Humanitarian Intervention and the Clean Hands Doctrine in International Law

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ori Pomson ◽  
Yonatan Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
Legal Norm ◽  
International Tribunal ◽  
Jus Cogens

A serious issue that has confronted the international community is the legality of humanitarian intervention. Although the majority of scholars reject the existence of a doctrine of humanitarian intervention, could the attacked state invoke the responsibility of an intervening state before an international tribunal? This article attempts to answer this question in light of the often misunderstood clean hands doctrine in international law. It first concludes that under thelex lata, humanitarian intervention is prohibited under international law. This raises the question whether the clean hands doctrine may nevertheless preclude a court or tribunal from adjudicating in favour of a state that has been subject to humanitarian intervention. Although the clean hands doctrine exists under international law in various manifestations, its applicability in cases concerning humanitarian intervention is lacking. The article finally considers whether thejus cogensstatus of the prohibition of the use of force would prevent the applicability of the clean hands doctrine to humanitarian intervention cases were the clean hands doctrine to evolve into a customary international legal norm.

Part 2 The Post-Cold War Era (1990–2000), 47 The Kosovo Crisis—1999

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franchini Daniel ◽  
Tzanakopoulos Antonios
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Nato Intervention

This contribution discusses the forcible intervention by NATO against Serbia in 1999 in response to the situation in Kosovo. It sets out the facts and background of the crisis, along with the legal positions of the main protagonists and the reactions of the international community. It then proceeds to survey the debates surrounding the legality of the intervention and to assess the soundness of the legal justifications put forward by states and authors. Finally, it discusses the precedential value of the intervention, especially in view of claims of the existence or emergence of a rule or principle of international law permitting the unilateral use of force in response to humanitarian crises. The contribution concludes that the NATO intervention has significant precedential value in that it confirms the unlawfulness of forcible unilateral humanitarian intervention.

The Administration of Kosovo and East-Timor by the International Community

2001 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 613-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Ruffert
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
East Timor ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Direct Administration ◽  
Context Of Use

The intensive debate about the legality of NATO air strikes from March to June 1999 in the context of use of force, Chapter VII competences and humanitarian intervention1 including their implication in the domestic constitutional law of NATO members,2 may be concealed another development the importance of which in modern Public International Law should not be underestimated: since the time when the Yugoslav/Serbian army left Kosovo, the province has been under direct administration by the international community.3 Only a little time later the same phenomenon of international administration came into being in East-Timor, a Portuguese colony until 1975 and claimed by Indonesia afterwards.4

The Politics of Russian Revisionism: Diplomacy of a Worldview, 2011–14

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-477
Author(s):  
Iain Ferguson ◽  
Sergei Akopov
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Legal Norm ◽  
The Political ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
Peace And Conflict ◽  
History Of

Abstract Russia’s use of force in Ukraine has been described as a challenge to the rule of international law and an event of unilateral intervention. This paper provides a reinterpretation of this standard history of Russian revisionism. Our new history places this practice in a global governance context through an analysis of the politics concerning the international legal norm of ‘non-intervention’ and its legitimate/illegitimate exceptions for collective intervention. This analysis discloses a practice of Russian diplomacy that emerges out of resistance to humanitarian interventions advocated for by Western states. This practice justifies its own state-bound humanitarian intervention as the legitimate exception to the foundation of international order, which Russian diplomacy had previously sought to restore. We argue the political discourse of the worldview of ‘state civilization’ explains these events of Russian revisionism. We conclude with an analysis of the international paradoxes of peace and conflict contingent on this Russian worldview.

Humanitarian Intervention as a Necessity and the Threat or Use of Jus Cogens

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Popular Subject ◽  
Jus Cogens ◽  
International Law Commission ◽  
Law Commission

AbstractAs the twentieth century was drawing to a close, intervention for humanitarian purposes involving the use of force became a political reality and so a popular subject of study in international law. This article is yet another contribution. It draws on, and uses by way of illustration, two recent contributions featured in this journal. On the basis of a critical analysis of the draft articles on Responsibility of States for internationally wrongful acts as adopted by the International Law Commission in 2001, it is asked whether humanitarian intervention may be justified in international law as an act of necessity despite the prohibition of the use of force. The century-old doctrine of necessity has always provoked unease among international lawyers. A contemporary way to cloak this unease has been the idea expressed in the International Law Commission's draft articles that necessity cannot preclude the wrongfulness of an act not in conformity with an obligation arising under a peremptory rule. And so the doctrine of necessity brings one to consider the use or threat of jus cogens outside the law of treaties. This is particularly apposite to the prohibition of the use of force because it is the least controversial example of a rule of jus cogens. It is concluded that under extraordinary circumstances necessity may justify a humanitarian intervention or other uses of force.

