hi everyone welcome thank you so much
for coming to this HLS PILAC event we're
really excited and I know many of you in
the audience take a particular interest
in this issue so I will take very little
time with introductions so we can get
right to Chiara's presentation and Dr.
Chiara Redaelli a visiting research
fellow at Harvard Law School this
semester she is also research fellow at
the Geneva Academy where she works for
the rule of law and armed conflicts
project the RULAC project she formerly
worked with the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees in Cox's Bazar and Beijing and
she recently very successfully defended
her PhD in public international law at
the Graduate Institute of International
and Development Studies in September
2018 her doctoral research part of which
she'll be talking about here today looks
at how the human rights paradigm has
affected the international legal
regulation of interventions in
non-international armed conflicts as
many of you know the topic for today
we'll be looking at military
interventions in non-international armed
conflicts particularly those framed as
being by intervention so we'll have
about 25 to 30 minutes of talk and then
we'll open up for questions and comments
thanks and welcome thank you thank you
so much for having me here and also for
giving me the opportunity to speak about
this topic which I found very
fascinating and every day basically here
which are justified based on imputation
of the government so I think it's a very
timely moment to talk about it so the
thing is that let's imagine that you
have a democratically elected government
and you have the president that you to
steal the unrest has to leave the
country and to seek refuge abroad and
let's imagine that this president then
asked for a foreign intervention from
the host country in the whole state in
order to regain control now the question
is how would you identify this situation
would it be
under international law or not and over
the last years we have had two instances
when this has happened in only one hand
we have had the intervention of Russia
in Ukraine upon invitation of President
Yanukovych the other I regret the
intervention of Saudi Arabia and Yemen
upon invitation of the president now in
both cases we have very similar
situations however the reaction of the
international community was really the
opposite so only one hand in the case of
Ukraine the international community said
well titties are lawful because
Yanukovych is not the local president
anymore and therefore the intervention
should not happen on the other hand when
it comes to the intervention of Saudi
Arabia in Yemen we see that the
international community generally
speaking accepted as low for the
intervention in the civil war now the
question is what does it mean when you
have two very similar situations and the
international community reacting to
different ways does it mean that the
rules are so unclear that basically
states can do anything by blonde or does
it mean that there are some rules and
that stays just don't care about them
and they decide to violate time so what
does it mean in practice when you have
these situations so the objective of
this presentation actually to
demonstrate that first of all we we can
identify clear rules when it comes to
interventions in internal conflicts
however it's also true that there are
new trends that are emerging in the
practice and we are going to see whether
these new trends are going to change or
whether were actually changing now the
legal framework regulating interventions
in internal conflicts and if we think
about interventions upon invitation at
the end of the day the real question we
are trying to answer is with the
government with in charge of inviting a
foreign country to intervene
Civil War and this is particularly
difficult during a non-international
armed conflict because obviously in a
non-international armed conflict you
have at least part of the population
which is challenging that the president
the government Authority and therefore
his this president is government still
capable to speak on behalf of the state
and invite a foreign country to
intervene to regain the power so in
order to answer to these questions we
are going to see first of all what the
scholarship has said so far about
interventions in internal conflicts and
we are going to see whether these
traditional approaches adopted by the
scholarship can be confirmed by looking
at state practice or whether there are
new trends and different answers that we
can give so when it comes to the
traditional approaches we have three
main positions in the scholarship on one
hand there are some authors that claim
that interventions in internal conflicts
are always unlawful and this is the
abstention is my approach and the only
exception that V accept is when it's the
case of counter intervention which means
when you have a state which is already
helping the rebels when in this case
another state can intervene in favor of
the government but outside this specific
situation it will be always unlawful to
intervene upon invitation of the
government now the legal basis provided
by the authors that support the
abstention is my approach are truthful
only one health I say that an
intervention in an internal conflict
would violate the principle of non
intervention in internal affairs of the
state because obviously right it's quite
easy to understand how our
non-international armed conflict is an
internal affair of a state and therefore
there shouldn't be any interference from
outside like from an outside power and
the second legal basis is the
principal the right to
self-determination of people because if
a people has arrived to determine it's
all in some political destiny and the
form of government they prefer but if
you have an intervention from an outside
force but in this case this outside
force is going to interfere with the
expression and the exercise of the right
of self-determination of the people who
are fighting against the government and
so for these reasons this scholars claim
