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Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]

Self-Defence

Christopher Greenwood

Content type:
Encyclopedia entries
Product:
Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law [MPIL]

Module:
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law [MPEPIL]
Article last updated:
April 2011

From: Oxford Public International Law (http://opil.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved.date: 03 December 2023

Subject(s):
Self-defence — Armed attack — Collective security — Necessity — Conduct of hostilities — Military necessity

Published under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law under the direction of Professor Anne Peters (2021–) and Professor Rüdiger Wolfrum (2004–2020). 

1 The right of a State to use force in self-defence is long-established in customary international law. Nevertheless, while it can be traced back at least as far as the correspondence between the United Kingdom and United States governments regarding the Caroline incident in 1837 (Caroline, The), its importance in the 19th century was limited by the fact that international law then recognized a general right of resort to war, so that self-defence was significant (at least in legal, as opposed to political, terms) only with regard to lesser instances of the use of...
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