Abstract:

A lbeit the debate on the use of force for humanitarian purposes (i.e. humanitarian military intervention) is not new, it has been flourishing since the early years of the Cold War as a result of the increasing importance placed on the international protection of human rights. After gaining a prominent place in the international law and politics literatures, with cases of action and inaction/indifference in the 1990s, the question of (and the need for) undertaking intervention to stop mass atrocities took a new turn with the introduction of the “responsibility to protect” (RtoP) understanding. Now also enlisted as a measure within the RtoP framework but only as a last resort and to be undertaken with Security Council authorisation, humanitarian (military) intervention continues to be adopted individually or collectively by states in their international conduct. In this vein, its unilateral or unauthorised practices continue to create controversy in the political and academic platforms. Primarily with the military interventions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, then most recently with the intervention in Libya, the debates on the legitimacy, legality and lawfulness of the controversial doctrine of humanitarian intervention once again gained momentum. In the light of these developments, this article analyses the doctrine of humanitarian intervention in relation to international law with a specific focus on the questions of lawfulness and legality. To this end, it first traces the normative roots of the idea of undertaking military intervention on humanitarian grounds, and then, analyses the current legal framework. Finally, through an overview of cases in the post-Charter era, it tries to reveal how state practice alongside the legal understandings and debates led to the construction of the RtoP norm

Keywords: