Humanitarian interventionHumanitarian intervention is the use or threat of military force by a state (or states) across borders with the intent of ending severe and widespread human rights violations in a state which has not given permission for the use of force. Humanitarian interventions are aimed at ending human rights violations of individuals other than the citizens of the intervening state. Humanitarian interventions are only intended to prevent human rights violations in extreme circumstances.
Territorial integrityTerritorial integrity is the principle under international law that gives the right to sovereign states to defend their borders and all territory in them of another state. It is enshrined in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and has been recognized as customary international law. Conversely it states that imposition by force of a border change is an act of aggression. In recent years there has been tension between this principle and the concept of humanitarian intervention under Article 73.
Vienna Convention on the Law of TreatiesThe Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) is an international agreement that regulates treaties among sovereign states; the VCLT is a codification of customary international law and state practice concerning treaties. Known as the "treaty on treaties", the VCLT establishes comprehensive, operational guidelines, rules, and procedures for how treaties are drafted, defined, amended, and interpreted.
Use of force in international lawThe use of force by states is controlled by both customary international law and by treaty law. The UN Charter reads in article 2(4): 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. This principle is now considered to be a part of customary international law, and has the effect of banning the use of armed force except for two situations authorized by the UN Charter.
Responsibility to protectThe Responsibility to Protect (R2P or RtoP) is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit in order to address its four key concerns to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The doctrine is regarded as a unanimous and well established international norm over the past two decades. The principle of the Responsibility to Protect is based upon the underlying premise that sovereignty entails a responsibility to protect all populations from mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations.
Municipal lawMunicipal law is the national, domestic, or internal law of a sovereign state and is defined in opposition to international law. Municipal law includes many levels of law: not only national law but also state, provincial, territorial, regional, or local law. The state may regard them as distinct categories of law, but international law is largely uninterested in the distinction and treats them all as one. Similarly, international law makes no distinction between the ordinary law of the state and its constitutional law.
Chapter VII of the United Nations CharterChapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council's powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take military and nonmilitary action to "restore international peace and security". The UN Charter's prohibition of member states of the UN attacking other UN member states is central to the purpose for which the UN was founded in the wake of the destruction of World War II: to prevent war.
Peremptory normA peremptory norm (also called jus cogens) is a fundamental principle of international law that is accepted by the international community of states as a norm from which no derogation is permitted. There is no universal agreement regarding precisely which norms are jus cogens nor how a norm reaches that status, but it is generally accepted that jus cogens bans genocide, maritime piracy, enslaving in general (i.e. slavery as well as slave trade), wars of aggression and territorial aggrandizement, torture, and refoulement.
Westphalian systemThe Westphalian system, also known as Westphalian sovereignty, is a principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. The principle developed in Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, based on the state theory of Jean Bodin and the natural law teachings of Hugo Grotius. It underlies the modern international system of sovereign states and is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which states that "nothing ...
Peace treatyA peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties. It is different from an armistice, which is an agreement to stop hostilities; a surrender, in which an army agrees to give up arms; or a ceasefire or truce, in which the parties may agree to temporarily or permanently stop fighting.
