9 - The Inducement of Oppositional Transitional Governance

Summary

Indirect regime change is, in principle, forbidden under international law because it affects the heart of a state’s domaine réservé. The inducement of oppositional TG aims at indirectly reconfiguring the constitutional order of the target state through TG. Applied as a coercive unilateral measure, it is hard to sustain that this practice complies with the principle of non-intervention. This conclusion suffers a theoretical and rather improbable exception: the scenario of constitutional texts explicitly and directly validating ius cogens violations. Another exception, which could become less theoretical, is when the UNSC induces an oppositional transition under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, or authorises states to do so as a way to cope with a threat to or breach of international peace and security. In such cases, the UNSC could only empower an oppositional TA after a conscientious assessment of the TA’s compliance with ius in interregno.