3 Direct Military Assistance on Request During Civil Wars

Author(s):  
De Wet Erika

This chapter examines whether the right to self-determination in international law prevents military intervention on the side of the recognized government during a civil war. Post-Cold War state and organizational practice does not convincingly support the claim that direct military assistance at the request of a recognized government is prohibited during a civil war, otherwise known as a ‘non-international armed conflict’ (NIAC). Attempts to explain current state practice by means of counter-terrorism and counter-intervention exceptions to a general prohibition of such assistance also is not grounded in state or organizational practice, nor are such exceptions viable in practice. Instead, state and organizational practice seems to confirm the right of recognized governments to request military assistance from third states, also during civil wars/NIACs, as long as they retain their recognized, de jure status. The potential lack of ‘representativeness’ in such a situation does not seem to limit the extent to which the de jure government can act on behalf of the state (and its people) in matters pertaining to the use of force.

Author(s):  
Starski Paulina

This contribution analyses the normative implications of the US raid against the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in 1993 in reaction to a foiled assassination attempt against former President Bush. It examines the legality of the operation, its precedential value and its evolutive potential regarding the regime on the ius contra bellum and specifically the right to self-defence. After dissecting the multiple contentious dimensions of the US claim of justification, the article concludes that the raid constituted an illegal ‘armed reprisal’. In light of observable state practice, its precedent-setting nature should not be overstated. However, albeit qualified as an ‘one-off incident’ the US raid did not leave the prohibition on the use of force and the contemporary discourse surrounding it untouched. Hence, it appears essential to demystify its frequently asserted evolutive potential particularly regarding the temporal limitations of Article 51 UN Charter to which this article is dedicated.


1982 ◽  
Vol 22 (230) ◽  
pp. 255-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dietrich Schindler

Internationalized internal armed conflicts have become a common feature of the past decades. In numerous civil wars foreign armed forces have intervened in favour of one or the other party and thereby attempted to influence the outcome of the conflict. Various causes have led to this development. One of them is the increased interdependence of States, as a consequence of which every civil war will affect other States and, conversely, the attitudes of other States may have an impact on the outcome of the civil war, even without any intervention. Another cause can be found in the world's ideological cleavage which divides nations and results in the overlapping of internal and international conflicts. Among further causes we can mention the existence of military blocs and of regional groupings which have an interest in preventing the overthrow of régimes within the bloc and tend to encourage alterations in other blocs. Another factor to be taken into consideration is the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. Whereas in earlier times States waged open wars in order to increase their power, today, due to the prohibition of the use of force, they rather endeavour to achieve the same result by interfering in the internal affairs of other States. Interference in internal conflicts is often a substitute for an international war. The instability of many contemporary régimes, mainly of the Third World, further favours the internationalization of internal conflicts.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-86
Author(s):  
Papawadee Tanodomdej

The Tallinn Manuals (the Manuals) attempted to clarify how to apply existing international law to cyber operations. Though the Manuals are non-binding instruments, the Group of International Experts claimed that they reflected the lex lata applicable to cyber operations. However, this claim is questionable due to the dominating role of a few Western states in the drafting process and the linked neglect of the practice of “affected states” in cyber operations. This article examines the quality of the Manuals’ drafting process and the composition and impartiality of the experts involved. It focuses on the issue of the prohibition of the use of force. The aim of this examination is not to discuss whether the Manuals provided the right answer to the question of how international law applies to cyber operations. Rather, they function as a case study of how legal scholarship may affect the making of international law. The article concludes that certain rules in the Manuals are marked by NATO influence and overlook the practice of other states engaged in cyber operations. Therefore, the Manuals disregard the generality of state practice, which should be the decisive factor in the formation of customary international law. As far as “political activism” may be involved, the article argues that the role of legal scholars as assistants to the cognition of international law could be compromised.


Author(s):  
Kammerhofer Jörg

This chapter focuses on the US intervention in Nicaragua from 1981 to 1988, as a contribution to the state practice on the law on the use of force and the right to self-defence under both UN Charter and customary law. After an overview of the background of the so-called ‘contra war’ and of the salient facts regarding the US intervention in that conflict, it discusses the positions of the two parties on the facts and law, and takes note of the reaction of the international community, focusing on the debates at the UN. The next section focuses on the legality of the operation; the ICJ’s holdings in its 1986 Nicaragua judgment form the backbone of that discussion, while taking note of dissent and comment both inside and outside the Court. The contribution concludes by discussing the precedential value and effect of this conflict, and of the ICJ case.


