INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTIONS

All members must refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

International peace and security has traditionally been narrowly defined as the maintenance of inter-state order.

Humanitarian intervention: the right of states to intervene military in another state without Security Council intervention in order to prevent gross violations of fundamental human rights and international humanitarian law. This is of course non consensual military intervention.

Tension: respect for fundamental human rights vs. respect sovereignty, non-intervention and self-determination.

(In IR words, state system values vs. human rights values).

UN has authorized such humanitarian interventions. In some cases, such as Chechnya, Russia opposed. In Kossovo, Russia and China opposed. So NATO intervened.

Tension: Security Council right vs. obligation

Where crimes against humanity occur and peaceful attempts to halt them have been exhausted, the UN SC has a moral obligation to act.

Two schools of thought: Human rights have primacy, the sovereignty emanates from people and when people are denied their fundamental human rights then states must intervene to protect them. This doesn’t authorize use of force.

The positivist argument rejects the right of unilateral or unauthorized humanitarian intervention.

In the context of Kosovo, NATO’s actions were subject to strong criticism in the face of several widely publicized bombings of non-military targets, such as urban telecommunications towers, major and minor bridges, heating plants, electric power stations, water supplies, and, mistakenly, civilian convoys. Reports published by Amnesty International. where a state or group of states acts without the authorisation of the Security Council, the legitimacy of its actions will likely be judged on how closely its conduct follows the principles of international law in every other aspect, as well as whether or not it has moral or political justifications for its actions (although such justifications will affect the determination of legitimacy). A NATO campaign which had adopted a method of warfare which would have protected the vulnerable population (i.e., using ground troops, setting up safe havens and safe corridors) and which, among other things, had not targeted civilian infrastructure may have been seen by its critics as more legitimate although technically illegal.

There appears to be agreement among the legal scholars surveyed that the Security Council has the legal right to authorise the use of force to prevent widespread deprivations of internationally recognised human rights.

It is not impossible that a customary rule permitting unauthorised intervention could develop in the future. Not yet, b/c Russia and China opposed.

Moral obligation or moral right to act. Why NATO? Why not intervene elsewhere, e.g., USA, Canada?

the moral arguments for and against humanitarian intervention fall into two categories: the realists and pluralists, on the one hand, for whom intervention undermines international order; and the solidarists and cosmopolitanists, on the other, for whom intervention may be a moral obligation stemming from membership in a cosmopolitan community of humankind.

Although humanitarian intervention without Security Council authorization is currently contrary to international law, it is hardly realistic in the foreseeable future that states should altogether refrain from such intervention if it is deemed imperative on moral and political grounds.

So perhaps, develop guidelines?