Military Humanitarian Intervention: Legal or Illegal?

Acta Juridica Hungarica, 2013

The concept of humanitarian intervention evolved as a subset of laws that govern the use of force and now, it occupies an institutional position alongside Security Council authorization and self-defense as a legitimate and legal reason for war. Humanitarian intervention and use of force both are highly controversial yet widely accepted. This paper will evaluate whether humanitarian intervention is legitimate under international law. Humanitarian intervention contradicts the United Nations Charter but state practice developments since the Second World War have made it legitimate under a number of circumstances. Those who have argued for its legitimacy cite international norms and state practice to support the assertion that the provision for military aggression is no longer what is enshrined in the UN Charter. The debate on the legality of humanitarian intervention indicates that it could either be legitimate or illegitimate depending on how one comprehends the construction, changing and representation of international law. It is certain that there are no defi nite answers to these questions. This uncertainty is now fundamental since the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention is indeterminate. Discussions over this law have not solved this puzzle. It remains legal and illegal at the same time, with recent cases not withstanding depending with the circumstances. This paper evaluates the repercussions of this fi nding for the sake of the rule of law in world politics. The paper suggests that customary prominence that scholars place on compliance with international law is misplaced. The power of international law from scholars' point of view comes from its capacity to shape the terrain for balance of political power in international relations rather than differentiating rule followers and rule breakers. International law should be perceived as a resource for state use rather than a fi xed standard of evaluating behavior.

Journalism and Mass Communication, 2018

During the last decade of the 20th century, there were nine humanitarian interventions: in Northern Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, Albania, Kosovo, East Timor, and Sierra Leone. Of the cases cited, the consent of the home government was obtained in five cases and two others had explicit Security Council authorization. However, two cases were carried out without consent of the government or authorization by the UN Security Council: Northern Iraq and Kosovo. NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia in 1999 received a particular attention and condemnation. Without UN Security Council’s resolution for that “air campaign”, there was justification that the action was about prevention of humanitarian catastrophe. This paper will attempt at identifying legal position of humanitarian intervention in international law; whether or not, and in what circumstances, it is safe to claim that there exists the right to humanitarian intervention. At the beginning of the 21st century, there has been extensive consideration of the “responsibility to protect” as a composite concept comprising the responsibilities to prevent humanitarian catastrophe, to react immediately when they do occur and to rebuild afterwards. Such an approach may be seen as an effort to redefine the principle of humanitarian intervention in a way that seeks to minimize the motives of the intervening powers. The paper also deals with the relation and differences between humanitarian intervention and “responsibility to protect” concept.

Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International relations

2008

International security is a particularly important and sensitive area of cooperation between states. It has transformed into a new dimension since the second half of the twentieth century, especially when it comes to a development of international protection of human rights. The issue of humanitarian intervention is in particular questionable and actual in this area. It is at the forefront within the development of international relations focusing on internationalization of human rights and their protection in relation to States which severely violate them. There is no doubt that this issue is closely linked to the fundamental principles established in the UN Charter. The UN Charter fixed the situation after World War II, but there has been a change in the nature of the conflicts since then and state sovereignty and human rights protection are in the front. The practice of states, international organizations and the literature therefore suggest that there are many conflicting views on the legitimacy of an armed humanitarian intervention. The author describes some of them, including relevant legal arguments and positions of major players of the international community.

Hacettepe Hukuk Fakultesi Dergisi, 2013

Albeit the debate on the use of force for humanitarian purposes (i.e. humanitarian military intervention) is not new, it has been flourishing since the early years of the Cold War as a result of the increasing importance placed on the international protection of human rights. After gaining a prominent place in the international law and politics literatures, with cases of action and inaction/indifference in the 1990s, the question of (and the need for) undertaking intervention to stop mass atrocities took a new turn with the introduction of the “responsibility to protect” (RtoP) understanding. Now also enlisted as a measure within the RtoP framework but only as a last resort and to be undertaken with Security Council authorisation, humanitarian (military) intervention continues to be adopted individually or collectively by states in their international conduct. In this vein, its unilateral or unauthorised practices continue to create controversy in the political and academic platforms. Primarily with the military interventions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, then most recently with the intervention in Libya, the debates on the legitimacy, legality and lawfulness of the controversial doctrine of humanitarian intervention once again gained momentum. In the light of these developments, this article analyses the doctrine of humanitarian intervention in relation to international law with a specific focus on the questions of lawfulness and legality. To this end, it first traces the normative roots of the idea of undertaking military intervention on humanitarian grounds, and then, analyses the current legal framework. Finally, through an overview of cases in the post-Charter era, it tries to reveal how state practice alongside the legal understandings and debates led to the construction of the RtoP norm.

HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION: A UNIVERSAL STANDARD? , 2018

This study explores the concept of humanitarian intervention and investigates whether human intervention can connect to a universal standard. The fundamental cause of humanitarian intervention is the response of human rights violations by a state, and thus the intervention to the state. Human rights thoughts are the taboo in the modern world and state sovereignty is one of the signi cant international rights. Nevertheless, the humanitarian intervention is an exception of the state sovereignty, but when? In this context, it is explained what human intervention is, the change in history and time. The political memory of the period and the positions of the states have led to humanitarian intervention decisions. The question of what the limits are is one of the problems of this study and has been assessed and compare with the sovereignty of states and the obligation of protection in international law. It has been argued whether international law will be a social contract. Also, it mentioned in the literature on ethics of humanitarian intervention for understanding the legal and theoretical bases of humanitarian intervention decisions. Is humanitarian intervention that identi es as an exception of the prohibition of the use of force, lawful? Theories on the rethinking of humanitarian intervention and the restructuring of the United Nations Security Council have been evaluated.