Engdahl, Ola --- "Protection of human rights and the maintenance of international peace and security: necessary precondition or a clash of interests?" [2019] ELECD 932; in Bailliet, M. Cecilia (ed), "Research Handbook on International Law and Peace" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 127

Book Title: Research Handbook on International Law and Peace

Editor(s): Bailliet, M. Cecilia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Protection of human rights and the maintenance of international peace and security: necessary precondition or a clash of interests?

Author(s): Engdahl, Ola

Number of pages: 19

Abstract/Description:

This chapter discusses how peace, in its various connotations, may be achieved through the use of military force. Protection against grave violations of human rights may also require the use of military force, and the connection between international peace and security and the respect for human rights is evident in the practice of the UN Security Council. The concept of a ‘Responsibility to Protect’ has grown out of a need to protect against grave violations of human rights when the Security Council has not been able to respond. The ideas behind this concept may thus to some extent be described as emphasizing protection of human rights over the prohibition on the use of force—and the maintenance of peace between states. International law does not yet provide a right of states to intervene with military force in another state to protect against human rights violations without a mandate from the UNSC, and thus seems to value peace among states more highly than protection against human rights violations. This begs the question how respect for human rights contributes to the maintenance of peace and how peace contributes to the protection of human rights, and, in a longer perspective, whether one could exist without the other.