The international law on the use of force is one of the oldest branches of international law. It is an area twinned with the emergence of international law as a concept in itself, and which sees law and politics collide.
The number of armed conflicts is equal only to the number of methodological approaches used to describe them.
Many violent encounters are well known. The Kosovo Crisis in 1999 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 spring easily to the minds of most scholars and academics, and gain extensive coverage in this text. Other conflicts, including the Belgian operation in Stanleyville, and the Ethiopian Intervention in Somalia, are often overlooked to our peril. Ruys and Corten's expert-written text compares over sixty different instances of the use of cross border force since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, from all out warfare to hostile encounters between individual units, targeted killings, and hostage rescue operations, to ask a complex question. How much authority does the power of precedent really have in the law of the use of force?
1: Tom Ruys, Olivier Corten, and Alexandra Hofer: Introduction 2: Michael Wood: The Caroline Incident - 1837 1 - The Cold War Era (1945-1989) 3: Nigel White: The Korean War - 1950-1953 4: Alexandra Hofer: The Suez Canal Crisis - 1956 5: Eliav Lieblich: The Soviet Intervention in Hungary - 1956 6: Ki-Gab Park: The U-2 incident - 1960 7: Robert Kolb: The Belgian Intervention in The Congo - 1960 and 1964 8: Tom Ruys: The Indian Intervention in Goa - 1961 9: Alexander Orakhelashvili: The Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962 10: Douglas Guilfoyle: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident - 1964 11: Christian Walter: The US Intervention in the Dominican Republic - 1965 12: John Quigley: The Six Day War - 1967 13: Gerhard Hafner: The Intervention in Czechoslovakia - 1968 14: Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg: The USS Pueblo Incident - 1968 15: Dino Kristiotis: The Indian Intervention into (East) Pakistan - 1971 16: François Dubuisson and Vaios Koutroulis: The Yom Kippur War - 1973 17: Oliver Dörr: Turkey's intervention in Cyprus - 1974 18: Natalino Ronzitti: The Mayaguez Incident - 1975 19: Claus Kreß and Benjamin K. Nußberger: The Entebbe Raid - 1976 20: Constantine Antonopoulos: The Larnaca Incident - 1978 21: Gregory H. Fox: The Vietnamese Intervention in Cambodia - 1978 22: Kenneth Chan: The Ugandan-Tanzanian War - 1978-1979 23: Myra Williamson: Operation Litani - 1978 24: Myra Williamson: The Lebanon War - 1982 25: Georg Nolte and Janina Barkholdt: The Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan - 1979-1980 26: Mathias Forteau and Alison See Ying Xiu: The US Hostage Rescue Operation in Iran - 1980 27: Andrea de Guttry: The Iran-Iraq War - 1980-1988 28: Tom Ruys: Israel's Air Strike Against Iraq's Osiraq Nuclear Reactor - 1981 29: Jörg Kammerhofer: The US Intervention in Nicaragua - 1981-1988 30: Etienne Henry: The Falklands/Malvinas War - 1982 31: Theresa Reinold: South African Incursions into Lesotho - 1982 32: Nabil Hajjami: The US Intervention in Grenada - 1983 33: Erin Pobjie, Fanny Declercq, and Raphaël Van Steenberghe: The Israeli Raid Against the PLO Headquarters in Tunis - 1985 34: Erin Pobjie, Fanny Declercq, and Raphaël Van Steenberghe: The Killing of Khalil al-Wazir by Israeli Commandos in Tunis - 1988 35: Maurice Kamto: The US Strikes Against Libya - 1986 36: Nicholas Tsagourias: The US Intervention in Panama - 1989 2 - The Post-Cold War Era (1990-2000) 37: Ugo Villani: The ECOWAS Intervention in Liberia - 1990-1997 38: Erika de Wet: The Gulf War - 1990-1991 39: Tarcisio Gazzini: Intervention in Iraq's Kurdish region and the Creation of the No-Fly Zones in Northern and Southern Iraq - 1991-2003 40: Terry D. Gill and Kinga Tibori-Szabó: The Intervention in Somalia 41: Pierre Klein: The Intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina - 1992-1995 42: Paulina Starski: The US Air Strike Against the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters - 1993 43: Susan Breau: The ECOWAS Intervention in Sierra Leone - 1997-1999 44: Enzo Cannizzaro and Aurora Rasi: The US Strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan - 1998 45: Sean D. Murphy: The Eritrean-Ethiopian War - 1998-2000 46: James A. Green: The Great African War and the Intervention by Uganda and Rwanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo - 1998-2003 47: Daniel Franchini and Antonios Tzanakopoulos: The Kosovo crisis - 1999 3 - The Post 9/11-Era (2001-) 48: Michael Byers: The Intervention in Afghanistan - 2001- 49: Marc Weller: The Iraq War - 2003 50: Lindsay Moir: Israeli Air Strikes in Syria - 2003 and 2007 51: Christian J. Tams and Wenke Brückner: The Israeli Intervention in Lebanon - 2006 52: Kimberley N. Trapp: The Turkish Intervention Against the PKK in Northern Iraq - 2007-2008 53: Mónica Pinto and Marcos Kotlik: 'Operation Phoenix' - the Colombian Raid Against the FARC in Ecuador - 2008 54: Christine Gray: The Conflict in Georgia - 2008 55: Christian Henderson: Israeli Military Operations Against Gaza: Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012) and Operation Protective Edge (2014) 56: Ashley Deeks: The NATO Intervention in Libya - 2011 57: David Kretzmer: US Extra-Territorial Actions against Individuals: Bin Laden, Al Awlaki, and Abu Khattalah 58: Dire Tladi: The Intervention in Côte d'Ivoire - 2011 59: Agatha Verdebout: The Intervention of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain - 2011 60: Jean-Christophe Martin: The Ethiopian Military Intervention in Somalia - 2011 61: Karine Bannelier and Théodore Christakis: The Intervention of France and African Countries in Mali 2013 62: Anne Lagerwall: Threats of and Actual Military Strikes against Syria - 2013 and 2017 63: Mary Ellen O'Connell: The Crisis in Ukraine - 2014 64: Olivier Corten: The Military Operations against the 'Islamic State' (ISIL or Da'esh) - 2014 65: Luca Ferro and Tom Ruys: The Saudi-Led Military Intervention in Yemen's Civil War - 2015 66: Mohamed S. Helal: The ECOWAS Intervention in the Gambia - 2016
Olivier Corten teaches public international law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and is co-director of the Revue Belge de Droit International. He is the author or co-author of ten books and of more than one hundred and fifty articles. Tom Ruys studied Law and International Relations at the Universities of Ghent, Nottingham, and Leuven. He joined the faculty of law at the University of Ghent as a tenure-track professor within the department of public international law. Tom Ruys is the author of several publications and has been awarded the Lieber Prize by the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the International Law Association's Committee on the Use of Force, Co-Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of the Use of Force and International Law, and a member of the editorial board of the Revue Belge de Droit International. Assistant editor Alexandra Hofer is a Doctoral Researcher in the Faculty of Law, in the Department of European, Public and International Law at the University of Ghent.
Reviews for The Use of Force in International Law: A Case-Based Approach
"a rich resource for students and practitioners of the law on the use of force and is likely to remain the standard reference text for examples of ""state practice"" in this area of law for years to come. * Victor Kattan, Chinese Journal of International Law *"
