284 Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos Núm. 1 / 2013 resort to military action provided that the threat is imminent, there is no other way of preventing it and the action is proportional”.13 In this way it re-asserts the traditional requirements of necessity and proportionality and adds that the concept of an “armed attack” also includes the threat of an imminent attack.14 The Secretary General also reached the conclusion that imminent threats are contained in Article 51.15 Faced with a restrictive conception of self-defence, which starts from an objective requirement (the existence of a consummated armed attack), anticipatory self-defence implies accepting a condition of subjective appreciation (the imminent threat of the attack) with the risks inherent to this process.16 The doctrine has expressed a division about the issue of whether imminent threats are included or not in the concept of an armed attack for the purposes of self-defence. There are authors and international practice that have assumed –from the time that the Charter came into effect- that the self-defence concept can cover a response to an imminent threat of an armed attack, depending on the circumstances17. One of the arguments set out to support this thesis states that the rights existing in general International Law before the Charter should be presumed to be in force, unless the charter expressly states to the contrary: insofar as the International general law that was recognised before 1945 grants a right to anticipatory self-defence, and it should be considered that this persists.18 In addition, the right of-defence faced with an imminent attack has been justified in the necessity to adapt it to new circumstances, such as the proliferation and the increase in the destructive capacity of weapons, which would cast 13 A more secure world, para. 188 14 La Resolución 3314(XXIX), on the adoption of aggression, can also be interpreted in this way. It can be observed from this resolution that the first use of force is not necessarily an act of aggression, and the Security Council is responsible for deciding about it in light of other pertinent circumstances. 15 A braoder cocept of liberty, para. 124. 16 This is the interpretation offered by REISMANN, Michael. “Assesing Claims to Revise the Law of War”, American Journal of International Law, 2003, p. 84. 17 REMIRO BROTÓNS, A. et. al.. Derecho Internacional. Curso General International La. General Course, Valencia, Tirant Lo Blanch, 2010, p. 674; BERMEJO GARCIA, Romualdo. El marco jurídico internacional en materia de uso de la fuerza: ambigüedades y límites The international legal framework on the use of force: ambiguities and limits}, Madrid, Civitas, 1993, p. 293; GREENWOOD, Christopher. “International Law and the Pre-emptive Use of Force: Afghanistan, Al-Qaida, and Iraq”, 4 San Diego International Law Journal, 2003, p. 15; WALDOCK, C. Humphrey. The Regulation of the Use of Force by Individual States in International Law, Recueil des Cours II ,pp. 451, 496-97. There are cases in which the evidence of imminence seem to be abundant (Israel in the Six-day War) or in which military ction in self-defence is done with a certain degree of containment in mind (the Cuban blockade in the missile crisis). But the clear examples of the exception. In fact, even these two cases are questioned by some authors as valid examples. 18 BERMEJO GARCIA, Romualdo, El marco jurídico internacional… The international legal framework…}op. cit., p. 228; DINSTEIN, Yoram. War, Aggresion and Self-Defence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 2001, p. 167; VAN DEN HOLE, Leo. “Anticipatory Self-Defence Under International Law”, op. cit., p. 73.
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