Now available as an eBook for the first time, this 2006 book from the Melland Schill series considers the main legal issues concerning the use of force by international organisations and states. It assesses the achievements and failures of the United Nations' collective security system, and discusses the prospects ahead. It also deals with the use of force by states in self-defence and on other legal grounds. The book discusses to what extent the rules on the use of force have evolved since the end of the Cold War in order to meet the needs of the international community. It focuses in particular on the military operations directed against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The research is developed from the standpoint of the sources of international law. It rejects a static vision of the rules on the use of force, including those enshrined in the UN Charter. Rather, it highlights the interaction between conventional and customary international law and the exposure of both sources to state practice.

This book provides a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the nature, content and scope of the rules regulating the use of force in international law as they are contained in the United Nations Charter, customary international law and international jurisprudence. It examines these rules as they apply to developing and challenging circumstances such as the emergence of non-State actors, security risks, new technologies and moral considerations.

1. Law and Force; 2. The Prohibition of the Use of Force; 3. Invitation and Intervention: Civil Wars and the Use of Force; 4. Self-defence; 5. Collective Self-defence; 6. The Use of Force against Terrorism: a New War for a New Century; 7. The UN and the Use of Force; 8.

This Oxford Handbook provides an authoritative and comprehensive analysis of one of the most controversial areas of international law. Over seventy contributors assess the current state of the international law prohibiting the use of force, assessing its development and analysing the many recent controversies that have arisen in this field.

This volume of essays examines the development of political and legal thinking regarding the use of force in international relations. It provides an analysis of the rules on the use of force in the political, normative and factual contexts within which they apply and assesses their content and relevance in the light of new challenges such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and cyber-attacks. The volume begins with an overview of the ancient and medieval concepts of war and the use of force and then concentrates on the contemporary legal framework regulating the use of force as moulded by the United Nations Charter and state practice. In this regard it discusses specific issues such as the use of force by way of self-defence, armed reprisals, forcible reactions to terrorism, the use of force in the cyberspace, humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect. This collection of previously published classic research articles is of interest to scholars and students of international law and international relations as well as practitioners in international law.

This book explores the whole of the large and controversial subject of the use of force in international law; it examines not only the use of force by states but also the role of the UN in peacekeeping and enforcement action, and the growing importance of regional organizations in the maintenance of international peace and security. Since the publication of the second edition of International Law and the Use of Force the law in this area has continued to undergo a fundamental reappraisal. Operation Enduring Freedom carries on against Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan six years after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Can this still be justified as self-defence in the 'war on terror'? Is there now a wide right of pre-emptive self-defence against armed attacks by non-state actors? The 2006 Israel/Lebanon conflict and the recent intervention of Ethiopia in Somalia raise questions about whether the 'war on terror' has brought major changes in the law on self-defence and on regime change. The 2003 invasion of Iraq gave rise to serious divisions between states as to the legality of this use of force and to talk of a crisis of collective security for the UN. In response the UN initiated major reports on the future of the Charter system; these rejected amendment of the Charter provisions on the use of force. They also rejected any right of pre-emptive self-defence. They advocated a 'responsibility to protect' in cases of genocide or massive violations of human rights; the events in Darfur show the practical difficulties with the implementation of such a duty.

This book examines US recourse to military force in the post-9/11 era. In particular, it evaluates the extent to which the Bush and Obama administrations viewed legitimizing the greater use-of-force as a necessary solution to thwart the security threat presented by global terrorist networks and WMD proliferation.