Cambridge Legal Theory Discussion Group (CLTDG): 'The Law and the Morality of War in Armed Humanitarian Interventions'

Speaker: Linda Eggert (Oxford)

Conveners: Giordana Campagna, Michael Foran, Agnes Lindberg, Tony Zhou

Although some revisionist just war theorists have convincingly argued that the law of war is lacking insofar as it fails to reflect the morality of killing in war, they generally concede that changing the law in practice would be undesirable for a number of reasons. In this paper, I argue that this concession is too quick, and possibly unnecessary, in one particular context: armed humanitarian intervention.

The paper argues that the current law of armed conflict is unsuited to governing just conduct in armed humanitarian intervention, as the principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) make it virtually impossible to carry out an armed humanitarian intervention justly. Humanitarian interventions that are carried out in full compliance with IHL cause enormous amounts of wrongful harm which the law of war could do more to prevent. This paper therefore sets out and defends a set of rules to govern just conduct in humanitarian intervention which differ in three substantial ways from current IHL. I argue that (1) attacks on just intervening combatants should be prohibited, (2) principles governing the permissibility of unintentionally harming civilians should be more restrictive, and (3) attacks against civilian perpetrators of atrocity crimes ought not be prohibited, even if they pose no threat to intervening forces. While IHL is premised upon a stark divergence from the obligations imposed by individual human rights, I argue that this divergence is not defensible in armed humanitarian intervention. Certain rules traditionally made for wars aimed at defeating an enemy are inadequate to regulating wars fought for distinctly humanitarian purposes.

Everyone is welcome to attend. Sessions are pre-read and papers will be circulated in advance.