The humanitarian military intervention to restore democracy and its legal and  political dimensions

Journal of Law, University of Bahrain, volume 2, 2005.

Abstract  :

The doctrine of humanitarian military intervention to restore or pro- democracy has been a subject of so much discussion in terms of its validity and legality in accordance with international rules and principles. The dilemma which makes this issue of particular importance is how we could understand the relation between the democracy as one of the human rights as listed by many international instruments such as the Universal Declaration, the two covenants, some regional treaties such as the charter of the OAS and the CSCE and some of the international law principles such as the sovereignty, non-intervention and non-use of force. With regard to this issue the international community and the jurists have different views. The first one defends the validity and legality of this type of intervention on the ground that it is very important to strengthen, protect and restore democracy, particularly when the legitimate government is changed by a military coup.

  Moreover, the international community nowadays concentrates on democracy, since it has become the common standard which measures the validity of a government and an important condition to get the membership of the modern international community. The second view, however rejects the legality of this type of intervention on the basis it contradicts the most important principles of international law such as the principle of sovereignty, non-intervention and non-use of force. Furthermore, despite the fact that democracy has become an individual right, but according to this view, it can not be regarded as a fundamental right justifies this kind of intervention which badly affects on the above mentioned principles. It is worth mentioning that the state practice in this context shows how some states abused this intervention. The recent period has witnessed some examples of so-called pro-democratic governments, but most of these interventions were considered to be illegitimate since they sought to gain political and economic goals.    
  Because of the importance of this issue the study has been divided it into three chapters                                                                                         

Chapter 1: deals with the concept of humanitarian military intervention to restore democracy and its relation with the humanitarian intervention 
Chapter 2: discusses the humanitarian military intervention to restore democracy and its legal and political dimensions

Chapter 3: highlights the position and the arguments of those who reject the validity and legality of this intervention