Human Rights and Resort to Force: Introduction to the Symposium

Abstract

Abstract While the relationship between the jus in bello and international human rights law has been the subject of considerable debate, less attention has been paid to the relationship between the jus ad bellum and human rights. The United Nations Human Rights Committee’s General Comment 36 on the right to life, adopted on 30 October 2018, brought these questions to the fore with the Committee’s pronouncement that ‘States parties engaged in acts of aggression as defined in international law, resulting in deprivation of life, violate ipso facto article 6 of the Covenant’. The contributions in this Symposium assess three ways of viewing the relationship between the protection of human rights and resort to force. First, the suggestion that resort to force in violation of the jus ad bellum will amount to a violation of the right to life is explored. Second, some contributions examine different arguments as to whether international law permits, justifies or excuses resort to force to protect human rights, and indeed whether it can change to permit such. Third, one contribution examines whether the crime of aggression, as defined in the ICC Statute, covers resort to force to protect human rights.