Intervention: Individual and Collective

Abstract

Of all the terms in general use in international law none is more challenging than that of “ intervention.” Scarcely any two writers are to be found who define this term in the same way or who classify the same situations under it. To one writer it is the interference of one state in the affairs of another; to a second writer it is “ unwarranted” interference; to a third it is interference in the domestic or internal affairs of the state; to a fourth it is interference in external as well as internal affairs. Some writers include interference of a third state between two belligerents in time of war, by taking sides with one against the other; others include only interference between the parties to a civil war. Some include “ diplomatic intervention,” where the intervening state interferes in behalf of its citizens in cases of alleged denial of justice by the other state; others regard such interference merely as “ interposition,” since it does not involve an attempt to control the character of the foreign government but merely to influence its conduct. Many jurists regard all intervention as illegal; an American jurist constructs an entire volume on international law around the central theme of the right of intervention.