Suspending Sovereignty: Reassessing the Interlocking of Occupation, Failed and Fragile State, Responsibility to Protect, and International Trusteeship (Lessons from Lebanon)

Israel Law Review, Vol. 41 (1) 2008

30 Pages Posted: 30 Apr 2013

See all articles by Noemi Gal-Or

Noemi Gal-Or

Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

This Paper argues that the traditional international legal discourse on occupation fails to reflect the condition of international relations, and their governability by international law, at the turn of the 21st century. his Paper suggests re-conceptualizing the concept of occupation by linking it to the discourse of failed and fragile states and the responsibility to protect.

A contemporaneous understanding of occupation needs to reflect its transforming relationship to sovereignty. Occupation represents a state of interference with the external aspect of sovereignty, which ultimately infringes also on the state of internal sovereignty. In contemporary world politics, occupation arises also from a chain of successive situations interfering with sovereignty wherein internal sovereignty becomes “vitiated” (“failed and fragile state”), and creates a condition conducive to interference with external sovereignty. The outcome of this order of impingements on sovereignty represents a state wherein sovereignty was suspended.

The condition of suspended sovereignty triggers the new norm of the responsibility to protect. This Paper submits that re-vitalization of the concepts of leasehold and trusteeship offers an elegant, perhaps face-saving outlet, hence potentially constructive approach to empower the failed and fragile state in re-establishing its sovereign plenary control over its territory and ending an occupation-like situation.

The analysis of the Lebanese situation is an example of the arguments raised in this Paper and does not fit the traditional post World War II (WWII) occupation legal mould for neither belligerent nor non-belligerent occupation. The complex inter-state relationship linking Lebanon-Syria-Iran-Israel, and which is intricately interlaced in a state-to-non-state actor (NSA) web as played out in the relationship between Israel-South Lebanon Army on the one hand, and between Iran, Syria and Lebanon-Hezbollah on the other hand, serve to illustrate the new 21st century conditions. These conditions press for an updating of the traditional understanding of occupation.

Keywords: Sovereignty, State, Responsibility to Protect, International trusteeship, Lebanon

Suggested Citation

Gal-Or, Noemi, Suspending Sovereignty: Reassessing the Interlocking of Occupation, Failed and Fragile State, Responsibility to Protect, and International Trusteeship (Lessons from Lebanon) (2008). Israel Law Review, Vol. 41 (1) 2008, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2238793

Noemi Gal-Or (Contact Author)

Kwantlen Polytechnic University ( email )

12666-72nd Avenue
Surrey, British Columbia V3W 2M8
Canada

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
44
Abstract Views
424
PlumX Metrics