Michael de Laine

By Michael de Laine, Copenhagen, 17th December 2008

Every nation carries the internal and primary ‘responsibility to protect’ its population against grave crimes in international law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes. But if a nation fails to protect its population, the United Nations Security Council has an external ‘responsibility to protect’ human security.

If the situation constitutes a threat to peace and peaceful intervention is inadequate, the UN Security Council has a right to choose military intervention under international law, according to a doctoral dissertation by Diana Amnéus, of Stockholm University’s Department of Law, to be defended on 19th December.

Security Council practice on humanitarian intervention after the Cold War in for example Bosnia, Somalia, and Rwanda supports such an expanded right for the council to act in the face of gross violations of human rights and humanitarian law, Amnéus says.

UN member states also recognised the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ at the 2005 UN World Summit in New York, acknowledging this right and the responsibility of the council.

“A military intervention is a last resort and only after diplomatic, political, and economic measures are found inadequate to stop mass atrocities,” says Amnéus.

In the future, regional organisations may also be given a legal right to carry out humanitarian interventions to stop such grave crimes, even without a Security Council mandate.

In her dissertation, ‘Responsibility to Protect by Military Means - Emerging Norms on Humanitarian Intervention?’, Amnéus shows that an international customary law has started to develop along these lines.

However, more practice of humanitarian interventions by regional organisations, such as in Kosovo (1999) and Liberia (1991), is needed to confirm such a right, and more nations must support its formalisation into law.

“In the case of Darfur, not only Sudan but also the UN Security Council and the African Union (AU) failed to protect the population against mass atrocities, despite the summer 2007 resolution in the Security Council which established the joint UN and AU force, UNAMID,” Amnéus says.

All too often, there is not enough political will or sufficient resources among nations to ensure the principle ‘responsibility to protect’ is met.

“The number of future cases of genuine humanitarian intervention is potentially lower than the number of cases that run the risk of abusing the principle, as in the case of Georgia,” she adds. “Therefore, I don’t support the emergence of a customary right for regional organisations and individual states to use military force to protect people. It is also crucial to safeguard the prohibition on the use of force in international law.”