Article 2 under 7 of the Charter of the United Nations is clear in case a recognised state is subject to an intervention: “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state”. This article contains a codification of the territorial integrity of a State principle. Under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, rather than having a right to intervene in the conduct of other states, states are said to have a responsibility to intervene and protect the citizens of another state where that other state has failed in its obligation to protect its own citizens against international crimes or natural disasters. Responsibility to Protect is the name of a report produced in 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) which was established by the Canadian government in response to the history of unsatisfactory humanitarian interventions. The report sought to establish a set of clear guidelines for determining when intervention is appropriate, what the appropriate channels for approving an intervention are and how the intervention itself should be carried out. It argues that the notion of a ‘right to intervene’ is problematic and should be replaced with the ‘responsibility to protect’.
This Research Guide is intended as a starting point for research on Intervention and Non-Intervention. It provides the basic legal materials available in the Peace Palace Library, both in print and electronic format. Handbooks, leading articles, bibliographies, periodicals, serial publications and documents of interest are presented in the Selective Bibliography section. Links to the PPL Catalogue are inserted. The Library’s classification index code 59. Intervention and Non-Intervention and subject heading (keyword) Intervention and Non-Intervention are instrumental for searching through the Catalogue. Special attention is given to our subscriptions on databases, e-journals, e-books and other electronic resources. Finally, this Research Guide features links to relevant websites and other online resources of particular interest.
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Also available as Fulltext e-book inside Peace Palace Library
Jared Genser and Irwin Cotler provide a comprehensive overview on how this contemporary principle of international law has developed and analyze how best to apply it to current and future humanitarian crises. The “responsibility to protect” is a doctrine unanimously adopted by the UN World Summit in 2005, which says that all states have an obligation to protect their own citizens from mass atrocities, which includes genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Its adoption and application has generated a passionate debate in law schools, professional organizations, media and within the U.N. system.
GENSER, J. and COTLER, I., 2012Also available as Fulltext e-book inside Peace Palace Library
PATTISON, J., 2010Also available as Fulltext e-book inside Peace Palace Library
During most of human history, war was a basic instrument of statecraft, considered, for the most part, a lawful, honorable, ennobling and even romantic pursuit. By contrast, peacemaking remained a marginal and indeed incongruous inter-state activity. A war would end when the belligerents ended it. The experience of the twentieth centurys two world wars has changed, at least, the official view. The introduction of ever more destructive weapons, the drastic escalation of civilian deaths and the economic and environmental devastation that modern war brought combined to forge an international legal impulse to stop, if not prevent wars, resolve ongoing conflicts and build peace. Yet stopping a war though a useful, if not indispensable, step toward making peace, does not lead ineluctably to peace.
EICHENSEHR, K. and REISMAN, M.W. (eds.), 2009This book explores the scope and limits of Article 4(h) of the African Union Constitutive Act (AU Act). The goal is to generate new thinking on, and contribute a fresh legal approach to, the implementation of the right to intervene under Article 4 (h) of the AU Act in the face of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
KUWALI, D., 2011One of the most contentious issues in contemporary foreign policy—especially in the United States—is the use of military force to intervene in the domestic affairs of other states. Some military interventions explicitly try to transform the domestic institutions of the states they target; others do not, instead attempting only to reverse foreign policies or resolve disputes without trying to reshape the internal landscape of the target state. In Leaders at War, Elizabeth N. Saunders provides a framework for understanding when and why great powers seek to transform foreign institutions and societies through military interventions. She highlights a crucial but often-overlooked factor in international relations: the role of individual leaders.
SAUNDERS, E.N., 2011The idea that states and the international community have a responsibility to protect populations at risk has framed internationalist debates about conflict prevention, humanitarian aid, peacekeeping and territorial administration since 2001. This book situates the responsibility to protect concept in a broad historical and jurisprudential context, demonstrating that the appeal to protection as the basis for de facto authority has emerged at times of civil war or revolution – the Protestant revolutions of early modern Europe, the bourgeois and communist revolutions of the following centuries and the revolution that is decolonisation. This analysis, from Hobbes to the UN, of the resulting attempts to ground authority on the capacity to guarantee security and protection is essential reading for all those seeking to understand, engage with, limit or critique the expansive practices of international executive action authorised by the responsibility to protect concept.
ORFORD, A., 2011The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a major new international principle, adopted unanimously in 2005 by Heads of State and Government. Whilst it is broadly acknowledged that the principle has an important and intimate relationship with international law, especially the law relating to sovereignty, peace and security, human rights and armed conflict, there has yet to be a volume dedicated to this question. The Responsibility to Protect and International Law fills that gap by bringing together leading scholars from North America, Europe and Australia to examine R2P’s legal content.
BELLAMY, A.J. and DAVIES, S.E. (eds.), 2011In 1986, the International Court of Justice issued its judgment on the merits in a dispute between Nicaragua and the United States of America. Twenty-five years later, members of the legal teams of both Nicaragua and the United States faced each other once again in the Peace Palace.
Read moreOsama Bin Laden (OBL) is dead. He was killed by a special ops team from the United States of America (USA), “after a firefight.” After OBL had been assassinated, the special team of SEALS took the deceased body of the dangerous mastermind terrorist and several hard drives from the compound in Abbottabad. Bin laden had been hiding there with his family for several years without being noticed. When the Pentagon researched the hard drives, it appeared that OBL had been planning new attacks, at least on several US cities and also on European locations. Upon hearing this news so many have sighed with relief that the secret services of the USA found out about these planned attacks before they could actually take place. Obama, President of the USA stated that “justice had been done” by executing OBL. But “what kind of justice” The assassination also led to a lot of questions and criticism: Was the raid justified?
Read moreAt 20 December 2010 the United Nations Security Council (SC/10132) extended the mission in Cote d’Ivoire until 30 June 2011, strongly condemned attempts to usurp the will of the people and urged respect for the election outcome : Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister, banker and leader of the opposition, has been recognized as the winner of November’s election by the United Nations, the African Union, the United States and the European Union. The incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo has resisted repeated calls for him to cede the office.
Read moreRussia always maintained that its intervention in Georgia was justified by the principle of “responsibility to protect” (R2P).
Russian President Medvedev, also supreme military commander, introduced an amendment to the Russian defense Law to allow Russian armed forces to intervene beyond Russian borders.
The Organization of American States (OAS) suspended Honduras on Saturday after the Supreme Court of Honduras has rejected to reinstate President Manuel Zelaya.
The plane was kept from landing at the main Honduras airport Sunday because the runway was blocked by groups of soldiers with military vehicles, some of them lined up against a crowd of thousands outside. His Venezuelan pilots circled around the airport and decided not to risk a crash.
Honduran coup leaders had three days to restore deposed President Manuel Zelaya to power, the Organization of American States (OAS) said Wednesday, before Honduras risks being suspended from the group.
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Delicious links:
Humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect : who should intervene? / , 2010
The responsibility to protect and international law / , 2011
Leaders at war : how presidents shape military interventions / , 2011
Humanitarian intervention: a history / , 2011
Waging War to Make Peace : U.S. Intervention in Global Conflicts / , 2011
Humanitarian Intervention : an introduction / , 2010
