33. Use or threat of force by states

Author(s):  
James Crawford

This chapter discusses international law governing the use or threat of force by states. The UN Security Council has primary responsibility for enforcement action to deal with breaches of the peace, threats to the peace, or acts of aggression. Individual member states have the right of individual or collective self-defence, but only ‘until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security’. However, the practice has evolved of authorizing peacekeeping operations that are contingent upon the consent of the state whose territory is the site of the operations.

2021 ◽  
pp. 251-272
Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen

This chapter discusses the regulation of when and for what purpose a state may use force against another state jus ad bellum. It provides an overview of the legal framework in the 1945 UN Charter. It analyses the content of the prohibition on the use of force in article 2(4) of the Charter; discusses the competences of the UN Security Council; and examines the right to self-defence. The Security Council is entrusted with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and, under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council may authorize the use of force if required to maintain and/or restore the peace. Article 51 of the Charter allows a state to defend itself in the case of armed attack.


2019 ◽  
pp. 254-278
Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen

This chapter discusses the regulation of when and for what purpose a state may use force against another state—jus ad bellum. It provides an overview of the legal framework in the 1945 UN Charter. It analyses the content of the prohibition on the use of force in article 2(4) of the Charter; discusses the competences of the UN Security Council; and examines the right to self-defence. The Security Council is entrusted with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and, under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council may authorize the use of force if required to maintain and/or restore the peace. Article 51 of the Charter allows a state to defend itself in the case of armed attack.


Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen

This chapter discusses the regulation of when and for what purpose a state may use force against another state — jus ad bellum. It provides an overview of the legal framework in the 1945 UN Charter. It analyses the content of the prohibition on the use of force in Article 2(4) of the Charter; discusses the competences of the UN Security Council; and examines the right to self-defence. The Security Council is entrusted with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security and under Chapter VII of the Charter, the Council may authorize the use of force if required to maintain and/or restore the peace. Article 51 of the Charter allows a state to defend itself in the case of armed attack.


2020 ◽  
pp. 335-365
Author(s):  
Paola Gaeta ◽  
Jorge E. Viñuales ◽  
Salvatore Zappalà

The Cold War era prevented the UN Security Council from using most of the powers provided for by the UN Charter, including adopting measures under Chapter VII (the so-called ‘collective security system’ which provides for measures ranging from sanctions to the use of armed force) for events deemed (by the Security Council) to be threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression. However, the end of the Cold War enabled the Security Council to take some of the measures short of force envisaged in Article 41 and to interpret creatively the provisions of the Charter so as to authorize enforcement action through the use of armed force by individual States or coalitions of States. This chapter discusses measures short of armed force; peacekeeping operations; resort to force by States, as well as regional and other organizations, upon authorization of the Security Council; the special case of authorization to use force given by the General Assembly; as well as the right to self-defence and the various situations in which armed force has been used unilaterally by States.


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard F. Hutabarat

<p align="justify">As peacekeeping has evolved to encompass a broader humanitarian approach, women personels have become increasingly part of the peacekeeping family. The UN has called for more deployment of female peacekeepers to enhance the overall “holistic” approach to current UN peacekeeping operations. There is clearly more work to be done to integrate more female peacekeepers into UN missions. More skilled and trained female peacekeepers can only be an asset to future peacekeeping operations. In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. The resolution was hailed as a landmark resolution in that for the first time, the Security Council recognised the contribution women make during and post-conflict. Since the adoption of Resolution 1325, attention to gender perspectives within the international peace agenda has ¬firmly been placed within the broader peace and security framework. This article explains the development of Indonesian female peacekeepers contribution in the period of 2009-20016 and argues why Indonesia needs to support and to consider deploying more female peacekeepers in UN peacekeeping operations.</p>


Author(s):  
Jasmine-Kim Westendorf

In the past fifteen years, despite the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security and the Secretary-General’s Bulletin on Zero Tolerance of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by peacekeepers, abuse by interveners remains prevalent in peace operations. SEA is not only perpetrated by peacekeepers, but also aid workers, diplomats, private contractors, and others associated with interventions. This chapter maps the extent and main characteristics of SEA in peace operations, and investigates the ways the international community has attempted to prevent and hold individuals accountable for SEA. It provides an assessment of the weaknesses in the existing WPS framework regarding SEA, particularly in terms of its engagement with masculinities, capital, and other permissive factors that make SEA such a central feature of peacekeeping operations.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 108 ◽  
pp. 129-134
Author(s):  
Boris N. Mamlyuk

Larry Johnson’s timely and important essay challenges both utopian and realist accounts of UN law and practice by reviving the debate over the nature and functions of the UN General Assembly, particularly the General Assembly’s power to deploy certain legal tactics not only to influence collective security deliberations in the UN Security Council, but also, more significantly, to provide some legal justification for multilateral military “collective measures” in the event of Security Council gridlock. One vehicle by which the General Assembly may assert its own right to intervene in defense of “international peace and security” is a “Uniting for Peace” (UFP) resolution, authorized by resolution 377(V) (1950). At its core, a “uniting for peace” resolution is an attempt to circumvent a Security Council deadlock by authorizing Member States to take collective action, including the use of force, in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. General Assembly resolution 377(V) does not require resolutions to take specific legal form—language that echoes the preambular “lack of unanimity of the permanent members [that results in the Security Council failing to] exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security” is sufficient to render a given resolution a UFP, provided the General Assembly resolution calls for concrete “collective [forceful] measures.” For this reason, experts disagree on precisely how many times a UFP has indeed been invoked or implemented, although informed analysts suggest UFP has been invoked in slightly more than ten instances since 1950.


Author(s):  
Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg

This chapter examines the rules and principles that govern a naval or aerial blockade or some other form of interference with foreign vessels and aircraft in the absence of an explicit authorization by the UN Security Council. After clarifying the concept of blockade under the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello, it considers blockades authorized as military enforcement measures. It also discusses some unresolved or even contested issues regarding the legality of blockades, with reference to blockades in situations other than international armed conflict and the principle of proportionality in relation to humanity. The scope of interdiction operations and its legal bases under international treaties are analysed next, together with maritime interdiction operations and the applicability of prize law during non-international armed conflicts. Finally, the chapter explores the right of individual or collective self-defence as a basis for interdiction operations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-64
Author(s):  
Alexander Orakhelashvili

Over the past decade, the effective performance by the UN Security Council of its primary responsibility in the area of peace and security has increasingly become contingent on the implementation of its decisions within the national legal systems of the UN Member States. An examination of this issue in the context of the British legal system could offer a useful case-study of the ways to enhance the effectiveness of the UN collective security mechanism, to enforce the limits on the legitimacy of that mechanism, and also to highlight the practical difficulties that may accompany the attempts to apply Security Council resolutions domestically. This contribution exposes all these issues, focusing on the practice of the uk courts over the past decade. It examines the mediation of the effect of Security Council resolutions into English law through the 1946 United Nations Act, the royal prerogative and other common law techniques. After that, the contribution moves on to examine the English courts’ handling of the normative conflict between a Security Council resolution and other sources of international law.


1991 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy L. H. McCormack

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter states that:Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of selfdefense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.International lawyers are still arguing about the scope of the right of self-defence in Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. Most of the arguments focus on the semantics of Article 51. Those who argue for a “restrictive view” of the provision emphasise the qualifying phrase “if an armed attack occurs”.


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