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Remarks by Harold Hongju Koh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2018

Harold Hongju Koh*
Affiliation:
Sterling Professor of International Law, Yale Law School.

Extract

The legality of unilateral humanitarian intervention raises three questions:

Type
Late Breaking Panel: Missile Strikes Against Syria
Copyright
Copyright © by The American Society of International Law 2018 

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References

1 Koh, Harold Hongju, The War Powers and Humanitarian Intervention, 53 Houston L. Rev. 971 (2016)Google Scholar. Others in this third camp include Sir Daniel Bethlehem, Steven Ratner, Jane Stromseth, and Marc Weller.

2 UN Charter, Art. 2(4) (“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”).

3 U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 11 (“Congress shall have Power … to declare war.”).

4 UN Charter pmbl., Art. 1, §§ 1, 3.

5 See generally Orford, Anne, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect (2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doyle, Michael W., The Question of Intervention; John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect 110 (2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (since Kosovo, the R2P concept “has been invoked explicitly and implicitly, successfully and unsuccessfully, in cases ranging from Myanmar and Kenya in 2008, to Guinea in 2009, and … Libya in 2011”).

6 See Bass, Gary J., The Indian Way of Humanitarian Intervention, 40 Yale J. Int'l L. 227 (2015)Google Scholar.

7 See Daniel G. Acheson-Brown, The Tanzanian Invasion of Uganda: A Just War?, 12 Int'l Third World Stud. J & Rev. 1 (2001).

8 See Ryan Goodman, Humanitarian Military Options for Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack: ‘Illegal But Not Unprecedented’, Just Security (Apr. 6, 2017), at https://www.justsecurity.org/39658/humanitarian-military-options-syrian-chemical-weapons-attack-illegal-unprecedented/.

9 See Koh, supra note 1, at 976–80.

10 See generally Harold Hongju Koh, The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power After the Iran-Contra Affair (1990).

11 See Rebecca Ingber, International Law Is Failing Us in Syria, Just Security (Apr. 12, 2017), at https://www.justsecurity.org/39895/international-law-failing-syria/.

12 Julian Ku, Almost Everyone Agrees that the U.S. Strikes Against Syria Are Illegal, Except Most Governments, Opinio Juris (Apr. 12, 2017), at http://opiniojuris.org/2017/04/07/almost-everyone-agrees-that-the-u-s-strikes-against-syria-are-illegal-under-international-law-except-for-most-governments/.

13 For a preliminary view, see Harold Hongju Koh, Not Illegal: But Now the Hard Part Begins, Just Security (Apr. 7, 2017), at https://www.justsecurity.org/39695/illegal-hard-part-begins/.

14 Koh, supra note 1, at 1004–15.

15 Id. at 1010.

16 Id. at 1015–16.

17 See, e.g., Jack Goldsmith, The Constitutionality of the Syria Strike Through the Eyes of OLC (and the Obama Administration), Lawfare, Syria (Apr. 7, 2017), at https://www.lawfareblog.com/constitutionality-syria-strike-through-eyes-olc-and-obama-administration.

18 Henkin, Louis, Commentary, Kosovo and the Law of “Humanitarian Intervention”, 93 AJIL 824, 827 (1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.