We now turn from explanations for humanitarian occupations to their legal justifications. What is the legal basis for the Security Council divesting a state of some or all of its governing authority? Two justifications have been given in each of the humanitarian occupation cases to date: (1) consent of the parties (including, but not limited to the state under occupation); and (2) a resolution of the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter. This chapter will examine these widely cited claims. The next chapter reviews a more novel legal justification based on the international law of occupation, focusing in particular on the United States' occupation of Iraq. There, the United States pursued a series of reforms remarkably similar to those enacted by humanitarian occupiers.

First legal framework: consent to humanitarian occupation

The coercion problem

Each of the target states formally consented to the humanitarian occupation missions. And in each case except East Timor, consent was also given by sub-state actors such as the Bosnian Serbs and the Kosovar Albanians, who were parties to the recently ended conflict. At first such consent seems perplexing. Why would the governments and non-state actors agree to the missions, especially if their scorched-earth tactics were working? Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Eastern Slavonia each demonstrate that intense international pressure, including the threat or use of military force, may ultimately lead the local partners to consent. But does consent obtained by coercion have any practical value?