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in non-international armed conflicts, with the notable exception of the Congo Crisis,

adhered to a strict notion of non-interference, as they primarily addressed their cross-

border impacts and left the well-being of the affected populations aside.

At the same time, however, the Cold War period, more specifically the 1970s, not

only had already seen the rise of human rights law but also some notable instances

that may at least be qualified as precedents of humanitarian interventions: India’s

involvement in Pakistan that led to the independence of Bangladesh, Vietnam’s

successful campaign against the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Tanzania’s overthrow

of Idi Amin in Uganda. All of these cases contained significant humanitarian

elements that were invoked by the respective governments in justifying their

actions.

Furthermore, they also highlighted the relationship between governmental

legitimacy, regime change, and intervening in the name of human rights – the regime

attacked was either toppled or deprived of a part of its territory.

In the decade that followed, then, yet another facet was added to this interplay.

Drawing from a peculiar interpretation of Kant’s famous Perpetual Peace and the legacy

of US president Wilson, advocates of this view overhauled sovereignty as hitherto

understood by giving less importance to – or even substituting – the effective control

criteria with that of legitimacy when determining whether a peculiar government

deserved to benefit from the protection of sovereignty and when to support insurgents.

Taken to the extreme, this ultimately meant that any despotic regime could be

overthrown by outside forces, regardless of whether it had committed human rights

violations similar to the ones that happened in Pakistan, Cambodia, or Uganda.

4. The Use of Force for Humanitarian Purposes

in Contemporary International Law

Beginning with the 1991 war in Iraq the Security Council has finally assumed

the role of

legitima potestas

; the initial and ultimately also decisive question when

it comes to the idea of rightful military intervention is whether there has been an

authorization to use force. In light of the fact that the majority of armed conflicts

were fought within, not between states, the Security Council further revised the classic

Esref Aksu,

The United Nations, Intra-state Peacekeeping and Normative Change

(Manchester University

Press 2003), 83 and 93

et seq

See

e.g.

Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers. Humanitarian Intervention in International Society

(OUP, 2000), 55-136; Peter Hilpold, From Humanitarian Intervention to Responsibility to Protect:

Making Utopia True’ in Ulrich Fastenrath

et al

(eds),

From Bilateralism to Community Interest

(OUP,

2011) 462, 463-64.

W.Michael Reisman, (1984) ‘Coercion and Self-Determination: ConstruingCharter Article 2(4)’ 78

The

American Journal of International Law

642; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick & Allan Gerson, ‘The Reagan Doctrine,

Human Rights, and International law’ in Louis Henkin, Stanley Hoffmann, Jean J. Kirkpatrick &

Allan Gerson, William D. Rogers and David J. Scheffer (eds.),

Right v. Might. International Law and the

Use of Force

(Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1991) 19. See also Abraham D. Sofaer, ‘The Legality

of the United States Action in Panama’ (1991) 29

Columbia Journal of Transnational Law

281.