{"id":16952,"date":"2012-04-09T13:10:51","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T18:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=16952"},"modified":"2012-04-09T13:12:24","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T18:12:24","slug":"the-self-defense-argument-for-intervention-in-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/04\/the-self-defense-argument-for-intervention-in-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"The Self-Defense Argument for Intervention in Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>News media are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/04\/10\/world\/middleeast\/turkey-accuses-syria-of-firing-across-border.html?hp\" target=\"_blank\">reporting<\/a> today that the strife in Syria has, for the first time, spilled across international borders, with Syrian government forces firing into Turkey last night, killing two people and injuring three others, and also firing into Lebanon. The New York Times suggests that a \u201clarge number of reinforcements for the government troops, backed by tanks and helicopters,\u201d may have arrived \u201cclose to Turkish territory.\u201d And of course Turkey is already sheltering a large number of refugees from the conflict\u2014over 24,000, by the Turkish government\u2019s estimate.<\/p>\n<p>All of which raises the question of what, if anything, can be done. For the past year, the answer has been very little: Russia and China blocked effective measures in the Security Council; the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention on the basis of the responsibility-to-protect (\u201cR2P\u201d) principle has been contested; and neighboring states seemed to lack a persuasive argument for intervention on the basis of self-defense.<\/p>\n<p>But yesterday\u2019s events suggest that the self-defense argument is strengthening. Article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes an \u201cinherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against\u201d a member state, \u201cuntil the Security Council takes measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.\u201d There is at least a reasonable argument that by firing bullets across the border, amassing troops nearby, and forcing Turkey to cope with a significant influx of refugees, Syria is violating Turkey\u2019s territorial integrity and creating justification for an armed Turkish intervention on the basis of a Turkish right of self-defense.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, I\u2019m not necessarily advocating the legality of intervention; I\u2019m saying simply that the argument for a self-defense-based intervention is getting stronger. And, of course, whether intervention makes sense as a policy matter is another issue altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/prawfsblawg.blogs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">PrawfsBlawg<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>News media are reporting today that the strife in Syria has, for the first time, spilled across international borders, with Syrian government forces firing into Turkey last night, killing two people and injuring three others, and also firing into Lebanon. The New York Times suggests that a \u201clarge number of reinforcements for the government troops, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-law","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}