This book examines the international law of forcible intervention in civil wars, in particular the role of party-consent in affecting the legality of such intervention. In modern international law, it is a near consensus that no state can use force against another - the main exceptions being self-defence and actions mandated by a UN Security Council resolution. However, one more potential exception exists: forcible intervention undertaken upon the invitation or consent of a government, seeking assistance in confronting armed opposition groups within its territory. Although the latter exception is of increasing importance, the numerous questions it raises have received scant attention in the current body of literature. This volume fills this gap by analyzing the consent-exception in a wide context, and attempting to delineate its limits, including cases in which government consent power is not only negated, but might be transferred to opposition groups. The book also discusses the concept of consensual intervention in contemporary international law, in juxtaposition to traditional legal doctrines. It traces the development of law in this context by drawing from historical examples such as the Spanish Civil War, as well as recent cases such those of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Libya, and Syria. This book will be of much interest to students of international law, civil wars, the Responsibility to Protect, war and conflict studies, and IR in general.

This book investigates the extent to which traditional international law regulating foreign interventions in internal conflicts has been affected by the human rights paradigm. Since the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations, foreign armed interventions in internal conflicts have turned into a common practice. At first sight, it might seem that state practice has developed in a chaotic fashion, however on closer examination, specific patterns emerge. The book charts these patterns by examining the traditional doctrines of intervention and testing them against state practise. The book has two aims. Firstly, it seeks to clarify the current legal framework regulating interventions in internal conflicts. Secondly, it plots the emergence of new trends and investigates whether they are becoming part of positive international law. By taking this dual focus, it offers the first truly comprehensive examination of foreign interventions in internal conflicts.

This 2005 volume is a history of war, from an international law perspective, from Roman times to the present.

The Libyan civil war presented questions for international law and diplomacy never encountered before in a non-international armed conflict. Alongside problems common to civil wars in general, such as recognition of the contesting parties, access to state property abroad, and non-intervention, the Libyan conflict contained several unique aspects: the elaborate UN, US, and EU sanctions regime and its effect on Libya's sovereign wealth fund (the Libyan Investment Authority), the referral of the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court, and the open calls for regime change. These elements raised complex and unique political and international law issues. Adopting a similar approach to Norman J. Padelford's seminal 1939 book, International Law and Diplomacy in the Spanish Civil Strife, this book presents thirty case studies, providing a detailed legal assessment of each of the key issues of international law and diplomacy raised by the conflict. It focuses on the practical legal problems with which government legal advisers and diplomats were concerned during the civil war, many of which have received little public attention. The book also includes an overview of the Libyan civil conflict as a whole, and a public international law obituary of Muammar Qadhafi, which examines his most prominent actions and their impact on international law. The book also investigates how the Libyan civil war was utilized as a laboratory for the testing of the new 'responsibility to protect' doctrine, raised in deliberations among the United Nations Security Council members. For the first time, the Security Council authorized states to get involved in a civil war and to use 'all necessary measures' to enforce a no-fly zone and to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack. This book is important reading for scholars, students, and practitioners concerned with the interaction between law and diplomacy in times of armed conflict

Noam Zamir provides a thorough examination of the theoretical basis of classification of conflicts in international humanitarian law (IHL), with special focus on the legal impact of armed foreign intervention in civil wars. Classification of Conflicts in International Humanitarian Law enriches the discourse on IHL by providing an in-depth analysis of classification of conflicts and examining recent civil wars with foreign interventions, such as the Libyan civil war (2011), Mali civil war (2012-2015) and the ongoing civil war in Yemen.