that interventions should never happen
unless in case of counter intervention
now the problem with this position is
that if we look at state practice we see
that that's not what the international
community say like even if we could
agree in practice like in theory that an
intervention in an internal conflict
should not happen for these reasons and
in forties the legal grounds when in
practice the international community
doesn't seem to believe that an
intervention in an internal conflict
would be always unlawful and if we look
us up the state practice and the
discourses within the international
community we see that the main issue as
I mentioned before is actually about who
has the authority to speak on behalf of
the state and to invite a foreign
country to intervene in an internal
country and to answer to these questions
other scholars have suggested two
approaches on one hand we have the
abstention is not torture which
basically the effectiveness approach
which basically says that a government
which has effective control over the
territory and the population has the
power to speak on behalf of the state
now it's easy to understand why someone
who will prevent for the effective
control as a criterion to identify the
government because obviously it's
something very concrete and practical
but the problem here is what is the
threshold of effectiveness which is
required does it mean that the
government has to control the capital
does it mean that the government has to
control atrophy
50% of the country and how do you
actually identify like what happens with
the government today loses control over
the capital invent tomorrow regains
control does it mean that you keep
changing the recognition of the
government or the tile so this is one of
the first issue when it comes to the
effectiveness approach the other issue
is when you have a curriculum which is
only based on a factual ideas effective
control basically you're endorsing might
makes right approach whereby you don't
really look at how the government
obtained the power you don't look at how
the government is actually exercising
this power like how the government
ensures effective control over the
territory in committing violations of
human rights and humanitarian law in
order to maintain the control all these
considerations are not really considered
when it comes to the effectiveness
approach and that's why some authors
decided started to criticize this
approach and especially in the 1990s
they started to suggest the democratic
entitlement approach whereby only
democratic government will be only a
democratic government would be capable
to speak on behalf of the state and will
be capable to invite a foreign country
to intervene in a civil war now there
are too many issues again with the
Democratic entitlement approach and one
hand the problem is what does it mean to
have a democratic government are we
talking about a substantial idea of
democracy were by democracy encompasses
also or a series of protection and
guarantees of basic human rights are we
talking about procedural democracies are
we talking about the government that was
elected through free and fair election
and this obviously is something that we
need to answer if we want to claim that
McClarty governments can speak on behalf
of the state when we have us another
issue like if we think about the
government's that citable un nowadays we
see that not all of them are democratic
not in the procedural cells or in the
substantial sense some of them are
considered like a loaf not not really
awful but I'll consider like regimes and
were not democratic at all so how do we
reconcile this Democratic entitlement
approach with the coexistence of fun
democratic governments that are
generally recognized by the
international community so as we see the
traditional approach is suggested by the
scholarship all have some issues and
that's why we should look at the
practice of State to determine what's
actually like whether we can actually
reconcile these approaches and if we
look at state practice we see that the
way in which the government is
recognized that the international level
happens on two grounds and one hand
international community tends to look at
the way in which the power was obtained
and then was a government is recognized
in the Russian community tends to look
at the way in which the power is
exercised so now if we think at the
first so the way in which the power was
obtained we see that from the analysis
of state practice we should distinguish
between democratic government and non
democratic governments when it comes to
democratic government generally speaking
we are talking about governments that
had been elected through free and fair
elections if we look at state practice
we see that there are several cases when
a government that was elected through
democratic elections like free and fair
elections
thanks to be recognized by the
international community even if there is
an effective alternative and even if it
has never been in power before or even
if the exercise
the power only for a short period of
time a one example that can explain his
position and it's one of the most recent
example is what happened in the Gambia
in 2017 like in The Gambia were the
elections the former president was
running again for the election but he
lost the elections so I was supposed to
hand over the power to the new president
president borrow so what happened is
that at the beginning the former
president recognized the results of the
election but then after a few weeks he
decided that it wasn't going to
recognize they liked the results anymore
because he claimed that there were some
issues and the directions where I'm
really fair and there were where there
were some problems so what happened is
that when President Barak which was one
collection wasn't really actually not
even the president yet had to flee the
country
he went to Senegal from there it was
actually sworn in as a precedence over
Moses ceremony he became the president
the international community between the
majority of the states recognize
