CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace,
breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider
the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to
Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace
or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or
restore international peace and security. If not in session at the time, the General
Assembly may meet in emergency special session within twenty-four hours of
the request thereof. Such emergency special session shall be called if requested
by the Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of
the Members of the United Nations; 162
It might reasonably be asked if a situation can really be said to ‘shock the conscience of
mankind’ if a majority support for intervention cannot be found in the General
Assembly. However, the reality is that nations in the Assembly vote on wider than
moral agendas and many would oppose intervention whatever the situation. A brief
scan of the history of the use of Uniting for Peace Resolutions shows that it has in fact
never been used with any material effect. 163
What Monbiot’s argument really boils down to, though, is who should wield the
sovereign authority to intervene? A recurring theme throughout the last two chapters
has been the UN’s inability adequately to fulfil this role; its decision-making processes
are too unwieldy for the rapid response sometime needed to emerging crises; its
decision-making fora are too beholden to the wider agendas of it constituent members;
and it makes, after all, political not judicial decisions and pronouncements. If the
Security Council is hobbled by the veto then, too, the General Assembly cannot be
relied upon to use its Uniting for Peace powers to avoid the Council’s impasse because
it, too, is beholden to wider political agendas and pressures. If we cannot, then, find an
effective way of turning to a supra-national organisation for legal authority, perhaps we
must recognise that decisions on intervention can rarely be taken effectively on legal
bases but must rather be treated as moral judgements. Michael Walzer 164 appears to
reach just such a conclusion, arguing that humanitarian intervention is akin to domestic
law enforcement and yet – since the police are self-appointed and the law unilaterally
enforced – it remains unpalatable to international lawyers.
The concern that coercion and domination of neighbouring states can be masked under a
cloak of humanitarianism, gives rise to a continued preference for the legalist paradigm
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