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18: Empowering International Human Security Regimes

  • Page ID
    75950
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    Learning Objectives
    • Compare and contrast jus ad bellum (the legal right to go to war) and jus in bello (laws that restrict behaviour in time of war).
    • Understand the Convention on the Prevention and the Punishment of Genocide.
    • Outline the legality of using nuclear weapons and anti-personnel landmines.
    • Describe the functions of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
    • Summarise functions, prerogatives and limitations of the United Nations Security Council.
    • Describe and evaluate the limits of the self-defence concept.
    • Understand the Geneva Conventions (1949, 1977): goals, accomplishments.
    • Describe the functions of ad hoc war crimes tribunals (IMT, ICTY, ICTR).
    • Understand concepts associated with human rights: their ethical underpinnings, scope, emphases.
    • Understand the scope and limits of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
    • Understand the agreement of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and its goals, potential, limitations.

    Jeffrey Morton and Samantha Maesel

    This chapter outlines the basic principles found in modern international law that serve to empower international security regimes. Legal efforts to reduce the occurrence of war, restrict behaviour in time of war, and place limits on certain weapons of armed conflict are central to promoting human security. Further, the development of international human rights since World War II is reviewed as well as the new concept of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which allows the international community to intervene on behalf of endangered citizens of other countries. Central to the empowerment of human security regimes are the international organizations that populate the international arena. Chief among those considered in this chapter are the United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and temporary war crimes tribunals.


    18: Empowering International Human Security Regimes is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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