Journal on the Use of Force and International Law

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjuf20

Introduction

James A. Green

To cite this article: James A. Green (2020) Introduction, Journal on the Use of Force and
International Law, 7:2, 225-226, DOI: 10.1080/20531702.2020.1838132

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/20531702.2020.1838132

Published online: 14 Dec 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 41

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rjuf20
JOURNAL ON THE USE OF FORCE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
2020, VOL. 7, NO. 2, 225–226
https://doi.org/10.1080/20531702.2020.1838132

Introduction
As my co-editor Tom Ruys wrote in his Introduction to our last issue,
volume 7 of the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law is ‘dedi-
cated exclusively to the doctrine of “military assistance on request” in all its
facets’. Tom also set out why this area of the jus ad bellum is so important,
and currently so topical. As such, I will not spend time reiterating those
things here and will keep this introduction to issue 7(2) extremely brief.
One thing I do want to note is that in the wake of our conference in Ghent
in December last year, we had such a wealth of quality papers for our special
issues on military assistance on request that it has – in the end – not been
possible to fit them all into volume 7 as was originally planned: two issues
simply were not enough! We were extremely keen in these special issues,
as we were in relation to the presenters for the conference, to ensure we
did not just showcase the positions of established scholars but also emerging
voices on the topic. This is extremely important and we are delighted to
promote the work of some early career researchers, including in this issue.
To find the space to ensure that inclusivity, we now intend to include a
number of further pieces on the topic in the first issue of 2021 (issue 8
(1)). What is clear is that military assistance on request is a topic about
which there has been a significant amount to say, and that still is to be
said – although to most readers of this journal that fact probably is not
news. We hope these special issues go a long way to advance debates on
this comparatively overlooked aspect of the jus ad bellum, but, as ever,
there remains much work still to be done.
This second part of our special issues on the topic begins with Federica
Paddeu’s rejection of the common trope that ‘consent’ as a basis for the
lawful use of force is built in to the primary rule, meaning valid consent
does not engage the prohibition at all; instead, Paddeu argues that the pro-
hibition must exclude consent from its definition and recast it as a defence.
This is on the basis that viewing ‘consent as a defence’ is a crucial way of
reflecting a general reason against force, rather than a position that sees
consent, rather than non-force, as the core determinant.
This is followed by an article by Agata Kleczkowska, discussing military
assistance by way of treaty-based authorisation. Kleczkowska examines the
functions of treaties that authorise military assistance, how the necessary
‘consent’ can be formulated in a treaty, and the relationship between the
ad hoc consent and treaty-based consent.

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

226 INTRODUCTION

In her contribution, Laura Visser offers a comparative analysis of inter-

vention by invitation and collective self-defence. She notes that they are com-
monly dealt with as two distinct justifications to the prohibition of the use of
force, both conceptually and practically. Visser argues, however, that these
two justifications in fact have more similarities than differences and that it
would aid our understanding of them both to reflect on them as two sides
of the same coin.
Finally, in his contribution to this issue, Patryk Labuda argues that ‘stabil-
isation’ peacekeeping missions constitute a departure from conventional
doctrines on the use of force by peacekeepers, to the point that such stabil-
isation activity can – indeed, should – be understood as a separate form of
UN-mandated intervention by invitation.
As ever, this issue of JUFIL contains our signature Digest of State Practice,
closing issue 7(2) by setting out relevant ad bellum state practice and opinio
juris for the first half of 2020. Of course, this is the first reporting period since
COVID-19 truly became a global crisis. However, sadly, uses of force have
not stopped simply because of the pandemic. This issue’s Digest includes
coverage of the clashes between Iran and the United States in January
2020 and the US operation to kill General Qassem Soleimani, head of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force; Turkey’s military oper-
ations in Libya; and some context and build-up to the increasing tensions
and military exchanges between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late 2020 (and
which will be amply covered in the subsequent Digest).
As I mentioned, this second issue on military assistance on request was
not enough, in the end, to allow us to include all the excellent pieces stem-
ming from the first JUFIL conference. As such, more work on the topic will
appear in the journal in 2021, alongside our regularly scheduled program-
ming of excellent articles on any and all ad bellum topics. Until then, we
very much hope you enjoy this second special issue.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

James A. Green
Co-editor-in-chief, University of Reading, Reading, UK
j.a.green@reading.ac.uk http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6721-4490