the united nations security council and war the evolution of thought and practice since 1945 aug 2008

ONUSAL United Nations Observer Mission to El SalvadorONUVEN United Nations Mission for the Verification of Elections in NicaraguaOSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

THE UNITED NATIONS

SECURITY COUNCIL AND WAR

research group located at the University of Oxford, and funded by theLeverhulme Trust.

THE UNITED

NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL AND WAR

The Evolution of Thought

and Practice since 1945

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A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s

This volume originated in a seminar series on ‘The UN Security Council and War’,held at Oxford University under the aegis of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme onthe Changing Character of War in 2004 and 2005 In light of the high quality of thepapers, and the range of new questions they raised about the relationship betweenthe Security Council and war, we decided to continue the project, to commissionfurther research and contributions, and to publish the best of the resulting material

We are very grateful to Sir Frank Berman for his generous comments and hiscontribution of the section on accountability to the introduction, and to Sir MichaelWood, whose comments on a range of chapters and on the introduction have beenenormously helpful Col Christopher Langton of the International Institute forStrategic Studies, London, has provided valuable help on Appendix 7 We alsothank Tarun Chhabra, Par Engstrom, Carolyn Haggis, Taylor Owen, Miriam Prys,and Matias Spektor, all doctoral students at the Department of Politics and Inter-national Relations at Oxford, who provided valuable research assistance for some ofthe chapters and for the appendices, as well as Emily Paddon, who translated the firstdraft of Chapter 20 from French into English For his work on several of theappendices, we also thank John Dunbabin Special thanks go to Devika Hovell, adoctoral student at Balliol College, who has done more than we could have asked ofher in helping to prepare the chapters for publication Finally, we would like to thankall those who participated in the seminar series and commented on the papers,including Chaloka Beyani, Jeremy Carver, Valpy FitzGerald, Yuen Foong Khong,Charles Garraway, Ian Hurd, Andrew Hurrell, Laura James, Neil MacFarlane, PriyanjaliMalik, Jochen Prantl, Henry Shue, and Stefan Talmon

Our work for this book benefited from much help from the library staff in fourmajor libraries in Oxford: the Law Library, the Social Sciences Library, theCodrington Library at All Souls College, and the Bodleian Library – the latterbeing a depositary library for UN papers as well as holding valuable archives in theUnited Nations Career Records Project

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the generous financial support that thisproject received from the Centre for International Studies and the Oxford Lever-hulme Programme on the Changing Character of War, both of which are at theDepartment of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University Withouttheir support, this volume would not have been possible

J a c k e t I l l u s t r a t i o n

The Security Council Chamber,

31January 1992

At the Council’s first summit-level meeting, the fifteen member states wererepresented by thirteen heads of state and government, plus two foreign ministers.This gathering, at a high point of optimism about the UN, issued a declaration onthe central role of the Council in maintaining world peace and upholding theprinciple of collective security The declaration also invited Secretary-GeneralBoutros Boutros-Ghali to make recommendations on strengthening the UN’scapacity in peacekeeping, peace-making, and preventive diplomacy This led tothe publication in June 1992 of An Agenda for Peace, with a set of ambitiousproposals to enhance the capacity of the UN to respond to the challenges of thepost-Cold War world

The mural, by the Norwegian artist Per Krogh (1889–1965), encapsulates anearlier vision of a reformed world It depicts a phoenix rising from its ashes, as asymbol of the world being rebuilt after the Second World War Above the darksinister colours at the bottom, different images in bright colours illustrate hopes for

a better future Equality is symbolized by a group of people weighing out grain forall to share (UN Photo/Milton Grant)

C o n t e n t s

2 A Council for All Seasons: The Creation of the Security Council

6 The Security Council, the General Assembly, and War: The Uniting

Dominik Zaum

7 The Security Council and Peacekeeping 175Mats Berdal

8 The Sanctions Era: Themes and Trends in UN Security Council

David Cortright, George A Lopez,

andLinda Gerber-Stellingwerf

9 The Security Council’s Authorization of Regional Arrangements

Peter Carey with Pat Walsh

Charles Tripp

17 The Security Council and the 1991 and 2003 Wars in Iraq 384James Cockayne and David M Malone

18 The Security Council and the Wars in the Former Yugoslavia 406Susan L Woodward

19 The Security Council and the Bosnian Conflict: A Practitioner’s View 442Rupert Smith

5 Vetoed Resolutions in the UN Security Council, 1945–2006 688

A c r o n y m s

These acronyms are used in the text of the book Certain other UN bodies, withtheir acronyms, appear in the appendices

