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states that opportunities for adventurism and expansion will not be used. Unilateral intervention, even for humanitarian objectives, is viewed with suspicion. It is easily subverted to serve less disinterested ends of the intervener” (Finnemore, 2004: 176). Thus the legality or illegality of military intervention can best be understood within the framework of the UN Charter.
2.5.1 Intervention under the UN Mandate
The establishment of the UN after the Second World War saw the agreement between great powers on preventing any future world war and the use of the UNSC for enforcement action on any type of aggression. The UNSC was also regarded as the ultimate authority for any justification for military intervention. As stated in Article 24 of the UN Charter, “the UNSC has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”
(Barnett, 2001:58). Through Chapter VII of the UN Charter in Article 39, the UNSC is authorized to “decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Article 41 and 42, to maintain international peace and security” (Barnett, 2001:58).
As Barnett puts it, “…the Charter of the UN is a document that has legal standing among its signatories and a constitutional expression of the international community” (Barnett, 2001:58). Whilst Chapter V1 provides the UNSC with the diplomatic option of resolving a conflict through the consent of parties to the conflict, Chapter VII provides for enforcement action which includes both military and non-military mechanisms. Of importance is Article 52 of the UN Charter which deals with regional arrangements. Regional bodies and other agencies are encouraged to deal with matters relating to peace and security. Article 52 further states that there shall not be any enforcement action by regional agencies which will be effected without the authorisation of the Security Council (Taylor, 2001:24). This research
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will try to analyse the decision by member states to deploy SADC coalition troops for military intervention within the legal framework of article 52 of the UN Charter. It will also try to look at whether the SADC coalition decision for military intervention was done as a response to a call by a member state of SADC on self-defence as enshrined in Article 51 of the Charter or whether the allies’ decision was based on their respective national interests.
The UN Security Council has the authority to decide whether or not the internal situation in a given country or state justifies a military intervention. It is the UNSC which authorizes regional and sub- regional bodies to undertake military interventions under the terms of the UN Charter (Annan, 1998:5). However, most states and some permanent members of the Security Council, such as France, have been intervening in Francophone countries without the UN mandate. The 1970s Brezhnev doctrine held that the Soviet Union had the right “to intervene in the member states of the socialist commonwealth to protect the principles of socialism” (Taylor, 2001:78). The US intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2000 had no mandate from the UNSC (Taylor, 2001:78). That is probably the case with a range of US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean such as Grenada and Panama. Unilateral interventions are inconsistent with the UN Charter because as scholars argue, they are taken by governments to serve realists’ interests.
This study investigates the extent to which a military intervention can be said to be under the authorisation of the UN. Should the UN grant permission first for intervening militarily in conflict situations such as the DRC? Should it be rightly argued therefore that any military intervention in the interest of peace should proceed from the assumption that such justification cannot be contradictory to the purposes and principles of the UN as embodied in the UN Charter? To this end, Article 24 of the same Charter “confers upon the Security
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Council the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security”
(Taylor, 2001:78). It should be noted that Article 52 of the UN Charter deals with regional arrangements, and states that nothing precludes “the existence of regional arrangements or agencies from dealing with matters relating to international peace and security” (Taylor, 2001:78). Yet, the article is clear that “intervention operations should not be contemplated without UN authorisation” (Taylor, 2001:78). Does it mean then that any justification for military intervention on the grounds that it is in the interests of peace and security should be in line with the UN Charter?
2.5.2 Military Intervention without the UN Mandate
Having followed the above discussion, one is bound to pursue further the legal framework of the military intervention debate. Among the questions that can be raised is whether military intervention without a UNSC mandate violates Article 2 (4) of the Charter which provides for the prohibition against the threat or use of force. The ECOMOG military intervention in Liberia in 1990 and Sierra Leone in 1997, NATO’s military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, among others, had no mandate from the UNSC. As realists point out, these were carried out to achieve security interests (Waal, 2007:116). Waal also observed that most African military interventions have not portrayed themselves as primarily humanitarian; rather, these interventions were justified as actions “with reference to some political criteria, specifically the protection or restoration of democracy, or the preservation of regional security” (Waal, 2000:117). As will be argued in this thesis, the decision for intervention by the SADC coalition was based on the national interests of the intervening governments. It is what actually constitutes these national interests that this study will explore.
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When states intervene without the authority of the international community, there are bound to be tensions as was the case during the initial stages of the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was because the military intervention was not approved by the UNSC and the broader international community. The military intervention in Iraq could be viewed by its detractors as an “oxymoron… devoid of legal sanction, selectively deployed and only achieving ambiguous ends” (Tharoor and Davis, 2001: 21-30). Military intervention can only be legitimate if it conforms to the UN Charter. The deployed force must be acceptable “by the international community and the parties to the conflict, its mandate, and the way it relates to the conflict” (Graham and Hansen, 2009:9).
Having briefly discussed the international legal dimensions of military interventions, it is important to note that there are cases when the UN Charter is violated by member states as was the case with NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia and the US led coalition in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003. Based on these two cases, it would appear that some states tend to follow the UN Charter in situations where their national interests are not in any way under threat. Thus, this shows to some extent the inconsistencies in the application of the UN Charter (Graham and Hansen, 2009:9). Of importance to note also is the fact that there has not been an equally fair application of the UN Charter in Africa and other parts of the world.
The response of the international community in terms of humanitarian intervention has often been varying and questionable. A case in point is the withdrawal of the UN troops in Rwanda in 1994 at a time when their services could have played an important role in the prevention of genocide. There are also cases where an individual country or some countries within a sub- regional grouping may not be interested in taking part in a military intervention because the situation does not have anything to do with their national interests. They would provide an excuse to justify their decision to not participate in the military intervention. (Thompson,
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2001:7). As for humanitarian intervention, it fails in most cases because it concentrates on those solutions that are not long term but immediate. This is often carried out without adequately assessing the primary causes of the problem that need to be addressed. This can lead to a situation whereby humanitarian intervention is manipulated by the intervening countries (Thompson, 2001:7). The US led intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, arguably serve as examples.