president borough as the Nuala president
of the Gambia and they did not recognize
the former president even if the former
president had effective control over the
territory and the population of Gambia
and then what happen is that President
Barroso the newly elected president
invalid as the equus to intervene in
order to regain power and the
organization accepted the invitation
intervene and when barber could go back
to them so here this is really a clear
example of a president who had never
been in power before there wasn't even a
government it was just one person
basically one direction's
amenties person was immediately
recognized as the president and then an
intervention happened and the Security
Council endorsed his intervention
exposed saying that it was lawful and
welcomed what happened so there are also
other examples
to go through all of that but this I
think is one of the most clear one and
then as I mentioned before in the
international community like in the UN
and regional organizations we also have
a lot of governments that were not
elected through free and fair elections
so what about those governments like how
did they ended up to be recognized as
the government international community
and if we look for instance at the most
famous cases like Syria or Libya so
Assad or Gaddafi government in these
cases we see that when I came to power
there was no democratic alternative that
could have been recognized as the euro
government and therefore my conclusion
here is that we have a democratic
government an undemocratic government
and you don't have a democratic
alternative Aventis government usually
is going to be recognized as the
government of the state and therefore is
going to be capable to speak on behalf
of the state and to ask for a foreign
intervention if needed so this is the
situation when it comes to David
unification of the government based on
the way in which the power was obtained
but if we look at the way in which the
power is exercised that it has an impact
on the constant power of a state like if
you have a state that commits a
government that commits gross and
systematic violations of human rights
and humanitarian law does it mean that
this government is not capable to us but
a foreign intervention and when
addressing this issue it's interesting
to look at the cases of Libya in Syria
so what happened in Libya in Syria is
that as we all know very most the Arab
Spring non-international armed conflict
started and part of the international
community in light of the commission the
violations of human rights and
humanitarian law coma
by the government both in Libya and
Syria identified like defining his
government as non and legitimate
representative of their own people and
attributed the legitimate representative
of people this definition to a number of
rebel groups now the question is what
does it mean to stop being the
legitimate representative of people and
is it like illegal does it have legal
implication or its only political claim
and in order to answer we can actually
think that what happened in Syria when
it comes to intervention upon invitation
because in 2014
Syria invited the u.s. to intervene to
fight together against the Islamic state
and what happened was that the Obama
administration decided to decline the
invitation also because they didn't want
to get involved with a government that
they considered illegitimate and the
u.s. anyway intervened in Syria against
Islamic state but it was on a different
legal ground
it was collective self-defense on behalf
of Iraq so that was a very deliberate
choice by could've just intervene saying
well Assad asked us to intervene and
it's you know an invitation upon an
intervention of an invitation while we
decided not to and on the other hand we
have Russia Russia intervened in favor
of Assad we all know about it but
interesting it's interesting to see that
the international community like the
states would define the Syrian
government as as illegitimate they
criticized Russia under the national
intervention but it was mainly because
they didn't think that it was a good
idea to intervene in favor of a
government which is a legitimate I never
provided a legal basis as to why rush
rush
and that's why this is one of the
examples that led me to conclude that a
government doesn't lose constant power
when it turns against the population and
it's considered illegitimate by the
international community due to
systematic violations of human rights
and humanitarian law however the
question here is does it mean that a
government like a state can always
intervene in favor of a government that
commits such violations and the answer
is not always because there are actually
other rules under international law that
will prevent a state from helping
another state which engages in wrongful
acts so first of all an intervention in
favor of a government that commits gross
and systematic violations of human
rights and humanitarian law under
certain circumstances could amount as a
case of complicity and we have ours
article 1 of the common to the foreign
Geneva Conventions which establishes a
duty to ensure respect for humanitarian
law which means that if I was saying and
I intervene in favor of the nagas and
another state entity state is committing
humanitarian law violation and I'm aware
of this situation and I help this take
anyway I'm not really fulfilling my duty
to ensure respect for a humanitarian law
and then eventually we have also weapons
law and their weapons law states are
prohibited from allowing weapons
transferred to states that engage in
violations of human rights and
humanitarian law therefore even if a
government that commits this violation
violations retain the Consul power this
does not mean that when a state can
intervene and help this government all
the time so if we go back at the case of
Russia we can wonder whether Russia
actually has violated one of these rules
so is it a case of complicity or has it
violated the duty to ensure respect for
IHL however this does not mean that
Assad wasn't to speak on behalf of the
state and to invite Russia so to
