UN General Assembly
1991

"The international community therefore must provide itself with sufficient means to make States violating human rights change their behaviour when confidential procedures or pressure from public opinion are ineffective. He clearly see a role for the Security Council in this field. Prior multilateral approval of interventions is desirable in almost all cases. In certain extremely urgent and flagrant cases, a State should be allowed to intervene on its own initiative to protect human rights. Such an intervention could be legitimate when, for example, citizens of that State outside its borders are subjected to gross and systematic violations of their basic human rights. Such situations generally arise in times of war or civil war, when State authority collapses, or when States obstruct the delivery of the necessary humanitarian aid. But even in those cases it is of course indispensable for the State carrying out the intervention to submit its actions within a reasonable time limit to the Security Council. Such unilateral intervention should, moreover, be discussed and monitored by the relevant regional forums.