Chasing the Frontier in Humanitarian Intervention Law: The Case forAequitas ad Bellum

Abstract

AbstractThe question whether humanitarian intervention may ever be lawfully carried out unilaterally outside the scope of Chapter VII of the UN Charter has captured the interest of many for years. Faced with legal formalist arguments under the UN Charter, those otherwise favouring the idea of humanitarian intervention often retreat into an apologist stance by conceding too quickly the lack of cogent legal justifications therefor, preferring instead to rely on moral and ethical reasoning. The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, while seemingly promising when first mooted in 2001, has since effectively been rendered obsolete as a justification for unilateral humanitarian intervention following the UN World Summit in 2005. By examining the role that equity plays in Article 38(1)(c) of the ICJ Statute, this paper advances the view that anaequitas ad bellumexists in international law that, under certain strict conditions, enables unilateral humanitarian intervention to be lawfully carried out.