ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses one issue relevant to the calls for change: Should the international community move toward the development of collective mechanisms for authorizing forcible interventions in support of human rights? Thus the Security Council may be able to authorize prophylactic military action aimed at preventing a deterioration of a human rights situation from a threatened to an actual breach of the peace. International law would ironically be transformed from a system of restraints on transboundary projections of military power into a system of affirmative approval for achieving political objectives through forcible means. Regional organizations have been seen as acting contrary to or at least outside of their own charters when they have aided military interventions of this kind. Economic sanctions and other nonforcible measures are quite acceptable methods for enforcement of the full range of international human rights law, whether or not the human rights violations in question endanger international security.
