Legality of Armed Interventions to Protect Compatriots Cover Image

Legalita ozbrojené intervence na ochranu krajanů
Legality of Armed Interventions to Protect Compatriots

Author(s): Veronika Bílková
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Nakladatelství Karolinum
Keywords: interventions; threat of force; Charter of the United Nations; UN collective actions; compatriots; international law; citizens; use of force; the UN Security Council; self-defence

Summary/Abstract: The paper considers the legality of armed interventions to protect compatriots under current international law. The first chapter shows that such interventions come about from time to time, or that countries at least threaten to undertake them (e.g. Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974, intervention by the Russian Federation in Georgia in 2008, intervention by the Russian Federation in Ukraine in 2014, etc.). The second chapter documents that interventions to protect compatriots cannot be subsumed under the right to self-defence; nor do they constitute as autonomous exception to the prohibition on the use of force and threat of force enshrined in the UN Charter. Interventions might only be lawful if the kin-state has been given authorisation by the UN Security Council. However, this has never happened in practice; interventions to protect compatriots are thus legally problematic.

  • Issue Year: 61/2015
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 201-212
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Czech