Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

On 4 June 1987, five Indian military jets escorted a number of cargo planes carrying food and medical supplies into Sri Lankan airspace. Despite this clear violation of Sri Lankan territorial integrity, the New Delhi government maintained that its actions were "humanitarian assistance" to the beleaguered Tamil civilians under attack by Sri Lankan troops in that country's northern Jaffna peninsula.

Once generally accepted as legal means to protect foreign citizens' from substantial abuses of human rights, humanitarian intervention has fallen into disfavor in the twentieth century.' Perhaps the main deterrent to use of this doctrine is article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits member states from using force in their international relations.' Although the majority of commentators have suggested that no right to violate the national sovereignty of another country exists,4 others have insisted that legitimate instances of humanitarian intervention have survived the passage of the United Nations Charter.' Discussions, however, have focused on military intervention as the means of providing humanitarian assistance and not on non-military intervention.

The use of nonmilitary' intervention to provide nonlethal supplies to the Tamils presents an interesting variation on the traditional intervention doctrine. This comment explores the possibility that the action undertaken by the Indian government, despite its political overtones, is a bona fide instance of humanitarian intervention. Based on an examination of the United Nations Charter and its objectives, on extralegal considerations such as viable alternatives, and moral and general policy concerns, the comment concludes that there is, or at least should be, a place within international law for such humanitarian operations.

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