Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Birth and infancy of a Charter rule: the open framework
- 2 The menu of choice: a guide to interpretation
- 3 Precedents of the international court of justice
- 4 Deciphering post-Charter practice: means and limits
- 5 Open threats to extract concessions
- 6 Demonstrations of force
- 7 Countervailing threats or: threats in self-defence
- 8 Findings and conclusions
- 9 Epilogue: the law in operation
- Annex
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW
6 - Demonstrations of force
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Birth and infancy of a Charter rule: the open framework
- 2 The menu of choice: a guide to interpretation
- 3 Precedents of the international court of justice
- 4 Deciphering post-Charter practice: means and limits
- 5 Open threats to extract concessions
- 6 Demonstrations of force
- 7 Countervailing threats or: threats in self-defence
- 8 Findings and conclusions
- 9 Epilogue: the law in operation
- Annex
- Bibliography
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW
Summary
I wish it were possible to convince others, with words, of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes: Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to any challenge. Because we fight for values and we fight for principles, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination are unending.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, Speech at Johns Hopkins University, 7 April 1965, referring to US military operations in VietnamDeeds more than words
This chapter will examine state and UN practice as it applies to demonstrations of force: cross-border displays of military capability signalling resolve to use force for political ends, usually to compel or to discourage. In chapter 4, demonstrations of force were defined as follows:
Where state A, in the form of non-routine military deployments, build-ups, manoeuvres, tests or other militarized acts signals preparedness and resolve to use armed force on a particular issue under dispute with state B. The initiation of militarised acts in a period of high tension is a firm indication that a demonstration of force is at play.
Demonstrations of force may take a great variety of forms. For example, a state may send missile-bearing ships towards the coastline of another state, or may ‘exercise’ military jets as an immediate signal of its non-toleration of a particular move. Its armies may serve to communicate resolve by parading along a border or by simulating a particular scenario of military encounter with its rival state.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Threat of Force in International Law , pp. 172 - 217Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007