Humanitarian Intervention And The R2P: Protection Of Civilians Or Selective Exercise Of Power
- IJLLR Journal
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Aarush Tuteja, Lloyd Law College, Greater Noida
I. INTRODUCTION
International Law seeks to protect the fundamental human rights while simultaneously preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the states. This dual commitment produces and gave rise to a differentiation between the enforceability of human rights and the preserved absolute sovereign international order promoting legal order, particularly relating to occur when mass violations occur within the territorial integrity of the sovereign structure of the states. Although the preservation of human rights has been increasingly recognized as a necessity but, the legal framework governing the use of force is also strictly prohibited and against the core values and interests of the UN Charter enriched under Art. 2(4) where its governing values refrain states from using force against each other while promoting international peace and harmony among each other. As a result, the international order oscillates between the grave human rights violations and the structural commitments to the state’s autonomy. A tension where the declarations of Non-intervention and domestic affairs by the United Nations fails to present the direct and grave imminent threat to the violations causing mass sufferings and atrocities to human lives in an international structure aiming to secure stability over the grave of innocent individuals.
II. Sovereignty, territorial Integrity and the Prohibition of use of force
Territorial sovereignty in terms of existence of the rights over territory rather than independence of the states itself or the relations of persons to persons. Judge Huber in the Island of Palmas Arbitration noted sovereignty in terms of surface to the globe as a legal condition necessary for inclusion of such portion in the territorial boundaries of a particular state. In an international order the word territory is not absolute but a legitimate claim of responsibilities where it is the responsibilities of a state to restore public order to claim as a legal guardian and preserver of its jurisdictional boundaries. The question here arises upon the conquest of use of force to what extent it is legalized and permitted within the international legal systems where the only permitted way or possibility would be permitted as self-defense is provisional and subject to reporting and authorization of the Security Council under Chapter VII Art 39 to 42 and Art. 51 where a limited force is permitted upon territorial integrity of the states and their sovereign structures. However, it is very clear in today’s international order that the territorial acquisitions and force contradicts with the core values of Art. 2(4) and the Res. of UNSC 242 prohibiting acquisition of territory by wars.
