Bonaventura Model United Nations
25th, 26th and 27th of September
2015
Research Report
Forum:
General Assembly 4
Issue:
A revision of the non-intervention principle
Student Officer:
Justin Lever
Position:
Chair
Introduction
Injustice, violence and atrocities occur, unfortunately, every day. The United Nations (UN) tries to
ameliorate the world by implementing measures to assist countries whenever they request help.
However, what happens if horrible events take place in a country, but it turns down every offer to
help? The international community is often unable to intervene in countries due to the disputes in
the Security Council, because the permanent members answer the most important questions
differently: Should we even intervene in the first place? How should we intervene? Which party in
the dispute should we support? How long will the intervention last? And lastly, is the international
law respected during the intervention? These delicate questions do not have undisputable answers.
However, the General Assembly is able to establish new guidelines in order to distinguish whether
the international community should intervene or it should not.
Important laws involved
UN Charter
Every member of the UN is bound to the Charter of the UN, which is the foundation treaty that was
created after World War II. The main purpose of the UN Charter is to maintain peace all over the
world, while creating good sustainable relationships between its members.
Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States
This convention, which is signed in Montevideo, sets out the definitions and four criteria for a state
to be recognized as a state. The four criteria are: (a) A permanent population; (b) A defined territory;
(c) Government; and (d) capacity to enter relations with the other states. This convention is
customary, which means that it is applicable to all other nations.
General Overview
Humans are capable of hoping, imagining and believing in a better peaceful world. The discrepancy
between the reality and world we want to create is large. Governments are there to come up with
visions and policies to achieve a certain state of well-being. Although nations choose and will not
always choose the best policy, seeing that is difficult to determine which policies will lead to more
prosperity and which will not, a disagreement between countries occurs regularly. Governments may
disagree, because every country, if it meets the requirements set in the Montevideo Convention, has
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sovereignty, thus it may decide without any interference of others. However, if and only if there is an
urgent matter in which the country is not capable of maintaining a state of well-being for all its
people, while it ignores all the aids offered, then what should the international community do?
Before this research report will entertain several situations with principles, it will first examine the
current laws that are necessary to know in order to understand where the non-intervention principle
finds its origin.
The UN Charter
Here are most relevant articles of the charter for this issue:
Article 1 clause 1 reads: ‘(The purpose of the United Nations is) To maintain international peace and
security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace,
and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and
international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead
to a breach of the peace’.
Article 2, clause 3 reads: ‘All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in
such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.’
Article 2, clause 7 reads: ‘Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations
to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall
require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this
principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll.’
The Security Council
What is meant with ‘the application of enforcement measures under chapter VII’? The charter refers
with chapter VII to the Security Council. This council is one of the few authorized bodies in the UN
that is able to use force in order to maintain or restore the international peace and security. The
Security Council consist of 5 permanent (P5) members, which have a veto power, and 10 nonpermanent members. The SC faces criticism due to ineffectiveness in intricate issues, because of the
frequent use of vetoes by the P5 members. A veto is used when a P5 member feels that there is no
other option left then voting against. For instance, several resolutions which want to undertake
military measures against the Syrian government did not make it due to vetoes of the Russian
Federation, because they believed that Assad is the legitimate president.
Article 51 of the UN Charter
Not only the SC is authorized to use force, there are multiple exceptions that countries may take
action without the SC permission. Firstly, article 51 of the UN charter is important. It states ‘Nothing
in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an
armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations’. In essence, the right to defend your
own country or a group of countries, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is
presented in the charter. On the other side, self-defense is not clearly defined. It is logical that if
country A attacks B that country B will defend itself against A. The only problem is; what happens if B
knows that A might attack? Then B can use a pre-emptive attack, which is an attack, for instance on
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intelligence offices or on rocket installations, to prevent that country A is able to attack. An example
is the invasion of Iraq, which had a lot of different intricate aspects, but certainly a justification for
invading by the coalition of the willing was the self-defense. ‘The United States said that they will act
against emerging threats before they are fully formed, which implies the preventive nature of this
invasion.
