While the use of force in UN peacekeeping was traditionally limited to self-defence, the UN Security Council now regularly deploys peacekeeping missions with robust mandates to protect civilians and encourages their proactive implementation, including by using force. For many years, the Security Council authorised the use of ‘all necessary means’ to protect civilians from ‘imminent threats’ of physical violence, but its recent mandates have often dropped references to ‘imminence’. The UN has also interpreted such mandates as broader authorisation for peacekeepers to use force in response to temporally ill-defined threats to civilians. This turn to robust civilian protection is often celebrated, yet the legal parameters of using force continue to evolve below the radar and are rarely scrutinised, with scholarly writing focused on peacekeeper self-defence, rules of engagement and UN policy to justify proactive mandate implementation. Drawing on an analysis of the relationship between peacekeeping mandates and international law in light of the shift from defensive to proactive peacekeeping, this article argues that the legality of using force for civilian protection purposes must be reconciled not only with Security Council resolutions and their language on imminence, but also with human rights law (HRL), which imposes strict temporal conditions for lawful deprivations of the right to life outside the conduct of hostilities. Using examples of how the UN’s current practice of using force to protect civilians in hostile environments may contravene international norms, this article attempts to reconcile proactive civilian-oriented peacekeeping with the concept of imminence as understood in HRL.
{"title":"When May UN Peacekeepers Use Lethal Force to Protect Civilians? Reconciling Threats to Civilians, Imminence, and the Right to Life","authors":"H. Bourgeois, Patryk I. Labuda","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While the use of force in UN peacekeeping was traditionally limited to self-defence, the UN Security Council now regularly deploys peacekeeping missions with robust mandates to protect civilians and encourages their proactive implementation, including by using force. For many years, the Security Council authorised the use of ‘all necessary means’ to protect civilians from ‘imminent threats’ of physical violence, but its recent mandates have often dropped references to ‘imminence’. The UN has also interpreted such mandates as broader authorisation for peacekeepers to use force in response to temporally ill-defined threats to civilians. This turn to robust civilian protection is often celebrated, yet the legal parameters of using force continue to evolve below the radar and are rarely scrutinised, with scholarly writing focused on peacekeeper self-defence, rules of engagement and UN policy to justify proactive mandate implementation. Drawing on an analysis of the relationship between peacekeeping mandates and international law in light of the shift from defensive to proactive peacekeeping, this article argues that the legality of using force for civilian protection purposes must be reconciled not only with Security Council resolutions and their language on imminence, but also with human rights law (HRL), which imposes strict temporal conditions for lawful deprivations of the right to life outside the conduct of hostilities. Using examples of how the UN’s current practice of using force to protect civilians in hostile environments may contravene international norms, this article attempts to reconcile proactive civilian-oriented peacekeeping with the concept of imminence as understood in HRL.","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48213551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Russell Buchan and Nicholas Tsagourias, Regulating the Use of Force in International Law","authors":"Afonso Seixas-Nunes","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac029","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46550255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Suspected development of advanced biological weapons by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), despite its status as a party to both the Biological Weapons Convention and other nonproliferation agreements, bears significant implications for both public health and security around the globe. A steady decrease in resources and attention devoted to preparedness for biological attacks or outbreaks since 2001 has exacerbated the vulnerability of the USA and its allies to outbreaks of such pathogens, both from North Korean biological weapons and natural sources. This article assesses several International Humanitarian Law (IHL) issues raised by the prospect of an international armed conflict in which North Korea deploys biological weapons. Historical context is discussed to contextualize the various IHL issues raised by a potential armed conflict, which include United Nations Enforcement actions, anticipatory self-defense, protection of civilians, targeting and proportionality. Preparing for and responding to a potential biological weapons attack by North Korea presents a host of unique challenges for the USA and its allies. An international armed conflict involving the use of such weapons by North Korea against the USA or its allies would be devastating for civilians and military personnel alike. It is thus imperative to understand the IHL issues raised by such a conflict, including circumstances that would warrant pre-emptive use of force by the USA and its allies, the scale and scope of any military response, and the need to protect civilians throughout the Korean peninsula.
