SOMALIA HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION 1992-1993 by G. P. ...

Somalia - Humanitarian intervention 1992-1993 657
8. HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
8.a. Concept
As it was said by Peter Malanckzuk in "Humanitarian intervention and the
Legitimacy of the use of force", at the Inaugural Lecture of the University of
Amsterdam. 22 January 1993, "The literature shows that there are numerous and
often conflicting definitions of "humanitarian intervention", some of which appear
to be mere the fact of "working definitions", and others which are meant to be
normative in the sense that the definition itself purports to establish criteria of
legality or illegality."
Christopher Greenwood said about "humanitarian Intervention" that term
will here be confined to cases in which a substantial part of the population of a
state is threatened with death or suffering on a grand scale, either because of the
actions of the government of that state, or because of the state's slide into anarchy.
(First category: the situation in the Kurdish and Shiite areas of Iraq following the
Kuwait conflict; second category: Liberia and Somalia)".
It is not intended to discuss here the different case of a state intervening to protect
its own nationals.
The central matter at issue is how to reconcile:
a) The principle of territorial sovereignty of states still envisage in legal
terms as a comer stone of international relations.
b) The principle of non-interference into the domestic affairs of states and
c) The prohibition of the use of arm force stipulate in the United Nations
Charter
... with the effective protection of human rights in extreme situations of their
violations and with international peace and security.
Humanitarian intervention involves two different types of action:
1. Intervention as collective action authorized by a competent global or
regional international organization,
2. Multilateral or unilateral action by states without such authorization by
government of the state to be intervened.
As it was said by Adam Roberts in "Humanitarian War: military intervention
and Human Rights", parts of the international community are now beginning to
accept that there can be a right of humanitarian intervention, this is in sharp
contrast to what happened before in the practice of the United Nations.