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this basis prominent thinkers called for reforming the law as it stood by implementing
a third exception to use force for humanitarian purposes even without Security
Council authorization.32
Obviously, these efforts proved fruitless as states were well aware of the vulnerability
of such an exception to abuse – in particular since everyone knew that only weak states
would be affected from such interventions, most prominently exemplified by the firm
and explicit rejection in the Group of 77 South Summit, which altogether included
132 states.33 Also, the concept of the Responsibility to Protect once again focused on
the Security Council’s prerogative to authorize the use of force. In particular, the door
left open for humanitarian intervention in the initial 2001 ICISS report34 was slammed
shut for the time being.35 Overall, the Security Council might be far from perfect and
certainly vulnerable to geostrategic power-plays itself, but – in the eyes of weaker states
at least – still seems to be the next best thing to prevent what some have denounced as
‘humanitarian imperialism.’36
5. Pro-democratic Intervention in International Law
Perhaps the biggest of the above-mentioned fears of weaker states is that stronger
states could misuse humanitarian intervention to spread democracy by engaging in
‘pro democratic’ regime change, usually understood as ‘the forcible replacement by
external actors of the elite and/or governance structure of a state so that the successor
regime approximates some purported international standard of governance.’37 Thus,
non-forcible regime changes, where foreign states possibly played a role via funding
opposition groups or exercising economic pressure, are excluded from the discussion
here. The same goes for merely replacing one dictator or junta with another while
keeping the domestic, non-democratic structures and system intact.38
32 Buchanan (supra n 31). See also Allen Buchanan, Human Rights, Legitimacy, and the Use of Force (OUP,
2010), chapter 11, or Jane Stromseth, ‘Rethinking Humanitarian Intervention: the case for incremental
change’ in Holzgrefe and Keohane (supra n 31) 232.
33 , para 54.
34 ICISS report, paras. 6.28-6.40.
35 The 2005 World Summit Outcome document’s provisions on the Responsibility to protect, the
commonly accepted consensus in this regard, does not speak for any additional exceptions to the use
of force but rather emphasizes the special role of the Security Council, 2005 World Summit Outcome,
15 September 2005, UN Doc. A/60/L.1, para 139.
36 Jean Bricmont, Humanitarian Imperialism. Using Human Rights to Sell War (Central Books, 2007);
Noam Chomsky, The New Military Humanism. Lessons from Kosovo (Pluto Press, 1999). On the
reasons why smaller or weaker states generally adhere to the UN and international law, see Raymond
Hinnebusch, ‘The Iraq War and International Relations: Implications for Small States’ (2006) 19/3
Cambridge Review of International Affairs 451.
37 W. Michael Reisman, ‘Why Regime Change is (Almost Always) a Bad Idea’ (2004) 98 The American
Journal of International Law 516.
38 Such an intervention would arguably also not qualify as ‘humanitarian’; see Fernando Tesón,
‘Humanitarian Intervention: Loose Ends’ (2011) 10/3 Journal of Military Ethics 192, 205