{"title":"Plague, Pestilence and the Peninsula: International Humanitarian Law Concerns of North Korea’s Biological Weapons Program","authors":"Jakob M Reynolds","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac028","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Suspected development of advanced biological weapons by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), despite its status as a party to both the Biological Weapons Convention and other nonproliferation agreements, bears significant implications for both public health and security around the globe. A steady decrease in resources and attention devoted to preparedness for biological attacks or outbreaks since 2001 has exacerbated the vulnerability of the USA and its allies to outbreaks of such pathogens, both from North Korean biological weapons and natural sources. This article assesses several International Humanitarian Law (IHL) issues raised by the prospect of an international armed conflict in which North Korea deploys biological weapons. Historical context is discussed to contextualize the various IHL issues raised by a potential armed conflict, which include United Nations Enforcement actions, anticipatory self-defense, protection of civilians, targeting and proportionality. Preparing for and responding to a potential biological weapons attack by North Korea presents a host of unique challenges for the USA and its allies. An international armed conflict involving the use of such weapons by North Korea against the USA or its allies would be devastating for civilians and military personnel alike. It is thus imperative to understand the IHL issues raised by such a conflict, including circumstances that would warrant pre-emptive use of force by the USA and its allies, the scale and scope of any military response, and the need to protect civilians throughout the Korean peninsula.","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-07-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48397024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The world has a problem with counter-terrorism. Since 2001, a transnational counter-terrorism order has emerged of such scale, scope, reach, and significance that the Secretary-General of the United Nations could describe it as ‘a comprehensive, multilateral counter-terrorism architecture at the global, regional and national levels’. This architecture is now firmly established as a seemingly immovable part of the global governance landscape, characterised by an institutional and normative sprawl that embeds it across a remarkable range of transnational activities. The attacks of 11 September 2001 acted as an accelerant for the development, institutionalisation, and hardening of transnational counter-terrorism in formal and informal international institutions. With a focus on norm setting, norm settlement, capacity building, and sanctions regimes, this transnational activity has had concrete domestic effects. In the seventeen years after 2001, 140 states adopted new counter-terrorism
{"title":"Correction to: Fiona de Londras, The Practice and Problems of Transnational Counter-Terrorism","authors":"F. Londras","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac026","url":null,"abstract":"The world has a problem with counter-terrorism. Since 2001, a transnational counter-terrorism order has emerged of such scale, scope, reach, and significance that the Secretary-General of the United Nations could describe it as ‘a comprehensive, multilateral counter-terrorism architecture at the global, regional and national levels’. This architecture is now firmly established as a seemingly immovable part of the global governance landscape, characterised by an institutional and normative sprawl that embeds it across a remarkable range of transnational activities. The attacks of 11 September 2001 acted as an accelerant for the development, institutionalisation, and hardening of transnational counter-terrorism in formal and informal international institutions. With a focus on norm setting, norm settlement, capacity building, and sanctions regimes, this transnational activity has had concrete domestic effects. In the seventeen years after 2001, 140 states adopted new counter-terrorism","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49258974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tatiana Bazzichelli (ed), Whistle-blowing for Change: Exposing Systems of Power and Injustice","authors":"Khalil Dewan","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac025","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46114927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In March 2021, the European Council set up the European Peace Facility (EPF), to serve as a legal instrument for the provision of security and peace assistance measures. It includes the supply of military and defence-related equipment to the European Union’s partner countries worldwide. The official aim of the EPF is to prevent conflict, preserve peace and strengthen international security and stability. The European Council assures its Member States that these measures will be accompanied by risk assessments and legal safeguards that respect international law, and comply with arms export control laws. However, the EPF’s biggest challenge is circumnavigating the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which primarily aims to prevent the diversion of and illicit trade in conventional arms. This article examines the legality of the EPF’s assistance measures by referring to the ATT, and the law of international responsibility. This timely analysis will be relevant to policymakers and lawyers responsible for regulating the international transfer of conventional arms.
