A Humanitarian Exception: The International Legal Justification for U.S. Military Action Against the Syrian Regime
Journal: eYLS (Yale Law School)
Year: 2021

The United Nations Charter provides that countries are prohibited from the use of force except when done in self-defense or when authorized by the United Nations Security Council. Although the United States’ airstrikes against Syria in 2017 and 2018 did not fit into either of those two exceptions, the airstrikes were legal under international law due to an exception for humanitarian intervention. The question of whether customary international law recognizes such an exception is far from settled