INTERVENTO, PRINCIPLE OF NON-INTERVENTION. - In international law the juridical figure of intervention arises when one State intrudes into the internal affairs of another in order to obtain a particular conduct from it.
Intervention is in conformity with law, and therefore legitimate, when it does not injure that freedom of action which international law recognizes for every State; unlawful in the opposite case. In practice, intervention is regarded as an instrument both for the protection of subjective rights and for that of mere international interests.
In the first case, and on this the doctrine is in agreement, intervention is lawful when it is justified by a particular conventional norm. Of particular interest in this connection are those treaties that establish a control or an economic-financial regime between States, very numerous in being or in project in recent times and in which an attempt is also made to find a common basis on which to build an international community, or for the moment only a European one. Besides particular treaties, intervention may be contemplated by treaties of a general character: typical among these was the Covenant of the League of Nations, officially dissolved on 18 Apr. 1946 following the creation of the Statute, or Charter, of the United Nations, signed by fifty States on 26 June 1945 and entering into force on the following 24 Oct.
Furthermore, intervention may be determined by a general international norm. Thus the doctrine examines whether the injury of another's right can become lawful or not prohibited when it is connected with self-protection, legitimate defense and the state of necessity. The lawfulness of intervention is generally recognized when it is the consequence of the violation of a subjective right of the intervening State committed by the State against which the intervention is directed. The same may be said for intervention caused by legitimate defense, that is, in those cases in which it is intended to protect the territory, the citizens or the goods of the intervening State. It is disputed whether intervention can be legitimized by the state of necessity, since the assessment of the gravity of the threat affecting the intervening State is made by that State itself and therefore a political exigency rather than a juridical justification may be concealed in it.
In the second case, that is, when intervention is directed to the defense not of subjective rights but of mere international interests, the true problem of its admissibility or lawfulness arises, in the face of the numerous actions of States that exert pressure on the conduct of another State to compel it to adopt a behavior conforming to their interests without a juridical title.
Two contending theories dispute the field. One, called the general theory of intervention, regards it as a lawful means for the protection of international interests, even without a juridical title admitting it. To this theory it may be objected that it has not yet been possible to demonstrate the existence of even a single interest for whose protection a State is authorized by international law to injure another's right. An act of this kind would not only be opposed to the fundamental right to freedom, but would also violate justice and the international order, which have their foundation, or rather their juridical character, in the universal natural law.
The other theory, defined as the general theory of non-intervention, condemned by Pius IX (allocution Nocax et ante of 28 Sept. 1860, Syllabus, prop. LXII), considering as unlawful, in deference to respect for the sphere of freedom left to every State by international law, every intervention that is not founded on a juridical title (whether this be a general norm of international law or a special conventional norm), denies the possibility of juridically constructing intervention as a means of protection of interests not recognized by international law. Still in deference to the uncertain positivist spirit that informs the present international juridical order, intervention could not be justified even for humanitarian reasons, that is, in cases in which the fundamental rights of man were violated. To this erroneous principle of non-intervention it may be objected that when a grave and reasonable cause exists, which certainly must not be reduced to the defense of a pure and simple interest, it is lawful, and in some cases even obligatory, to intervene in the internal and external affairs of other States.
The ways in which intervention may be carried out are most varied, but in general it must be borne in mind that the acts by which it is manifested must always conform to customary or particular international law.
From intervention, which consists properly in the use of coercive means or in the threat of resorting to them, one must distinguish, for example, the offer of a mediation, protests made by means of diplomatic notes, the breaking of diplomatic relations and so on; finally, intervention cannot and must not be identified with war, which is an institution unto itself, both because of the causes that may determine it, and because of the manner in which it must be conducted, and finally because of its effects.
Historically, a first enunciation of the principle of non-intervention is found in the Peace of Westphalia signed on 24 Oct. 1648, albeit limited to religious conflicts. The implementation of this principle in the properly political field occurs when, at the end of the 18th century, France risen from the Revolution wishes to react against the intervention of the European Powers aiming to restore the French monarchy, and it was studied in a particular way in the first half of the 19th century when the members of the Holy Alliance sanctioned its lawfulness in cases in which revolutionary movements in other States endangered legitimate principles.
The attempt at intervention in favor of Spain against the revolutionary movements of the South American colonies provoked the message of 2 Dec. 1823 of President Monroe which gave life to the doctrine of the non-intervention of the European Powers in American questions, while reserving to the United States of America the faculty of intervening in the affairs of the other American States. In the second half of the 19th century interventions occur particularly against religious oppressions and those of ethnic minorities. In the period closer to us, intervention tends also to change form: from armed it generally becomes diplomatic, to return to being armed in the first world conflict of 1914-18. Passing to our own days, from the very beginning of the second world conflagration a clearly interventionist program is observed which, after the end of the war, assumes characteristics of various kinds (economic aid, political-military, etc.).
Nevertheless the general principle of non-intervention is once again enunciated in art. 2, no. 7 of the Statute of the United Nations (1945): "Nothing contained in the present Statute shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State." A principle, which has received new confirmation from the facts that are unfolding in these very latest times in Korea.
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