Regional organization's autonomous use of force for humanitarian purposes : authorization and humanitarian intervention under The UN- Charter's article 53(1) – a study in light of ECOWAS and NATO:s interventions in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Kosovo respectively

The use of force by regional organizations is regulated through Article 53(1) of the UN Charter. The article stipulates a requirement of authorization from the Security Council. However, during the nineties, interventions by ECOWAS in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and by NATO in Kosovo, were executed without Security Council authorization and incentivized by humanitarian reasons. These three interventions and the subsequent reactions of the international community make up the point of departure for the examination in this thesis. In particular, the ECOWAS interventions received an almost unanimous subsequent support from the Security Council and the international community. The main purpose of this thesis is to scrutinize three legal arguments presented by scholars and states in support of the legality of the aforementioned interventions. Since the Security Council is not always able to achieve its purpose, namely to maintain international peace and security, it is interesting to examine if any of these three arguments can be utilized to argue for a legal possibility for regional organisations to shoulder a subsidiary such responsibility. The arguments that are scrutinized consists of whether implicit authorization or retroactive authorization could be considered to fulfil the requirement of Security Council authorization in article 53(1) of the UN Charter. The two purported forms of authorization are analysed through the textual meaning, the structure and the purposes behind the UN Charter as well as through relevant state practice. Moreover, it is particularly examined whether according to current international law, it is possible to argue for a legal possibility of humanitarian intervention by regional organizations. This last-mentioned possibility is analysed against the assumption of a narrow interpretation of the jus cogens prohibition on the use of force and through the theory of treaty modification by customary law. The method being used when examining this last legal possibility is partly of a de lege ferenda character. The overall conclusion being reached is that a possibility for regional organizations to autonomously use force for humanitarian purposes is difficult to accommodate with current international law. The best case that can be made for a future such possibility is that further state practice contributes to the creation of a parallel customary law rule in relation to article 53(1) of the UN Charter