Erika de Wet, 'The (im)permissibility of military assistance on request during a civil war' (2020) 7 Journal on the Use of Force and International Law.
This contribution questions the claim often made in scholarship that the right to self-determination would prevent military assistance at the request of the recognised government during a civil war. Specifically, it argues that the absence of any explicit reliance on the right to self-determination in the reactions of states to military assistance on request of the recognised government, suggests that there is no rule in general international law prohibiting such assistance during a civil war. In so doing, the contribution first outlines the implications of such state conduct from the perspective of opinio juris. Thereafter it illuminates why this conduct can also not be convincingly explained by the existence of counter-terrorism and counter-intervention exceptions to a general prohibition of military assistance during a civil war.
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