Humanitarian Intervention: Which Way Forward?

Ethics and International Affairs

Volumn 14, Issue , 2000, Pages 23-38

  Caplan, Richard ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85014621825     PISSN: 08926794     EISSN: 17477093     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-7093.2000.tb00051.x     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. Press Conference at Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, October 6, 1998
2. cited in Catherine Guicherd, “International Law and the War in Kosovo,” Survival 41 (Summer 1999), p. 28.
3. Some states seem also to have been concerned that adoption of the resolution would have encouraged Yugoslavia in its repressive action, especially since the resolution made no mention of Yugoslavia's failure to comply with earlier UN Security Council demands. See Niko Krisch, “Unilateral Enforcement of the Collective Will: Kosovo, Iraq and the Security Council,” Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law 3 (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1999), pp. 84–85.
4. Humanitarian Intervention: Legal and Political Aspects (Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Affairs, 1999), pp. 11–12. Many of the minority rights “regimes” established in Europe from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century contained provisions for great-power intervention that were prone to abuse.
5. See C. A. Macartney, National States and National Minorities (London: Oxford University Press, 1934).
6. See the discussion of Article 2(4) in Bruno Simma, ed., The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 106–28.
7. GA Resolution 2625 (XXV), October 24, 1970.
8. UN Security Council Resolutions 1160 (March 31, 1998), 1199 (September 23, 1998), and 1203 (October 24, 1998).
9. Christopher Greenwood, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, is one of the principal exponents of this view. See his “Yes, but is the war legal?” The Observer, March 26, 1999.
10. In his testimony before Parliament on April 14, 1999, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook explained: “The [Yugoslav] spring offensive was planned; we knew it was coming; we knew it would be accompanied by ethnic cleansing and I am quite sure, if I were here in front of this Committee and we were doing nothing, [you] would be the first to criticize us.” See House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, Session 1998–99, Kosovo: Interim Report, HC 188, para. 111.
11. The memorandum is reproduced in Adam Roberts, “NATO's ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo,” Survival 41 (Autumn 1999), p. 106.
12. See also the FCO memorandum “Kosovo: Legal Authority for Military Action” (January 22, 1999)
13. reproduced in Kosovo: Interim Report, p. 1.
14. See, for instance, the statement of George Robertson, the British defense secretary, in the House of Commons on March 25, 1999 (Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, March 25, 1999, cols. 616–17).
15. See the testimony of Aust to the Foreign Affairs Committee on December 2, 1992 (Parliamentary Papers, 1992–93, House of Commons, HC Paper 235-iii, p. 85).
16. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, “Is Intervention Ever Justified?” (Foreign Policy Document No. 148), para. II.22
17. reproduced in British Year Book of International Law 57 (1986), p. 619.
18. Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, November 16, 1998 (written answers), col. 140.
19. Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia v. Belgium), ICJ Doc. CR/99/15, p. 16.
20. A similar approach is reflected in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's plenary resolution of November 15, 1999, which urges member governments to strive “to legitimize a new interpretation of article 2 para. 4 of the UN Charter according to which humanitarian intervention no longer be considered as ‘inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations,’ but rather as a contribution to the realization of these purposes.” Plenary Resolution: NATO and Humanitarian Intervention, adopted by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, November 15, 1999, para. 16(f), available at the assembly's web site: http://www.naa.be/publications/resolutions/99as-res319-e.html.
21. Cited by Bruno Simma in “NATO, the UN and the Use of Force: Legal Aspects,” European Journal of International Law 10 (1999), p. 13.
22. “La bataille de Jacques Chirac,” Le Figaro, April 26, 1999.
23. North Atlantic Assembly, NATO in the 21st Century, October 2, 1998, summary recommendations, available at the assembly's web site: http://www.naa.be/publications/special/ar5gen-e.html.
24. “The Alliance's Strategic Concept Approved by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C., on 23rd and 24th April 1999,” Press Release NAC-S(99)65, April 24, 1999, para. 15.
25. For a discussion of procedural and factual requirements that might serve as the basis for a humanitarian intervention regime in the light of NATO's actions over Kosovo, see Jonathan I. Charney, “Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo,” American Journal of International Law 93 (October 1999), pp. 834–41.
26. Sean D. Murphy, Humanitarian Intervention: The United Nations in an Evolving World Order (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), pp. 382–87.
27. Noteworthy in this regard are proposals that have been made recently within the NATO Parliamentary Assembly to extend the right of self-defense to embrace the “defense of common interests and values, including when the latter are threatened by humanitarian catastrophes, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.” See North Atlantic Assembly, Resolution 283, Recasting Euro-Atlantic Security: Towards the Washington Summit, November 1998, para. 15(e).
28. Most notable among these efforts were those of the International Law Association, which between 1970 and 1976 explored the possibility of drafting a protocol of procedure for humanitarian intervention that included criteria for legitimate intervention. The initiative was abandoned when it became apparent that there was little chance of achieving consensus among the members. See International Law Association, Report of the Fifty-Fifth Conference 1972 (London: ILA, 1974), pp. 608–24
29. Report of the Fifty-Sixth Conference 1974 (London: ILA, 1976), pp. 217–22
30. Report of the Fifty-Seventh Conference 1976 (London: ILA, 1978), pp. 519–23.
31. Report of the Fifty-Seventh Conference.
32. For the view that it is better to accommodate the occasional infraction than to change the law with respect to humanitarian intervention, see Thomas M. Franck, “Break It, Don't Fake It,” Foreign Affairs 78 (July/August 1999), pp. 116–18.
33. Blair, speech to the Economic Club of Chicago.
34. U.S. Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), signed on May 3, 1994, allows for the operational control of U.S. forces by a non-American only under exceptional circumstances.
35. For a critique of the dual-key arrangements, see Rosemary Righter, “The UN & NATO: A Marriage Made in Hell,” in Ben Cohen and George Stamkoski, eds., With No Peace to Keep: United Nations Peacekeeping and the War in the former Yugoslavia (London: Grainpress, 1994), pp. 21–28.
36. Brian Urquhart, “For a UN Volunteer Military Force,” New York Review of Books, June 10, 1993, pp. 3–4.
37. Sam Daws, “Seeking Seats, Votes and Vetoes,” The World Today 53 (October 1997), pp. 256–59.
38. “Imitating NATO: A Script Is Adapted for Chechnya,” New York Times, September 28, 1999.
39. “China Maps Changes in Defense Strategy,” International Herald Tribune, June 12–13, 1999. One must be careful, however, not to overstate the importance of closer ties between these two neighbors, who still harbor considerable mutual distrust.
40. Former Indian foreign secretary J. N. Dixit, claiming in July 1999 that Pakistan was hoping to create a Kosovo-like situation in Kashmir which might lead to U.S. intervention, argued that Pakistan had failed to realize that (nuclear) India was no Bosnia or Kosovo and the United States would think several times before interfering. See “Kargil Conflict Occurred Because the Country Has a Caretaker Government: J. N. Dixit,” India Today, July 8, 1999, http://www.india-today.com/ntoday/newsarchives/99.7/08/n24.sthml.
41. See, for instance, the French government report on lessons learned from Kosovo, Les enseignements du Kosovo (Paris: Ministry of Defense, November 1999), pp. 7–12.
42. “EU Completes Plan for Own Forces,” International Herald Tribune, December 10, 1999.
43. “The Alliance's Strategic Concept,” para. 10.
44. Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, UN Doc. A/46/1, September 13, 1991, p. 5.