conclude as we have seen now the
international community is increasingly
looking at the legitimacy of government
as opposed to the effectiveness of
government and this is something that is
emerging in the practice of State and in
my presentation I simply acknowledge
what what's happening a reality but this
does not mean that it's necessarily a
good idea now the problem is not we have
to wait and to see whether these rules
are actually going to become part of
positive international law in the future
however obviously the dangers of
introducing discourses of legitimacy in
interventions in internal conflicts it's
actually quite dangerous because
legitimacy can mean anything and what do
we mean when we talk about the
legitimacy is something that there
aren't really clear places to decide
what what's legitimate and what's not
and therefore for these reasons we have
to wait but this situation doesn't look
good
thank you so much Chiara I think
something that's really profound to me
about your work as I noticed as I was
preparing to introduce you that
particularly many pieces of scholarship
recently published in the US by us
authors seem to include consent
unproblematically as one of the sources
of lawful intervention I think what's
really powerful about what you're doing
is both introducing this debate back
into our contemporary discussions but
also not simply objecting to that
through a formal interpretation of
international law but looking closely at
state practice and asking that we talk
about how we should understand what's
happening in contemporary state practice
so we'll take questions
comments now and I realize I arrogantly
assumed you all know who I am I am Naz
Motors a day the director of the HLS
program on international law and armed
conflict so questions comments yes
paper so I don't know if it's exactly a
question but maybe a sort of suggestion
to think more about one particular issue
which is if international law does not
incorporate human rights from the
consent side right the human rights that
are associated with democratic
government either procedural or in the
way that it is exercised but they are
they are involved and included from the
point of view of complicity as you had
in your last slide right human rights
with respect to violations of my child
weapons were and so on and so forth
we're talking about using the human
rights discourse in which human rights
idea in order to call an intervention
unlawful but it's a different type of
unlawfulness right so human rights to
some extent fail or do not articulate a
socialization or democratic governance
type of rights so at the level of
sovereignty they're not enough but they
are still sort of a fallback option with
respect to a more purely kind of
humanitarian aid if ur n't to call an
intervention unlawful depending on each
basis right on one level it's a very
clear answer what is U sub bellum the
other is using bad law or state
responsibility and it works both ways
but yeah the question is how is it how
do we understand unlawfulness
differently
you mean differently I mean you sub
element using below or Maday what work
does it do to call intervention unlawful
falling back on these two different
functions human rights yeah so well when
it comes to an intervention which is
unlawful when you look at human rights
used to identify the democratic
government when
in this case the use of human rights is
not really like the one used that
determines whether an intervention is
lawful or not so the thing is that I
will say that Sheila brides are not
really used to determine whether an
intervention is lawful or not but very
used to determine where a parameter of
the legitimacy of government and so
human rights are not used to determine
whether a government is legitimate or
not and well once the government is
legitimate then some states are more
prone to the to deduce that the
intervention is lawful like but it's
actually two steps so I will then I
think that yet first you have human
rights when you have the legitimacy of
governments and then you have
qualification of the intervention as
lawful or
but the thing is that human rights in
general are used as a parameter of
legitimacy and this is not always when
it comes to interventions in internal
conflicts but it's more in general like
if you think now about the situation in
Venezuela you know you still have
discourses on what's legitimate what's
not whether Maduro was democratically
elected in last year or not well and now
there are also discourses on the
possibility to intervene in Venezuela
but virals only in you know a few
specific countries while other countries
that are not considering the
intervention are anyway engaging in
discourses on human rights legitimacy of
the government and how do you identify
the legitimate government Thanks
yes in the back
violations of human rights a solid
States ability to it to be it might be
prescribed by those three different
points it's mentioned just kind of some
little previous question that we just
had um so I guess like I'm struggling a
little bit to understand how in the case
of a state which is engaged in these
violations so what state could engage in
foreign intervention in any way that
doesn't fall within those three sub
categories I mean yeah I mean when it
comes for instance to the case of
complicity the problem is that to have
complicity there are some debate as to
whether for instance they stay but I am
a state and I'm helping you and you're
committing gross and systematic
violations of human rights and
humanitarian law now do I have to know
for sure that my health to you is going
to be used to commit these violations do
I only have to presume that my help is
likely to help you committing these
violations - this is one of the main
debate concerning complicity so if you
think I'm just addressing this as an
example but if you think that complicity
through that within the world but if
Russia is helping Assad and Assad is
committing these violations obviously
Russia is going to be very seconds of
complicity here however the legal basis
