Toward a New Paradigm for Humanitarian Intervention

Abstract

The current debate over humanitarian intervention is characterized by the twofold tension between the UN Charter restrictions on the use of force and more permissive customary norms, on the one hand, and competing claims of national sovereignty and human rights protection, on the other. This paper proposes a new paradigm for humanitarian intervention that builds upon the concept of the "Responsibility to Protect" articulated by the Canadian inspired International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, and recommends the extension of this principle to a multidimensional strategy for codifying humanitarian intervention in international law. At the heart of this codification proposal is a call for Canada to employ its diplomatic expertise to facilitate the negotiation of an International Convention on the Right and Responsibility of Humanitarian Intervention that would move the international community a considerable distance toward harmonizing international humanitarian law and the UN Charter system.