SARChI Professor Awarded DAAD Scholarship

Posted on August 22, 2018

Prof. Erika de Wet, SARChI Professor of International Constitutional Law, has been awarded a prestigious German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) scholarship in the category Research Stays for University Academics and Scientists. Prof. De Wet, who is an NRF-A-rated scholar, will take up the scholarship from October through December 2018 at the University of Bonn, where she is also Honorary Professor. During this time she will work on a monograph on ‘Intervention by Invitation and the Use of Force’ which is under contract with Oxford University Press and due for submission in 2019.

The book project examines whether and to what extent the traditional customary international law criteria for permissible military intervention by invitation are (still) implemented by States in the twenty-first century. In addition, it explores how such application impacts the prohibition of the use of force. Controversies concern in particular the determination of the authority entitled to extend the invitation, as recently illustrated by the Russian claim that its military intervention in the Crimea was based on the invitation of (former) President Yanukovych. Notably, the question arises as to whether the inviting authority needs to enjoy democratic legitimacy and/or be in de facto control of a State’s territory. Furthermore, it remains highly contentious whether an invitation for forcible intervention may be extended during a civil war (non-international armed conflict), as is recently or currently the case in inter alia Libya, Iraq, Syria, South Sudan and Yemen.

A further, related question concerns whether forcible intervention by invitation would be illegal under international law, if the inviting government is implicated in wide-spread violations of humanitarian and/or human rights law. Challenges also exist in determining whether an invitation to militarily intervene was underpinned by freely-given consent; whether any formal requirements are necessary for extending or terminating an invitation for forcible intervention; as well as if and to what extent there are overlaps between intervention by invitation and the right to self-defence.

- Author SARChI Professorship in International Constitutional Law

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