This Article calls for recognition under international law of a
conditional peoples' right to United Nations (U.N.) authorized armed
intervention to stop mass atrocities. The condition is that non-violent
strategies must have failed or must reasonably be expected to fail in
achieving this goal.
If recognized, the new right will for the first time place power to obtain
armed intervention in the people who are most at risk and impose a
correlative duty on the U.N. to provide that intervention in qualifying
cases. The right will concomitantly lift people out of the passivity of
victimhood and make them active agents of their own deliverance-an
amelioration consistent with and furthering human dignity.
Juridically, the new right stands on remarkably strong ground. This
Article relies on standard legal reasoning to discern compelling bases for
the right within no less than three different categories of international law,
i.e., human rights law, jus in bello, and jus ad bellum.
To give the new right optimal leverage, this Article also urges certain
structural reforms in the U.N. system. These include the addition of
thematic mandates dedicated to stopping mass atrocities and the creation
of another U.N. court, this one limited exclusively to reviewing and
countermanding, where appropriate, Security Council deadlocks over or
rejections of armed interventions thwarting mass atrocities
