scholarly journals USE OF FORCE OR DIPLOMATIC INTERVENTION: ASSESSING THE BLOCKADE OF QATAR

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 503-530
Author(s):  
Suleiman Usman Santuraki

  The coordinated blockade of the State of Qatar by some of its neighbours in June 2017 has raised questions on the sovereignty of the state and the extent to which coercion is allowed in international law. This article considers the reasons behind the blockade and the subsequent demands by Qatar’s neighbours. It evaluates the blockade of Qatar based on the twin principles of international law: the prohibition on the use of force and non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. The article argues that the language of article 2 (4), read together with the purposes of the United Nations (UN), render any forcible attempt to coerce a sovereign state into surrendering its sovereignty illegal. The article also considers the debate on whether economic and political coercion amounts to force. It submits that the coordinated blockade and the subsequent “13 points” demands threaten Qatar’s sovereignty, because the blockade contravenes the purposes of the UN. The article also argues that the blockade amounts to an interference in the internal affairs of Qatar, even if economic or political coercion are not considered as force. The article finds that the blockade does not categorically amount to a threat or use of force; but it certainly violates the principle of non-intervention as enshrined in the UN Charter.

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 753-777
Author(s):  
Vera Shikhelman

Abstract In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of research about the implementation of international law. However, there has been almost no empirical research about implementing decisions of international human rights institutions. The decisions of those institutions are usually regarded as soft law, and states do not have a clear legal obligation to implement them. In this article, I bring original empirical data about how and when states implement decisions of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) in individual communications. I hypothesize that the following factors influence the readiness of states to implement the views of the HRC: (i) the level of democracy and human rights protection in the state; (ii) internal capacity; (iii) strength of civil society; (iv) type of remedy; (v) representation on the HRC; (6) subject matter of the communication. I find that the most important factor for implementing remedies granted by the Committee is the high human rights score of the state. The internal capacity of the state is also significant but to a lesser extent than found in previous studies. Also, I find a certain connection between the state being represented on the HRC and its willingness to implement the remedies.


2000 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 910-925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Chinkin

The use of force has been prohibited in international relations since at least the United Nations Charter, 1945. Article 2 (4) of the Charter states:All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the United Nations.


2003 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falk

President George W. Bush historically challenged the United Nations Security Council when he uttered some memorable words in the course of his September 12, 2002, speech to the General Assembly: “Will the UN serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?” In the aftermath of the Iraq war there are at least two answers to this question. The answer of the U.S. government would be to suggest that the United Nations turned out to be irrelevant due to its failure to endorse recourse to war against the Iraq of Saddam Hussein. The answer of those who opposed the war is that the UN Security Council served the purpose of its founding by its refusal to endorse recourse to a war that could not be persuasively reconciled with the UN Charter and international law. This difference of assessment is not just factual, whether Iraq was a threat and whether the inspection process was succeeding at a reasonable pace; it was also conceptual, even jurisprudential. The resolution of this latter debate is likely to shape the future role of the United Nations, as well as influence the attitude of the most powerful sovereign state as to the relationship between international law generally and the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy.


2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 699-729
Author(s):  
Jacques Zylberberg

This essay undertakes a review of national and international law to demonstrate that law is mainly an ideological and variable instrument of the State and of the United Nations, which is a by-product of the states. In this perspective, the author opposes the pragmatical ideology of resistance against the sovereign state to the juridical legitimation and the behaviour of the States who reluctantly have conceded some civil and political rights. Those rights are endangered by the growing bureaucratization of the state, the inflation of the juridical norms and rules, in addition to the permanent repressive characters of the State. The criticism of the contradiction and the variation of the rule of law when it relates to "human rights" is also extended to international law as well as to the international organizations.


1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon A. Christenson

In the merits phase of decision in the case brought by Nicaragua against the United States, the World Court briefly mentions references by states or publicists to the concept of jus cogens. These expressions are used to buttress the Court’s conclusion that the principle prohibiting the use of force found in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter is also a rule of customary international law.


Author(s):  
Shane Darcy

This chapter focuses on the evolution of the international law on the use of force as it relates to the concepts of retaliation and reprisal, particularly since the adoption of the United Nations Charter in 1945. After defining the concepts of retaliation and reprisal as understood in international law, the chapter considers whether armed reprisals are contrary to the UN Charter, along with the debates surrounding the UN Security Council’s condemnation of retaliatory actions. It then examines claimed instances of state practice, as well as judicial and scholarly views on the lawfulness of such reprisals. Finally, it discusses arguments calling for the revival of reprisals or retaliation as permitted exceptions to the prohibition on the use of force.


10.12737/3457 ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 5-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Олег Тиунов ◽  
Olyeg Tiunov

In the article have defined of the role of the principle of the sovereign equality of the states in the system of the principles of international law. The contemporary of the signs of the sovereign equality became aparent the grand total of the development of the international law. Its substance development was under the influence of the different history formations. The Charter of the United Nations there is the basic document of the contemporaneity in which has sealed the principle of the sovereign equality of the states as the part of the system of the principals the modern international law. The legal signs of the sovereignty appears on the supreme sovereignty within the limits of the state, and they must be independence of the state in the international relations. The basic principles of international law there are interdependence. They must be conform to the context each other.


1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Watson

With the failure of the United Nations to control the use of force by states to the degree that many had wished for, the attention of many commenators shifted to what was hoped would be more fertile ground—the protection of human rights, self-determination, and other areas in which the organization might play a supranational role. In discussing the development of the supranational aspect of the organization, attention is invariably directed to Article 2(7) of the Charter which is, of course, the current symbol of sovereignty. Since most visionaries are frustrated by the concept of sovereignty, it is not surprising that this article has received little sympathy on the part of many who are more concerned with ends than means. Yet it is doubtful whether the concept may be dismissed summarily and, since it plays such a key role in so many of the allegedly developing fields of international law, one would do well to consider how Article 2(7), properly interpreted, affects the legal assumption on which supranationalism is based.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZOU Keyuan

AbstractThe Charter of the United Nations designates the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) as one of the principal organs of the United Nations, assuming the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”. It has the power to determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, to make recommendations, and decide what measures should be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security. This article addresses a number of issues concerning how the UNSC Resolutions are enforced at sea in accordance with applicable international law and makes special reference to the circumstances in East Asia, particularly the Korean Peninsula.


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