Reconciling the Tension Between Sovereignty and Humanitarian Intervention in the International Legal Order

Résumé

One of the major challenges the international community has been facing in the past decade is the intervention of powerful states in the domestic affairs of legally recognized sovereign states. Humanitarian intervention in sovereign states is a controversial issue. It raises the complex issues of internal governance, human rights, and the responsibility of the international community to protect the vulnerable in situations of war. For more than a century now, a central objective of international law has been to secure interstate peace, but the best ways of doing so are not necessarily clear and are likely to extend beyond Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter that clearly states: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”