Overt and Covert Interventions Under International Law

Introduction

International law comprises the universal rules and principles guiding the conduct and relations between nation-states and international organizations. The modern concept of international law emerged in the 17th century and has since been accepted as the body of rules governing relations among nation-states. In the contemporary international environment, these rules and principles have become critically important for maintaining international peace and security and for preventing violations and aggression.

The foundational principle of international law prohibits the use of force against other state actors except where the Security Council authorizes military force to restore international peace, or where a state acts in self-defense. In the international arena, nation-states have been found using both overt and covert methods to exercise military interventions against other states. Self-defense is one of the primary factors that provokes a state to resort to such interventions.

The objective of this essay is to investigate the aspects of international law that apply to overt and covert interventions in international relations.

Overview of Overt and Covert Interventions

Overt intervention, within the framework of international law, refers to military actions carried out openly against another state. In other words, overt intervention occurs in plain sight, with a clear and manifest use of military force against another state. The United States' military intervention against Iraq in the 1990s, following Iraq's occupation of Kuwait, is a prominent example of overt intervention. North Korea has similarly demonstrated hostile military actions against South Korea in a fully visible manner.

Covert intervention, by contrast, involves the use of military, economic, and political forces to influence the actions of other states without open manifestation. Berkeley Law (1984) defines covert action as a form of military or political assault that a state carries out against another state in secret, in order to influence that state's conduct. In most cases, covert actions are employed as foreign policy tools against Third World countries or weaker nations. Superpowers such as the United States and France have generally taken advantage of their economic superiority to exploit the economic dependencies of developing countries. An increasing number of states prefer covert interventions over open warfare. Under international law, covert intervention is generally forbidden because states exploit the secrecy associated with such actions to influence the affairs of other states. Consequently, both overt and covert interventions constitute threats to international peace and security.

International Law Governing Overt and Covert Interventions

Different principles of international law address covert and overt interventions. The United Nations Charter prohibits the use of military intervention against another state unless a state acts in self-defense or the UN Security Council authorizes such intervention to maintain international peace and security. Under Article 51 of the UN Charter, a nation-state has the right to use force in response to an armed attack from another state. Article 51 further stipulates that a state may exercise overt military intervention as self-defense when an armed attack is imminent or ongoing.

Armed attacks are not limited to direct strikes on a state's territory; attacks on a state's entities—such as embassies or government agencies—are also considered attacks on the state itself. In such cases, a state may exercise overt military intervention to protect itself. For example, the overt military action against al-Qaeda in 2001 was widely supported and regarded as a legitimate exercise of self-defense given the imminent threat of large-scale terrorist attacks. Security Council Resolutions 1368 (2001) and 1373 (2001) viewed the military intervention against the Taliban as an act of self-defense intended to prevent attacks such as those carried out against the World Trade Center in September 2001.

International law also allows nation-states to use overt intervention to protect their sovereignty. Stratton (2009) states that the rights of a state include sovereignty, equality, and political independence. The concept of sovereignty allows states to exercise military and political control over their own territories while refraining from intervening in the internal affairs of other states. In the contemporary international environment, states bear responsibility for protecting their territorial integrity and may exercise overt military intervention against any state that seeks to interfere in their internal affairs.

Similarly to overt intervention, international law also addresses covert intervention, in which a state uses secrecy to interfere in another country's affairs. The primary purpose of covert action is to influence the affairs of other states, and many states use it to achieve foreign policy objectives. A notable example is Operation Ajax, in which the United Kingdom collaborated with the CIA to remove the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. Both countries carried out this operation because of their substantial interest in Iranian crude oil (Kinzer, 2008).

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia secretly supplied weapons to Afghan resistance forces to counter Soviet military intervention (Johnson & James, 2008).

Conclusion

This essay has discussed the concepts of overt and covert intervention in the international system. Under international law, UN resolutions condemn the use of overt intervention against another state unless such intervention is carried out as an act of self-defense. International law equally condemns the use of covert interventions to influence the conduct of other states. Despite these comprehensive UN resolutions, nation-states continue to use both covert and overt interventions to pursue their national interests.

References

Berkeley Law (1984). Legality of covert action under contemporary international law. Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, 139.

Johnson, L. K., & James, W. (2008). Intelligence and national security. Oxford University Press.

Kinzer, S. (2008). All the Shah's men: An American coup and the roots of Middle East terror. John Wiley & Sons.

Stratton, J. (2009). International law. Hot Topics. State Library of New South Wales.