Humanitarian Necessity: the Problem of Political Legitimation of Uses of Force

Abstract

This article explores the problem addressing the political rationale of the «humanitarian intervention» performed in case of emergency and necessity. The practice of states exhibits the emergence of a new international norm that allows states to perform «humanitarian intervention» in absence of a permissive resolution of the United Nations Security Council. In a search of a political rationale for a use of force, the general rule should be applied when some «formal» sources of international law are claimed in support of legitimacy of any act of a use of force. In addition, at the same time the second part of a regular process of reasoning of the legitimacy does abandoning the second, normative claim of that norm, which describes mandatory applicability of it to typical, similar, and time and again international interrelations. A rationale in this segment is from an ethical and moral or political realm.

Keywords

• international norm
• united nations security council
• use of force
• legitimacy
• humanitarian intervention
• kosovo
• responsibility to protect