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This Article argues that international human rights law, and the human rights movement more generally, need more defenders than critics in the current international political environment. Groups ranging from academics to governments have taken stances critical of human rights, and this Article seeks to defend the rights framework from some of these while also arguing for the importance of human rights in today's world. Noting that the field of human rights is not beyond criticism, this Article embraces some of those criticisms. However, it suggests that human rights law specialists need to spend at least as much time defending human rights law, and the universality of human rights, as they do criticizing it. Moreover, their criticisms need to be grounded in the reality of the theory and practice of human rights law to be useful and advance human dignity. Decontextualized hypercriticism risks playing into the hands of antirights actors, including some contemporary governments, as well as diverse fundamentalists and extremists.

This Article examines whether contemporary international law is equipped to address the recurrent phenomenon of covert involvement by a state in internal conflicts of another state. Ms. Michael analyzes this phenomenon in the context of United States assistance to the Contras in collective self-defense on behalf of El Salvador, and Nicaragua's concomitant support of the Salvadoran Rebels' attempts to overthrow the existing El Salvador Government. Ms. Michael summarizes the extensive history of conflict between the United States and Nicaragua culminating in the contemporary dispute existing between the Reagan Administration and the Sandinista Government. Both the Sandinistas and the Reagan Administration charged the other with violating international law through waging an unlawful war of indirect aggression. In outlining the basic substantive and procedural requirements of international law imposed on any exercise of individual or collective self-defense, Ms. Michael examines governing provisions of the United Nations and Organization of American States Charters. The Article then addresses three substantive requirements under customary international law entitling individual or collective self-defense: 1) a state must exhaust peaceful procedures; 2) the responsive measure of force employed must be necessary; and 3) a defensive use of force must be proportional to the character and magnitude of the attack. Ms. Michael next appraises the merits of the Reagan Administration's position supporting the Contras in light of these governing legal principles. Ms. Michael concludes that the actual context underlying the dispute between the Sandinistas and the Reagan Administration indicates that neither government had "clean hands" in Central America, with the United States becoming another aggressor in the conflict.

International humanitarian law is increasingly perceived as part of human rights law applicable in armed conflict. This trend can be traced back to the United Nations Human Rights Conference held in Tehran in 1968 which not only encouraged the development of humanitarian law itself, but also marked the beginning of a growing use by the United Nations of humanitarian law during its examination of the human rights situation in certain countries or during its thematic studies. The greater awareness of the relevance of humanitarian law to the protection of people in armed conflict, coupled with the increasing use of human rights law in international affairs, means that both these areas of law now have a much greater international profile and are regularly being used together in the work of both international and non-governmental organizations.