda, and Vietnam in Cambodia, the intervening States claimed
to have been acting in self-defence in response to border incursions and other acts or threats of
force; and even then the response of the international community was far from unequivocal
acceptance of the interventions. It rather ranged from strong condemnation (Vietnam) to mere
silence (Tanzania).

NEXT: At this point, it is important to underscore, that today not the legitimacy, but overall legality
of unilateral HI is being disputed by governments and within the academic community. For instance, the
most fierce opponents of the theory - Russians say that "in fact, a flock of predators (i.e. NATO) pounced
on the fraternal Yugoslavia", calling the Kosovo intervention as totally illegal use of force.20 Drifting from
the theory to practice, as any other action/inaction in the international arena, HI requires a specific
argumentation, justification and a comprehensive definition. The notions of threat of peace, breach
of peace, aggression, responsibility to protect (R2P) and others play a crucial role. Different
estimations of threat are a matter of the policy of particular state, while peace until very recently was
generally perceived as absence of war. Perhaps, in order to understand what is there within UN and
non-UN peace operations the wider definition of peace should be addressed first. Nowadays the
absence of war does not necessarily assume peace by default. Some authors argue that not the great
power rivalry but pathological weakness of states is the primary source of threat for international
peace and security [21; p.3]. This is quite a wide interpretation, but rightfully true. Moreover, any
estimation of threat will be a political one, based on the partys interests for making it. Likewise, the
term "peace" is also notoriously relative and subjective [22; p.150]. Alternative and not less
comprehensive definitions of peace are offered by Brian Lepard [23; pp.150-152].
http://www.nceeer.org/Programs/Carnegie/Reports/Hnikoghos
yan_Final_NCEEER.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/1754162/Right_and_Responsibility.
_What_Kind_of_Right_is_the_Right_of_Humanitarian_Interv
ention