In this episode I speak with Kevin Jon Heller, Professor of International Law and Security at the University of Copenhagen (when we spoke, he was still a professor of law at the University of Amsterdam!), and cross-appointed as Professor of Law, Australian National University, College of Law. Our discussion focuses on a recent and soon-to-be published article of Kevin’s, The Illegality of “Genuine” Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention (draft on SSRN posted below). In addition to the more common arguments that unilateral humanitarian intervention is unlawful and that it should remain so, Kevin also makes the more novel and likely controversial argument that the use of force for purposes of unilateral humanitarian intervention constitutes an act of aggression as defined in the Rome Statute, and that the perpetrators could, theoretically, be charged for the individual crime of aggression.
Materials:
– “The Illegality of ‘Genuine’ Unilateral Humanitarian Intervention,” forthcoming 2020, (draft on SSRN).
Reading Recommendations:
– Francine Hirsch, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II (2020).
– Craig Jones, The War Lawyers (2020).
– Moshen al Attar, “TWAIL: A Paradox within a Paradox,” 22 Int’l Comm. L.R. 163 (2019).