1967 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Norton Moore

The major thrust of contemporary international law is to restrict coercion in international relations as a modality of major change. The use of force as an instrument of change has always been wasteful, disruptive, and tragic. In the nuclear era the renunciation of force as a method of settlement of disputes has become an imperative. These necessities have resulted in a widely accepted distinction between lawful and unlawful uses of force in international relations which is embodied in the United Nations Charter. Force pursuant to the right of individual or collective defense or expressly authorized by the centralized peacekeeping machinery of the United Nations is lawful. Essentially all other major uses of force in international relations are unlawful. These fundamental proscriptions are designed to protect self-determination of the peoples of the world and to achieve at least minimum world public order. As such, they reflect the basic expectations of the international community. Since they are aimed at prohibiting the unilateral use of force as a modality of major change, they have consistently authorized the use of force in individual or collective defense at least “until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” This defensive right is, at least at the present level of effectiveness of international peacekeeping machinery, necessary to the prevention of unilateral use of force as an instrument of change. The fundamental distinction between unlawful unilateral force to achieve major change and lawful force in individual or collective defense against such coercion is the structural steel for assessment of the lawfulness of the present military assistance to the Republic of Viet-Nam.


2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
RAPHAËL VAN STEENBERGHE

AbstractThis article analyses the recent state practice in which the right of self-defence has been invoked in order to justify the use of force in response to attacks by non-state actors. The main purpose of this analysis is to determine whether the law of self-defence has evolved through this practice. It is submitted that the latter confirms the tendency, evidenced by the US operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan in 2001, towards allowing states to respond in self-defence to private armed attacks, that is, attacks which are committed by non-state actors only. The article also aims to shed some light on other fundamental conditions of the law of self-defence which played a significant role in the legal assessment of the recent state practice. It is argued in this respect that this practice confirms that any armed attack must reach some level of gravity – which may be assessed by accumulating minor uses of force – in order to trigger the right of self-defence, and that proportionality of the action taken in self-defence may be assessed in quantitative terms, but only as a means of making a prima facie judgement about the necessity of this action.


2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 1111-1129
Author(s):  
RICHARD LITTLE

AbstractThis article aims to show that from the end of the eighteenth century, international order began to be defined in terms of ground rules relating to non-intervention and intervention, with the former being prioritised over the latter. After the Napoleonic wars, within continental Europe there was an attempt to consolidate an intervention ground rule in favour of dynastic legitimacy over the right of self-determination. By contrast, the British and Americans sought to ensure that this ground rule was not extended to the Americas where the ground rule of non-intervention was prioritised. During the nineteenth century, it was the Anglo-American position which came to prevail. Over the same period international order was increasingly bifurcated with the non-intervention ground rule prevailing in the metropolitan core and with the intervention ground rules prevailing in the periphery. This article, however, only focuses on the metropolitan core and draws on two case studies to examine the non-intervention ground rule in very different circumstances. The first examines the British response to the American Civil War in the 1860s during an era of stability in the international order. The second explores the British Response to the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s when the international order was very unstable and giving way to a very different international order.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 705-731
Author(s):  
Patrick Dumberry

Abstract Based on an analysis of State practice and case law, this article examines one basic principle of international law embodied in Article 10 of the International Law Commission’s Articles on State responsibility. In the context of an unsuccessful insurrection or civil war, the host State is responsible for its own failure to discharge its due diligence obligation to protect foreign investors in relation to acts committed by rebels, i.e. to make all efforts within its capacity to suppress an insurrection and to take all reasonable measures to prevent injurious conduct by rebels and damages from occurring. This article examines the scope and content of this ‘duty to protect’ obligation, the applicable ‘test’ and the relevant circumstances to determine whether any breach of the obligation has been committed in light of recent investment awards analysing the full protection and security clause in the context of Libya’s civil war.


1938 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-279
Author(s):  
Norman J. Padelford

Among the problems most frequently arising in connection with insurrections and civil wars, are those relating to the status of foreign vessels in the areas of hostilities, and the rights of contesting factions to interfere with such vessels. According to international rules of conduct gradually evolved during the nineteenth century and generally enforced in time of civil disturbance, contending factions enjoy the right to control the movements and activities of foreign shipping within territorial waters, but are not authorized to go upon the high seas and there interfere with foreign vessels unless the states having jurisdiction over such vessels have recognized the belligerency of the contestants.1


1994 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 21-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Preston

BOTH during his lifetime, and after his death, General Franco was reviled by his enemies on the left and subjected to the most absurd adulation by his admirers on the right. As the victor in a bloody civil war which inflamed passions throughout the world, that is hardly surprising. Leaving aside his personal political success in remaining in power for nearly four decades, his victory in the Spanish Civil War was his greatest and most glorious achievement, something reflected in the judgements of detractors and hagiographers alike. For the left, Franco the general was a slow-witted mediocrity whose battlefield triumphs were owed entirely to the unstinting military assistance of Hitler and Mussolini. For the right, Franco the general was the twentieth-century incarnation of Alexander the Great, of Napoleon and of the great warrior hero of Spanish legend, El Cid.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document