The self-defense is the legal and immediate authorization to defend oneself, including by employing means which would be prohibited in other circumstances. The concept applies as well to the individuals as in the States. In both cases, it can be employed even if the recourse to the force is normally prohibited.

Concerning the individuals

All the modern legislations admit that there is neither Crime nor Délit when wounds, the blows even possibly the Homicide are ordered by the need for defending oneself or to protect others.

• So that the action is regarded as a defense legitimates, it must act of a situation of defense, the person must answer an aggression, be attacked in first or else she is itself an attacker.
• the danger must appear imminent with the attacked person: it is at the time of the attack that it is necessary to be defended, not after (what would be then of revenge, a premeditated act); the action must once stop the person neutralized or in escape.
• In addition, it must have there proportion between the means of defense employed and the gravity of the incurred danger.

Concerning the goods

In France (Article L 122-5 al .2 of the Penal code) or in Belgium, it is allowed to defend its goods by any means (subject to the limitations above) other that a voluntary manslaughter. So concerning the defense of the individuals, the law has a presumption of proportionality in favor of the victim of the aggression, it belongs to the person requiring the benefit of the self-defense to prove that its response was well measured compared to the aggression relating to it self-defense of the goods. The self-defense can be allowed as regards attack with the goods only when the made act has the aim of stopping the execution of a crime or an offense (CA Toulouse, 3rd CH., January 24th, 2002). With the the United States of America, the definition of the right of self-defense varies according to the States; it extends sometimes to the goods.

In public international law

The concept of self-defense was introduced in international law parallel to prohibition of the recourse to the armed force, of which it is the counterpart. It took place in several stages. The article first of the second Convention of $the Hague (1907), known as Drago-To carry, stipulates that the contracting parties are “agreed not to have recourse to the armed force for the recovery of contractual debts claimed with the government of a country by the government of another country like due to its nationals. ”

However, the first real pact is the pact of the Société of the Nations (June 28th, 1919) by which the States accept restrictions on the recourse to the war. It distinguishes illicit wars and licit wars, of which it self-defense forms part implicitly. In the Pact Briand-Kellogg (August 26th, 1928), the recourse to the force for self-defense is also allowed.

Lastly, Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations (June 26th, 1945), while clarifying the right of self-defense, extends it to the collective self-defense:

No provision of this Charter undermines the natural right of self-defense, individual or collective, if a Member of the United Nations is the object of an armed aggression, until the Safety advice took the necessary measures to maintain peace and safety international.

As in civil law, the right of self-defense is defined like an exception to the principle of not-recourse to the force; its exercise must be proportioned with the undergone aggression and the response must be immediate. In Article 1 of resolution 3314 of December 14th, 1974, the the United Nations specify the circumstances necessary:

The aggression is the use of the armed force by a State against sovereignty, the territorial integrity or the political independence of another State, or a any other way incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, as it arises from this definition.

Thus, an invasion, but also a blockade or a bombardment are an aggression. The stop military and paramilitary Activités in Nicaragua of the the International Court of Justice (June 27th, 1986) adds to it “the sending by an armed State or on its behalf of bands and groups (…) against another State of a gravity such as it is equivalent to a true aggression achieved by regular forces. ” On the other hand, UNO refused the request of the countries of the Tiers-Monde to add to the list the ideological or economic aggression.

The collective self-defense consists of faculty for a State not directly attacked to intervene in the name of agreements of defense the binder to the attacked country. He was called upon by the United States with the Lebanon in 1958, the Vietnam and Saint-Domingue, against the Nicaragua in 1985, and by the the USSR to justify his interventions with Prague (1968) and in Afghanistan (1979). To justify their intervention in Vietnam, the United States called upon a concept of permanent self-defense, justified according to them, by the continuous incursions of armed bands come from North. This concept was however never devoted in public international law.

Lastly, it preventive self-defense was called upon by Israel with three recoveries:

• in 1967 against the Egypt (War the Six Day old);
• in 1975 against the Palestinian camps in Lebanon;
• in 1981 against Iraq (destruction of a suitable nuclear reactor for military use).

It also was evoked by the United States with the address of its internal opinion (and not in front of the Safety advice) at the time of the Guerre in Iraq (2003-2005). This design of the self-defense was rejected as of the beginning by the majority of the States.

See too

Internal bond

• criminal Law French

• personal Defense