for complicity under international law
are not so clear and especially the
criteria to determine when there is
complicity or not are very unclear and
there are ongoing debates so it's not
you know so automatic to say that if a
state is helping the other then very
case of complicity because you have to
understand whether you need only
knowledge of the commission of these
violations or you need the
the intent of the intervening states to
help the other state to commit these
violations so this is just an example to
say that in theory it's very difficult
to imagine an intervention like for
instance that Russia doesn't fall within
any of these categories but when in
practice how does it work right
complicity or other forms of
responsibilities are not as
straightforward as Bibles seem
government in the absence of a
democratic alternative in general isn't
that just rewarding basically kind of
very strong authoritarian States that
have put the bulk of the population
under their general obedience right so
it's just perpetuating it so what what
is the rationale for allowing for an
intervention there I mean they have is
it just a status quo
well I mean obviously when I talk about
general obedience by the value of the
population in a civil war you have to
read it like even now Assad has the
obedience of at least part of the
population because you always have part
of the population with for one side and
what usually most of the time so what I
meant here is that it has an effective
control so it controls at least part of
the country and part of the population I
think is that here I'm not talking only
about cases of intervention I'm also
talking about cases when you don't have
an intervention like for recency if you
think about the case in Gambia
if you didn't have president borrow that
one direction and let's say that the
president simply decided right the
former president simply decides that
there aren't going to be new elections
and so he remains in power and it
doesn't have a democratically
if so the international community is
likely to say well okay you're stealing
I mean they might say what is this
you know this shouldn't happen this is
not democratic but we're still
recognizing this person as the president
of the state but in this case this
person would have the general obedience
of by the bulk of the population and
then if afterwards our non-international
armed conflict starts and then so you
can claim that varies and the general
obedience by the population when in this
case this government could ask for a
foreign intervention because it will be
recognized that anyway by the
international community yes thanks very
much less it's very interesting um I
have two sets of questions the first
concerns the Security Council the second
concerns the provision regarding
ensuring respect for agile with respect
to the Security Council how do you think
we should assess whether or not the
collective security system and the role
of Security Council in relation to this
topic is succeeding or not and you have
any ideas on how the system can be
improved and who would benefit from
improving and the second question is
what's your view as to where the current
law is as it's in terms of requiring
States to do what in relation to whom
considering the respect insuring respect
for IHL Atlas so where's the law today
do you think like where's the best
statement of the law okay okay so when
it comes to the Security Council I think
the main issue when it comes to
interventions in internal conflicts in
general is that at the end of the day
the states that decide to intervene and
the states that decide to intervene in
favor of that's very full it
so we can identify legal rules that
determine when it's lawful to intervene
or not but then ultimately it's really
like a political decision of the state
to intervene or not or to do something
and I think the same can actually
applies to the Security Council
obviously it's a it's an ongoing debate
that I'm not sure it's ever going to end
or I'm not even sure whether we can
actually identify ways to change the
system because in this case is what my
feeling is that we should that rules
determining like how to identify the
government in certain cases and it's
through that sometimes the Security
Council intervenes like issues a
resolution and say oh this is the
government or Oh welcome yeah or we
welcome this intervention like expose
and the thing is that my impression is
that the Security Council isn't really
following any specific rules but it's
mainly based on what's happening in that
specific moment and the Security Council
is actually following what well what I
call the international community which
is basically the majority of states and
this includes also the UN and the
Security Council so by the Security
Council falls within key strength so
when I reach these conclusions I also
consider the reaction of the Security
Council to this situation like for
assessing in the Gambia and similar
cases but again lacking clear rules I
don't I've never really seen the
Security Council thinking about so what
are the rules like how do recognizing
the government or no what about yesterda
doctrine which says that states
recognize states and not governments
which seems completely you know
forgotten and
unless it's convenient to mention it
because a state doesn't wanted a
particular issue so so yeah I mean I
think that Security Council is actually
fully within these and when it comes to
the duty to ensure respect for IHL it's
actually like I mentioned it as one of
the rules that cool ground a basis to
say you know it could be a violation but
what does it mean in practice to ensure
respect for IHL is very complicated
especially when it comes to whether the
states have to do something actively to
ensure respect for IHL so in this case
it's difficult to say so to what extent
a state should do something to ensure
respect for IHL but here we are actually
talking about not doing anything like if
you don't provide weapons for this well
which also falls within the weapons ro
but if you are providing weapons to a
state that permits humanitarian no
