Includes bibliographical references and index.

Law and force -- The prohibition of the use of force -- Invitation and intervention: civil wars and the use of force -- Self-defence -- Collective self-defence -- The UN and the use of force -- Regional peacekeeping and enforcement action.

"Dramatic events in Kosovo and East Timor have raised fundamental questions about international law on the use of force: was NATO entitled to exercise a right of humanitarian intervention to protect the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo by its bombing campaign? What power did the United Nations have to send a UN force, or to authorize an Australian-led force, to stop the fighting that escalated when the people of East Timor voted for independence?" "This book aims to cover the whole of the large and controversial subject of the use of force in international law; it examines not only the use of force by states but also the role of the UN and regional organizations in the maintenance of international peace and security. The focus is on state practice in the light of doctrinal debates. During the Cold War and the decolonization process states and writers were divided as to the scope of the right of states to use force in self-defence to further self-determination and to intervene in civil wars. It is now time to reappraise these differences and to assess how far the end of the Cold War has brought greater agreement. In recent years there has also been a vast increase in the activity of the UN Security Council. Peacekeeping operations in Yugoslavia, Somalia, and Rwanda, the greater use of enforcement powers by the Security Council (as in the Iraq/Kuwait conflict), greater cooperation with regional organizations (as with ECOWAS in Liberia and Sierra Leone) - all these developments provoke a new debate about the principles that now regulate Security Council operations."--Jacket.