This advanced seminar examines one of the most contested questions in public international law: when, if ever, may states intervene militarily or politically in another state for humanitarian purposes? The course explores the legal foundations of sovereignty, the prohibition on the use of force, and the emergence of doctrines that seek to justify intervention in cases of mass atrocity, genocide, and humanitarian crisis.
Students analyze the UN Charter framework, customary international law, Security Council practice, and the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Through historical and contemporary case studies, the course evaluates how states invoke humanitarian arguments, how legal norms evolve under political pressure, and how enforcement mechanisms operate in a system without centralized authority.
The seminar emphasizes the structural tension between territorial integrity and global moral responsibility. Students engage with legal doctrine alongside political realism, ethical theory, and institutional critique to understand humanitarian intervention as both a legal question and a geopolitical struggle.
This course assumes prior study of public international law.
Course Objectives
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
1. Explain the legal foundations of state sovereignty.
2. Interpret the UN Charter rules on use of force.
3. Analyze humanitarian intervention doctrines.
4. Evaluate Security Council authority and limitations.
5. Assess historical intervention case studies.
6. Apply legal reasoning to atrocity scenarios.
7. Examine Responsibility to Protect theory.
8. Critically evaluate legitimacy versus legality debates.
9. Understand geopolitical constraints on enforcement.
10. Develop nuanced arguments about intervention.