{"title":"The European Peace Facility and the UN Arms Trade Treaty: Fragmentation of the International Arms Control law?","authors":"Abdulmalik M. Altamimi","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac024","url":null,"abstract":"In March 2021, the European Council set up the European Peace Facility (EPF), to serve as a legal instrument for the provision of security and peace assistance measures. It includes the supply of military and defence-related equipment to the European Union’s partner countries worldwide. The official aim of the EPF is to prevent conflict, preserve peace and strengthen international security and stability. The European Council assures its Member States that these measures will be accompanied by risk assessments and legal safeguards that respect international law, and comply with arms export control laws. However, the EPF’s biggest challenge is circumnavigating the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which primarily aims to prevent the diversion of and illicit trade in conventional arms. This article examines the legality of the EPF’s assistance measures by referring to the ATT, and the law of international responsibility. This timely analysis will be relevant to policymakers and lawyers responsible for regulating the international transfer of conventional arms.","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48756197","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fighting wars is expensive. Parties to an armed conflict therefore face incentives to take military action against an enemy’s ability to finance warfare. Disputes about the lawfulness of targeting economic objects that contribute to an adversary’s war-sustaining capability reach back as far as the American Civil War. The debate has recently regained attention with conflicts such as the fight against ISIS, where the international coalition carried out attacks against oil fields and money depots. In contrast to the argument of military necessity that states and scholars raise in favour of a broad interpretation of the definition of military objectives, this article finds that the purpose and extraordinary structure of Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions preclude the targeting of war-sustaining economic objects. The article then explores a different, less-discussed mode of action against war-sustaining objects, namely their destruction. The so-called ‘cotton claims’ of the American Civil War are often invoked as a historical example of the lawful targeting of economic objects. A close analysis, however, shows that the facts underlying the cotton claims differ categorically from modern targeting practice. At the same time, the analysis reveals destruction as a potentially lawful alternative mode of action against economic objects. The cotton claims ultimately demonstrate that the destruction of economic objects outside the context of an attack can reconcile the argument of military necessity with the protection of civilian life, which is an insight equally relevant for modern warfare.
{"title":"Same Same but Different? Why War-Sustaining Objects Can Be Destroyed but Not Targeted","authors":"Niklas S. Reetz","doi":"10.1093/jcsl/krac023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krac023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Fighting wars is expensive. Parties to an armed conflict therefore face incentives to take military action against an enemy’s ability to finance warfare. Disputes about the lawfulness of targeting economic objects that contribute to an adversary’s war-sustaining capability reach back as far as the American Civil War. The debate has recently regained attention with conflicts such as the fight against ISIS, where the international coalition carried out attacks against oil fields and money depots. In contrast to the argument of military necessity that states and scholars raise in favour of a broad interpretation of the definition of military objectives, this article finds that the purpose and extraordinary structure of Article 52(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions preclude the targeting of war-sustaining economic objects. The article then explores a different, less-discussed mode of action against war-sustaining objects, namely their destruction. The so-called ‘cotton claims’ of the American Civil War are often invoked as a historical example of the lawful targeting of economic objects. A close analysis, however, shows that the facts underlying the cotton claims differ categorically from modern targeting practice. At the same time, the analysis reveals destruction as a potentially lawful alternative mode of action against economic objects. The cotton claims ultimately demonstrate that the destruction of economic objects outside the context of an attack can reconcile the argument of military necessity with the protection of civilian life, which is an insight equally relevant for modern warfare.","PeriodicalId":43908,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF CONFLICT & SECURITY LAW","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2022-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42021926","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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