El Alegato de Estado de Necesidad: Un marco jurídico digerible para la legítima defensa extraterritorial contra Actores No Estatales
| Autor | Moisés Montiel Mogollón |
| Cargo | LL.B. (Universidad Central de Venezuela), LL.M. (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University) |
| Páginas | 15-35 |
IUS ET VERITAS 63
15
Revista IUS ET VERITAS Nº 63, diciembre 2021 / ISSN 1995-2929 (impreso) / ISSN 2411-8834 (en línea)
https://doi.org/10.18800/iusetveritas.202102.001
The Plea of State of Necessity: A palatable normative
framework for extraterritorial self-defense against Non-
State Actors(*)(**)
El Alegato de Estado de Necesidad: Un marco jurídico digerible para la
legítima defensa extraterritorial contra Actores No Estatales
Moisés Montiel Mogollón(***)
Universidad Iberoamericana (Ciudad de México, México)
Abstract: The UN Charter law governing self-defense is inadequate to address
emerging modalities of armed violence caused by non-State actors located in the
territory of non-consenting third States. This paper offers an alternative grounded in the
state of necessity as a circumstance excluding wrongfulness as per the law of State
responsibility. The contention is that in integrating the rationale behind necessity as an
excuse for non-performance of obligations and the conditions and processes under
article 51 of the UN Charter, the law allows for an exercise of extraterritorial self-
defense against non-State actors which safeguards the territorial State’s sovereignty
and the need for a legal alternative of defense for the defending State without toeing the
line of aggression.
Keywords: Self-Defense - Non-state Actors - State responsibility - State of Necessity -
United Nations Security Council
Resumen: El régimen de la Carta de la ONU que tutela la legítima defensa es
inadecuado para lidiar con las modalidades emergentes de violencia armada causada
por actores no estatales situados en el territorio de un tercer Estado que no consiente a
intervención. Este artículo ofrece una alternativa basada en el estado de necesidad
como excluyente de la ilicitud de acuerdo con el régimen de la Responsabilidad
Internacional del Estado. La proposición es que, al integrar el razonamiento que
soporta a la necesidad como excusa para el incumplimiento de obligaciones y las
condiciones y procesos existentes en el marco del artículo 51 de la Carta de la ONU, el
derecho internacional permite el ejercicio de legítima defensa extraterritorial contra
actores no estatales que salvaguarda la soberanía del Estado territorial y la necesidad
de una alternativa legal de defensa para el Estado atacado sin cruzar la línea de la
agresión.
Palabras clave: Legítima Defensa - Actores no Estatales - Responsabilidad
Internacional del Estado - Estado de Necesidad - Consejo de Seguridad de las
Naciones Unidas
(*) Editorial Team note: This article was received on September 2, 2021 and its publication was approved on November 28, 2021.
(**) The author wishes to thank Santiago Vargas Niño and Alonso Gurmendi for their invaluable input in putting this piece together in
are the author’s own.
(***) LL.B. (Universidad Central de Venezuela), LL.M. (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University). Adjunct Professor of Treaty
Lotus Soluciones Legales (Mexico City, Mexico). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9042-4098. Email address: mmontiel@up.edu.
mx.
16 IUS ET VERITAS 63
Moisés Montiel Mogollón
Revista IUS ET VERITAS Nº 63, diciembre 2021 / ISSN 1995-2929 (impreso) / ISSN 2411-8834 (en línea)
1. Introduction
To the best of current knowledge (Haque, 2021) (Modirzad eh,
2021) there is no normative enshrinement of th e right self-
defense against non-S tate actors operating fro m the territory
of a third-State wit hout the need for consent of the te rritorial
State (Paddeu, 2020)(1) that is gener ally accepted or free from
contestation. As last Februar y’s Security Council Ar ria-formula
meeting(2) made evident, the arti culations of normativity are not
enough in number or magnitude to show a c ustomary extension
of the right enshrined in ar ticle 51 of the UN Charter (Montiel,
2021), and State practice is far from general o r consistent. The
by prof. Modirzadeh as one of sile nce (Modirzadeh, 2021). The
result of this is that the Char ter law governing self-defense
must be held to operate only among S tates for the time being.
Seeing as the joint reading of ar ticles 2(4) and 51 of the UN
Charter counterintuitively restrict self-defense to inter-State
exchanges, and despite some ambiguous language by the
UNSC on the issue(3) (Zic cardi, 2007), the fact of the m atter
is that self-defense agai nst non-State actor s in the territory of
third-State run s counter to the prohibition o n the use of force
and is outside of the person al scope of application of article
51. However, if the law governing the use of forc e fates States
hands tied, then, binding as it may be, it bec omes a hindrance
in the performan ce of duties owed to citizens and an ena bler
of irregular threats whic h empties the text and spirit of the UN
Charter and the core p rinciples of modern international law.
Such a position would also be in consistent with the
expansive caveat included in ar ticle 4 of A/R ES/3314 (XXIX),
which could be reasonab ly interpreted to include -to bo rrow
aggression does- th e inaction or toleration of i rregular forces,
armed bands, or mercena ries meaning to violate the territorial
integrity of a third State. A lso, the latter document uph olds
the duty of a State to refrain “ from acquiescing in o rganized
activities within its te rritory directe d towards the commission
of such [acts of civil strife or te rrorist acts in another S tate],
when the acts referred to in t he present paragraph involve a
threat or use of force” (UN, 1975). It is worth not ing that the
Annex to resolution A /RES/2625 (X XV) seems to be one of
the likeliest candidates to be c onsidered jus
cogens and thus occu pies a place of honor as
far as norms go, as evidenced by the Four th
Report of the Internati onal Law Commission
on Peremptory Norms of G eneral International
Law (ius cogens) on 2019 (International Law
Commission, 2019), and, in any event, it is
an indisputable expression of cornerstone
principles of international law.
From the above observed, the onus seem s
to be on the territorial S tate to prevent and
deter the attack by non- State Actors (NSAs
going forward) upon the t hreatened State.
This much can be easily infer red. However,
this paper is not concer ned with the duty of
the territorial St ate to avoid irregular armed
integrity or the polit ical independence of third
States. It attempts to deal wit h the question
of resources available to the thir d State in
question -the recipi ent of the attack- when
the attack by NSAs is immine nt or actual
and the territorial St ate fails to carry out
its duties to prevent the attack. S urely, the
answer cannot be, as pointed above, that
the would-be victi m is powerless to preempt,
halt, or repel the attac k. But, then again, such
an action appears to be at odds w ith article
51, which normatively excludes instances of
self-defense against ac tors other than States.
What if the answer to this conundr um is not
to be found on article 51 of the Const itution of
the UN, but rather on a simulta neously older
and newer regime?
This piece posits that t he breach of
obligations owed to the terr itorial integrity
and sovereignty of the territ orial State where
the criteria of the state of n ecessity under the
regime of State responsibili ty is met. While
some authors opine that th e regime of State
responsibility is incompatible with the activity
(1) Notwithstanding some attempts framed as customary law, such as those of the Caroline and Gorostiza Standards, which will be
discussed infra, especially in their allegedly normative dimension.
a message. They provide interested Council members an opportunity to engage in a direct dialogue with high representatives of
Governments and international organizations - often at the latter’s request - as well as non-State parties, on matters with which they
are concerned and which fall within the purview of responsibility of the Security Council” (UN, 2021, par. 2).
(3) See UNSC Resolutions S/RES/1373 (2001) of September 28th 2001 and S/RES/1368 (2001) in their preambulatory clauses.
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