Particularities of Legal Regulation of the International Operations

Abstract

A number of international conflicts and identified new threats encouraged international organizations such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to develop the concept of international assistance force in order to contribute to the principle task of the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – to maintain international peace and security. Another concept, i.e. legality of the use of force, has to be developed hand in hand with these new developments. Naturally, the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations were bound to respect the provisions of the UN Charter; however, certain functions attributed to the newly established UN peacekeeping force constituted a result of the development of the political climate. From the historical point of view, towards the development of international operations the authors of the article examine particular cases related to the use of international task forces and also the question of legality of use of force and review national legal regulation of the participation in international operations.
With regard to the national regulation of Lithuanian participation in international operations, it must be noted that national legal basis enable to deploy national forces according to the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. This procedure is applicable to the cases of collective defence and other international operations. Thus, only Parliament is authorised to take decisions on the deployment of national military personnel to international operations. In order to deploy troops, the decision on participation in international operations, exercises and other military events is taken by Parliament upon the recommendation of the President. Then, Parliament adopts the decision by setting forth the maximum number of the military personnel able to take part in international operations, the maximum duration of participation, the geographical location (permissible places of dislocation). In order to allocate the troops for exact operation acting within the parliamentary mandate, the Minister of National Defence is taking the decision, which determines the exact number of the troops to be deployed, the defined time period of deployment of national forces and the exact place of deployment (where operations take place). It must be concluded that the current legal regulation corresponds to the constitutional principles and separation of powers.