When Consent Justifies Force: Rethinking the Foundations of Intervention by Invitation

SEMINAR
Date: Monday 1 June 2026
Time: 17:00 - 18:30
Location: Swedish Defence University, Drottning Kristinas väg 37, Stockholm

The Swedish branch of the International Law Association, in co-operation with the Swedish Defence University and the Stockholm Center for International Law and Justice (SCILJ), invites you to a discussion on "When Consent Justifies Force: Rethinking the Foundations of Intervention by Invitation"

When can a state lawfully invite foreign military forces to use force in its territory? The question is anything but abstract. States often invoke the consent of a host government as a legal justification for the use of force – yet the theoretical foundations for this practice of “intervention by invitation” remain deeply contested. Existing scholarship is divided between those holding that consent-based force simply falls outside the prohibition on the use of force in article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter, and those who treat consent as a circumstance precluding wrongfulness under the law of state responsibility.

Moving beyond the traditional debate, Dr. Manaka Murakado proposes a new framework that incorporates a human-centred perspective. In a forthcoming monograph (Brill), Dr. Murakado argues that the competing traditional approaches rests on the same flawed, state-centric premise. In its place, she advances a dualistic framework that incorporates a human-centred perspective alongside the traditional inter-state one, reframing the theoretical debate and offering new tools for resolving a most pressing and practical question in international law.

Bio

Dr. Manaka Murakado is a Judicial Fellow at the International Court of Justice, where she assists the President of the Court, Judge Yuji Iwasawa. A graduate of Kyoto University and the Hague Academy of International Law, Dr. Murakado is also an Assistant Professor of International Law at Kobe University, where her research focuses on the use of force, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law. She has previously held positions at Kyoto University and a visiting appointment at the Max Planck Institute of Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg.

Registration

Please register your attendance with the Swedish Defence University no later than Wednesday, 27 May 2026, via the following link:

https://survey.fhs.se/Survey/2941

Last updated: 2026-05-20

Source: Stockholm Centre for International Law and Justice