Peacetime Reprisals Under Article 51: An Argument for Legal Legitimacy in Cases of Terrorism.

摘要

This thesis proposes a change to Article 51 of the UN Charter. The use of peacetime reprisals should be afforded the same legal legitimacy under the Charter as are acts characterized as self-defense in situations of terrorism. in support of this proposal, moral grounds for the use of force in reprisals is presented in a historical perspective. Support for the proposition is next demonstrated in the Linear Model which conceptually demonstrates that self-defense and reprisals are actions triggered by the same events and should be treated similarly because they now carry identical multiple intentions. Next is a description of self-defense and the development of method of analysis for reprisals combining several scholarly methods. Following this is an analysis of three recent US actions which were characterized as self-defense under Article 51 but meet also the reprisal criteria a demonstrate the erosion of any difference between the two uses of force.