The use of force in international law
◄Previous: Contents

# Introduction

In this free course, The use of force in international law, you will study the law on the use of force. This is one of the central topics in public international law, as it contains the body of principles aimed at ensuring territorial sovereignty and independence of states, which are the main actors in international law.

The prohibition of the use of force and the principle of non-intervention in the internal or external affairs of other states are two of the fundamental principles of international law governing international relations. However, through studying this course, you will discover that the operation of the rules on the use of force is a contentious topic in contemporary international affairs. The traditional set of rules on the use of force is increasingly being challenged in the modern world by complex emergency situations and also by the growing participation of actors other than the states on the international scene, whose presence and acts pose a challenge to the application of international law.

By engaging in online activities and considering the real scenarios presented in this course you will have a chance to experience for yourself how challenging the application of the rules can be and to identify some of the main difficulties that lie ahead. After studying this course, test your knowledge on international law and humanitarian intervention by playing the game Saving Setrus .

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course W821 Exploring the boundaries of international law .

◄Contents►Next: Learning outcomes

OpenLearn - The use of force in international law
Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.