Humanitarian Intervention and the Changing Concepts of Sovereignty

Abstract

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan recently observed that "state sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined ... by the forces of globalisation and international cooperation." The article deals with the question of how much this is an accurate observation in the context of humanitarian intervention. Within the theories of classical international law, the principle of nonintervention involves the prohibition to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign State. Even though there have always existed exemptions to this principle, there was never an exemption of humanitarian intervention mentioned, neither in the UN Charter or any other international legal instrument, nor in the customary law. In the article the possibility of new international legal norms evolving in this field is discussed, to justify intervention in the name of protecting fundamental human rights that are today one of the leading concepts of international legal order, tightly connected to the protection of international peace and security in a highly interdependent international community. To clarify the concept, some basic elements and dimensions of humanitarian intervention are outlined, together with some possible features of the future development of the humanitarian intervention concept. The aim of the article is to discover, what is, both in the legal sense and in practice, the relationship between the sovereignty of states and their responsibility to fulfil their obligations under the international law, including the obligation to respect and protect human life and dignity, as well as other fundamental human rights.