Unilateral humanitarian intervention
Secondly, there are some other principles where there is no SC authorization, but there are other
principles that are valid enough to neglect the power of the SC. The following question comes up:
Should international law permit states to intervene militarily to stop a genocide or comparable
atrocity without Security Council authorization? If the answer is yes, then it is necessary to refer to
an unilateral humanitarian intervention. This intervention is allowed, if there are gross violations of
human rights.
Responsibility to Protect
Thirdly, there is a relatively new doctrine which is called: Responsibility to Protect (R2P). In essence,
this means that the country itself is responsible for preventing atrocities from happening, but the
international community has the duty to intervene if the states fails. The summary of the R2P
conventions described it as follows with three main pillars:
1. The State carries the primary responsibility for protecting populations from genocide, war
crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing, and their incitement;
2. The international community has a responsibility to encourage and assist States in fulfilling
this responsibility;
3. The international community has a responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic,
humanitarian and other means to protect populations from these crimes. If a State is
manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared
to take collective action to protect populations, in accordance with the Charter of the United
Nations.
Criticism
It is unpreventable that there is an infringement of national sovereignty with an intervention. This
national sovereignty is presented in the charter of the UN, while these principles of a humanitarian
intervention or the R2P are not mentioned in the charter. Additionally, the motives for invading a
country are not honest, seeing that countries may have interest in the natural resources, such as oil,
gold or diamonds, or want to expand their zone of influence in a specific country. They will use the
current conditions as an excuse in order to intervene and then harm the invaded country on purpose.
Major Parties Involved
Libya
The country of the former president Gaddafi was invaded by the NATO. The NATO enforced a no-fly
zone and conducted airstrikes whereby the command and control facilities where targeted. The
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question remains: Was the invasion of Libya legitimate? If the unilateral humanitarian rights and the
R2P were considered, then the answer might be yes. Atrocities, gross violations of human rights and
crimes against humanity were not uncommon during this civil war. However, an invasion on Libyan
soil infringes the sovereignty.
Timeline
1945
The UN Charter is created after World War 2
1994
Rwandan Genocide, the UN mission Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMR)
failed due to limitations of its rules of engagement
1995
Srebrenica massacre was a tragedy, which was officially not a genocide. Kofi
Annan said that the ‘UN made serious errors of judgement, rooted in the philosophy
of impartiality’.
2005
The World Summit Outcome Document was released in which the R2P was
officially adopted. The idea was that countries could invade if mass atrocity
crimes occur.
2011
The Libyan situation was getting out of hand, which results in NATO intervention. A
no-fly zone was set up to prevent airstrikes from the government on its population.
Previous and possible solutions
The UN had established the UN Charter to develop sustainable relations among the nations and had
created an organ called the SC to intervene in an urgent matter. However, we have seen that the SC
is not able to come up with a solution, which is mainly the result of the usage of vetoes. Aside from
the international law, the R2P principles were developed to have a guideline whether a country
should intervene or not.
However, these principles are not widely recognized. Consequently, an intervention rarely occurs or
occurs without an international mandate and that is the reason why the GA4 should make new
guidelines.
The questions delegates should ask themselves when they come up with new solutions:



At which stage should the international community intervene?
How should the UN respond to atrocities regarding the sovereignty of a state?
The consequences that an intervention has. Will it cause more militant activism in the future
or will it solve the issue?
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Bibliography
Ban Ki-moon, ‘MAY WE ALL LEARN AND ACT ON THE LESSONS OF SREBRENICA’, SAYS SECRETARYGENERAL, IN MESSAGE TO ANNIVERSARY CEREMONY. 11 July 2005. Available on:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/sgsm9993.doc.htm
Boserup, R. A., Sheikh, M., Europe needs principles for intervention. 15 February 2013. Available on:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/rasmus-alenius-boserup-mona-sheikh/europe-needs-principlesfor-intervention
Duncan, E., ‘Preventive war’ and International Law After Iraq. 22 May 2003. Available on:
http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm#_Toc41379598
Goodman, R., Humanitarian intervention and pretexts for war. 2006. Available on:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/rgoodman/pdfs/RGoodmanHumanitarianInterventionPretextsf
orWar.pdf
UN GA, 60/1. 2005 World Summit Outcome. 24 October 2005. Available on:
http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/pdf/World%20Summit%20Outcome%20Document.
pdf#page=30
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