Anticipatory consent to military intervention: analysis in the wake of the coup d’état in Niger in 2023*

Abstract

ABSTRACT Following the coup d’état in Niger on 26 July 2023, the situation in Niger remains tense. However, it is not the coup against a democratically elected government itself that attracts attention from an international law perspective, but the threat by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to intervene militarily in Niger to restore the pre-coup balance of power. The international legal assessment of ECOWAS’s threat to use force not only raises common questions within the doctrine of ‘intervention by invitation’, but also highlights the relevance of a problem about which there is little clarity in international legal doctrine – the problem of forward-looking intervention treaties containing anticipatory invitations. Using the case of Niger as a starting point, this article aims to examine the legal concept of anticipatory intervention treaties in the jus ad bellum, before ultimately applying the results of this legal analysis to the case of Niger.