violations are you actually violating
the duty to ensure respect for how you
charge a very sexual part of the
scholarship and I agree with them that
claims that kiss will be the case
because you are actually doing something
which is not going to help which is not
preventing this violation yes what about
situations where the shoe is on the
other foot from the outside state is
deciding whether
and here the broad gin of deceit before
so like in Madagascar like France which
had a prior and the entire oacd
basically forbade foreign investment
until Madagascar you know the government
that was in there which was military
you know staged and elections in 2012 so
my question has to do with outside
states that say it's legitimate and
foreign investment and the other part of
that would be sanctions how are those
things yeah I mean so I focused mainly
on intervention like armed interventions
obviously when it comes to other forms
of intervention the issue is like as you
mentioned there are also other interests
that the state has well this is
something that I'm afraid international
law has to accept at some level so I
whenever you have an intervention in an
internal conflict or whenever you have a
state that says this government is is
not legitimate or I decide to support
his government as opposed to another one
it's you know it can be done on rounds
and States usually try to justify it on
legal grounds but varies always are
political
there are always political implications
and especially when it comes to France
France has a long tradition of
intervening in former colonies
especially in in Africa so everything at
the intervention
Molly or you know Central African
Republic and why is why France
intervened in Mali and Italy didn't well
probably because Italy didn't have a
colony and Molly was a French colony so
obviously we cannot deny these bonds and
these relationships between states that
you know we still see nowadays so and
very still strong for I think
understandable reasons so but what I
believe is that at the end of the day
international law can set some standards
of behavior and then the reason why
someone does something or not is
actually beyond that it's like if you
think about criminal law you cannot kill
people under criminal law but why do you
decide not to kill someone or why you
decided to do it anyway well that's
really like a personal choice and I
think that the same applies anyway in
their relationship among states I think
I'll take moderators prerogative and ask
one question to which it I wonder in the
reading that you did what was your sense
so you framed the abstention notion as
being I don't think you've said it's no
longer good fall but had the sense that
it's increasingly unpopular as an
accepted option and I'm wondering to
what extent all of the analysis that
follows in in some way assumes that
that's the case right that that
abstention approach is no longer a valid
one and did you have a sense in your
reading that well one it does there seem
to be a consensus that that rule if it
ever existed really is no longer even a
rule regardless of whether state
practice has practically undermined it
and to is that principal position of
unlawfulness even if you actually know
as an international lawyer
it's not likely to be accepted as a rule
as such does it provide you with the
ability to have a discussion about this
that says in fact this is about power or
this is about politics or really when
we're talking consent it's not all of
these subcategories but it's rather just
the fact that the powerful intervene
when the weak cannot actually deny their
ability to intervene first my question
is what work does that abstention idea
continue to do today even if we agree
that it doesn't seem to be very powerful
law anymore so regarding the readings if
there are actually some scholars that
even nowadays playing that varies
t-through ball under international law
provides an offer to intervene no matter
what no matter what with the only
exception of exception of country
intervention but this the main discolor
that actually made his position if
famous was the smell bad who brought his
article in 1986 and interventions upon
invitation and she made a very strong
argument in favor of the attention in
approach and I think she influenced a
lot the discussion in scholarship and
since then several scholars just
accepted her position because it's a
very convincing article and probably in
you know 30-something years ago that was
actually the case but then what happen
is that if you look at the scholarship
in the 1990s it's actually more about
effectiveness or
tournament so you'll have young people's
by Frank on you know them coming
discussion so that's really about the
scholarship per se but even nowadays
there are actually authors that you know
say intervening civil war scenes are no
fool and make quote thoughts about bank
mmm
so that's generally speaking and that's
why I felt also that you know I should
take into consideration this position
even if I don't think that it's the low
anymore and when it comes to the other
issues as to whether should well
shouldn't we just say shouldn't we just
say that the abstention is my approach
is still valid and then States to
whatever they want because it's a matter
of power basically well the thing is
that when it comes I mean there is also
a consideration regarding customer I
know like when the majority of states
behave in a certain way you have the
Security Council um in general that
actually seem to believe that this is
the rule when yeah maybe at the
beginning it was mainly you know if you
think about the Democratic interventions
of the UN in some Latin American country
when there you might claim you know in
the 1990s you might say well Jesus was
actually an exercise of power by a
powerful country in other less powerful
ones but once this becomes a pattern
over the years and it's been basically
thirty years when I think that we can
actually say that things are changing
besides political considerations
thank you any other questions
hopefully through me
you
