Part 3 The Post 9/11-Era (2001–), 59 The Intervention of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain—2011

Subject(s):

Precedent — International humanitarian law — Use of force, war, peace and neutrality

This contribution examines the Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) Saudi led intervention in Barhrain. Following a brief overview of the events that shook the island in 2011, it analyses the legal arguments brought forth by the main protagonists (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and GCC) to justify the intervention, and the reactions these triggered in the international community. It then discusses the intervention’s legality in light of the different doctrines of ‘intervention by invitation’ in situations of domestic unrest. As a conclusion, it argues that the general lack of attention that this intervention has received on the part of the media and of third states makes its precedential value hard to assess.