leading to the statistics of Pattison’s research. To further support my argument, I believe Christopher Greenwood’s summary of the crucial prioritisation of UN principles suitably outlines the legal legitimacy of UN humanitarian military interventions; “the law on humanitarian intervention has changed both for the United Nations and for individual states. It is no longer tenable to assert that whenever a government massacres its own people or a state collapses into international anarchy international law forbids military intervention altogether.” 288 If the late 20 th Century tragedies of South Vietnam, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Northern Iraq and Rwanda have taught the international community anything, it is the need for legal reform regarding the right to intervene. Thankfully from the 1990’s; the Golden Age for humanitarian intervention 289 and the expansion of security threats, legitimacy for intervention encompassed such criminal acts, thus preventing further human suffering. With such a broad spectrum of what constitutes a threat to international peace and security, justifications provided by the UN for the numerous interventions throughout the 1990’s have subsequently caused vast opposition on legal grounds. Even from within the UN, members such as China and Russia often use their right to veto a resolution such as military intervention, leading to other international organisations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO) carrying out operations without the consensus of the UN Security Council (UNSC). This was seen in 1999 when a UN resolution to carry out aerial bombardments of Serbian strategic positions was 288 Christopher Greenwood, ‘Is there a Right of Humanitarian Intervention?’, The World Today , 49.2, (1993), pp.40. 289 Richard Falk, ‘Humanitarian Intervention: A Forum’, Global Policy Forum, (July 14 th , 2003), <https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/154/26032.html> [accessed, 08/04/2016]
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