The typology

Earlier chapters of this study have employed a typology for examining the UN system's response to states' “unauthorized” resort to force, i.e. in circumstances in which the state has not been the victim of a traditional armed attack and the Security Council has not voted to invoke collective measures under Charter Chapter VII. Chapter 3 has identified five clusters of justification advanced in support of such unauthorized recourse to force. Using this analytic typology, the study seeks to ascertain the extent to which each kind of unconventional justification has been validated in systemic practice.

From the foregoing examination of some of this practice, it appears that the principal organs of the United Nations have responded in accordance with the nuanced situational merits of each crisis, rather than in compliance with any general redefinition of the concept of “self-defence” contained in Article 51. Although the role of political horse-trading cannot be discounted, it appears that most countries have reacted with integrity, instance-by-instance, to the weight of factual and contextual evidence presented by advocates and critics of each use of force. This is also true in those instances in which the use of force has been justified as “anticipatory self-defence.”

Anticipatory use of force in self-defense as a legal concept

Anticipatory self-defense has a long history in customary international law. As early as 1837, it was canvassed by US Secretary of State Daniel Webster in the Caroline dispute.