Humanitarian Intervention under International Law: the Strife for Humanity

1993 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Schweigman
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
State Practice ◽  
Domestic Jurisdiction

Is the concept of humanitarian intervention part and parcel of customary law? In order to answer this question the or gins of the concept, (alleged) pre- and post-Charter state practice and the relation with the principles of non-interference in the domestic jurisdiction and the non-use of force will be considered. It will be concluded that the aforementioned question must be answered in the negative, notwithstanding the fact that genuine humanitarian interventions tend to be tolerated by the international community.

The Dilemma of Humanitarian Intervention: The Executive Power of the Law of Nature, After God

1994 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 248-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Dunn
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
Territorial Jurisdiction ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Law

There are at Least Three Possible Types of View about the justifiability of the use of force by states or private individuals on behalf of other private individuals or groups who are the victims of brutal and gratuitous coercion by another state. The first type of view is that no human being, and a fortiori no state, can be justified in using force under any circumstances and for any purpose, because (and only because) force is an intrinsic evil. This unflinchingly deontological view is generous but practically absurd. The second type of view is that states (or even private individuals) can be, and often arc, justified in using force against the brutally coercive actions of another state when, but only when, the latter is acting outside its own territorial jurisdiction. At least in the case of states what grounds that justification is their entitlement to defend themselves against foreign (as against domestic) aggression, and to defend also any other states with whom they have linked themselves either by standing alliances or by solemn common undertakings to secure each other's safety and sovereignty within the bounds of international law. In the case of private individuals, the corresponding justification would lie in their several personal entitlements to defend themselves as best they can against aggression.

15. The Use of Force, Collective Security and Peacekeeping

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Dixon ◽  
Robert McCorquodale ◽  
Sarah Williams
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
Collective Security

International law aims to regulate the use of force in two ways. First, it stipulates that there is a paramount obligation not to use force to settle disputes, with only limited exceptions; and second, it has at its disposal a procedure whereby the international community itself may use force against those using violence. These are known respectively as the rules on the ‘unilateral use of force’ and the rules of ‘collective security’, both of which are discussed in this chapter.

Humanitarian Intervention: Which Way Forward?

2000 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 23-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Caplan
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
International Order ◽  
International Community ◽  
National Sovereignty ◽  
Member States ◽  
Political Consensus ◽  
Kosovo War

States have long taken exception to the notion of humanitarian intervention because it threatens to undermine a bedrock principle of international order: national sovereignty. In the case of Kosovo, however, NATO's nineteen member states chose not only to put aside their concerns for national sovereignty in favor of humanitarian considerations, but also to act without UN authorization. This essay examines the ways in which states – European states in particular – are rethinking historic prohibitions against humanitarian intervention in the wake of the Kosovo war. It focuses on two approaches:Efforts to reinterpret international law so as to demonstrate the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention andEfforts to build a political consensus regarding when and how states may use force for humanitarian endsWhile efforts to weaken prohibitions may succeed, thereby facilitating future interventions, resolution of the tension between legitimacy and effectiveness in defense of human rights will continue to elude the international community unless a political consensus can be achieved.

The Dangers of the Dissemination of Misinformation in Implementing the Responsibility to Protect

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cherine Foty
Keyword(s):  
Regime Change ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Interventions ◽  
Initial Report ◽  
Initial Decision ◽  
Domestic Affairs

The creation of the responsibility to protect doctrine reformulated the historical notion of humanitarian intervention. The new doctrine was centered around the principle of nonintervention, a basic precept of the u.n. Charter system, with its initial report explicitly excluding regime change disguised as humanitarian intervention as external to the scope of the doctrine. Military intervention was only to be the means of last resort after the exhaustion of several preliminary mechanisms. In its implementation, the broad mandate of the responsibility to protect has been harshly criticized because it opens the possibility for powerful States, often seeking regime change, to interfere in the domestic affairs of weaker States. This article will first discuss (i) the chronology and evolution of the doctrine, (ii) situating it in the context of the u.n. Charter prohibition on the use of force and articulating its nonbinding nature. It will then examine (iii) the cases of Libya and Syria, focusing on the initial decision to intervene and how the dissemination of misinformation has served to promote military interventions where they would otherwise be considered illegitimate. The article will conclude with a brief discussion of (iv) how the international community can move beyond misapplication and seek to limit its abuse.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando R. Tesón ◽  
Bas van der Vossen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Just War ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Collective Self

We introduce general concepts of just war theory and describe different kinds of war: national self-defense, collective self-defense, and humanitarian intervention. After laying down the conditions for the justification of humanitarian intervention, we highlight some of our differences. We conclude with an outline of the international law of use of force and some jurisprudential themes that bear on the current humanitarian intervention debate.

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