Introduction

This chapter will show that the discourse on RtoP has not managed to contribute to any modifications of the international legal rules applicable to the use of military force (jus ad bellum), and thus has not created a legal right to unauthorised humanitarian intervention.

There is no ‘one’ authoritative definition of the concept of humanitarian intervention, but most formulations in the legal literature are similar. The definition employed in this context is narrow, and does not include so-called ‘in-and-out operations’ to rescue the intervening state(s)’ own nationals, nor pro-democratic interventions for the purpose of regime change of an illegitimate regime:

The main research question revolves around the important issue: ‘who’ has, or is, developing a legal right in international law to undertake humanitarian interventions under the RtoP principle? In the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document (WSO Document) on the UN reform agenda, endorsed by the world's heads of state at the Summit in New York on 15 September 2005, member states only accredited the Security Council a right to decide on military measures in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter in order to protect against grave crimes in international law under the principle of RtoP. In the following legal analysis I have used the lex ferenda proposals of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) as a point of departure, sketching the idea that other actors may have a subsidiary Right Authority to decide on military measures when the Council is unable or unwilling to protect, in order to assess the research question.

The ICISS acknowledged that the Security Council is the appropriate body to authorise military interventions, but if the Security Council rejects a proposal to protect or fails to deal with it within a reasonable time, the Commission proposed that the matter could be considered in the General Assembly under the ‘Uniting for Peace’ Procedure.