AFSOUTH Allied Forces South Europe

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

BELISI Peace-Truce Monitoring Group in Bougainville

CFI Court of First Instance of the European Communities

ECOMICI ECOWAS Mission in Cote d’Ivoire

ETA Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque separatist terrorist group)

FRAPH Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti

Fretilin Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor

GRULAC Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries

ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization

ICFY International Conference on the former Yugoslavia

ICISS International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former YugoslaviaIDEA International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance

IFIs International financial institutions

INTERFET International Force in East Timor

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

KFOR Kosovo Force

LURD Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy

MFO Sinai Multinational Force and Observers Sinai

MICIVIH International Civilian Mission in Haiti

MINUCI United Nations Mission in Coˆte d’Ivoire

MINUGUA United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala

MINURCA United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic

MINURSO United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western SaharaMINUSTAH United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti

MISAB Mission Interafricaine de Surveillance des Accords de Bangui

MONUA United Nations Observer Mission in Angola

MONUC United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic

Republic of Congo

MPRI Military Professional Resources Inc

NPFL National Patriotic Front of Liberia

OCHA United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian

Affairs

ONUCA United Nations Observer Group in Central America

ONUSAL United Nations Observer Mission to El Salvador

ONUVEN United Nations Mission for the Verification of Elections in

NicaraguaOSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

PDCI Democratic Party of Coˆte d’Ivoire

RAMSI Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands

S-5 Switzerland, Costa Rica, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Singapore

SAMCOMM Sanctions Assistance Mission Communications Centre

SEATO South-East Asia Treaty Organization

SHIRBRIG Standby High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations

SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary-General

SWAPO South-West Africa People’s Organization

UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

UNAMET United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor

UNAMI United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq

UNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda

UNAMIR II Second United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda

UNAMSIL United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone

UNASOG United Nations Aouzou Strip Observer Group

UNAVEM I United Nations Angola Verification Mission

UNCIP United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan

UNCRO United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia

UNEF I United Nations Emergency Force to the Middle East

UNEF II Second United Nations Emergency Force to the Middle EastUNFICYP United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus

UNGOMAP United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and

PakistanUNGOMIP United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan

UNICOI United Nations International Commission of Inquiry

UNIFIL United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

UNIIMOG United Nations Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group

UNIOSIL United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone

UNIPOM United Nations India-Pakistan Observer Mission

UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola

UNMEE United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea

UNMIBH United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina

UNMIK United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo

UNMISET United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor

UNMIT United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor Leste

UNMOGIP United Nations Military Observer Group in India and PakistanUNMOP United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka

UNMOT United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan

UNMOVIC United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection

CommissionUNOCA United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian and

Economic Assistance Programmes in AfghanistanUNOCI United Nations Operation in Coˆte d’Ivoire

UNOMIG United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia

UNOMIL United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia

UNOMSIL United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone

UNOSOM I United Nations Operation in Somalia

UNOSOM II Second United Nations Operation in Somalia

UNOTIL United Nations Office in Timor Leste

UNOWA United Nations Office for West Africa

UNPREDEP United Nations Preventive Deployment Force

UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force

UNSCO United Nations Office of the Special Coordinator for the

Occupied Territories

UNSCOP United Nations Special Committee on Palestine

UNSMA United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan

UNSMIH United Nations Support Mission in Haiti

UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia

UNTAES United Nations Transitional Authority in Eastern Slavonia,

Baranja, and Western SirmiumUNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East TimorUNTAG United Nations Transition Assistance Group

UNTEA United Nations Temporary Executive Authority

UNTSO United Nations Truce Supervision Organization

C o n t r i b u t o r s

Adekeye Adebajo is Executive Director of the Centre for Conflict Resolution inCape Town, South Africa He is the author of Building Peace in West Africa (LynneRienner, 2002), and Liberia’s Civil War (Lynne Rienner, 2002); and co-editor ofWest Africa’s Security Challenges (Lynne Rienner, 2004), and A Dialogue of the Deaf:Essays on Africa and the United Nations, (Fanele, 2006) He served on UN missions

in South Africa, Western Sahara, and Iraq

Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development in the Department of WarStudies, King’s College London He was formerly Director of Studies at the Inter-national Institute for Strategic Studies He is co-editor with Spyros Economides ofUnited Nations Interventionism 1991–2004 (Cambridge University Press, 2007).Jane Boulden holds a Canada Research Chair in International Relations andSecurity Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada Previously, she was aMacArthur Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies, University ofOxford She is co-editor with Thomas Weiss of Terrorism and the UN: Before andAfter September 11th (Indiana University Press, 2004)

Richard Caplan is Professor of International Relations at Oxford University and afellow of Linacre College He is the author of International Governance of War-TornTerritories: Rule and Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Europe andthe Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia (Cambridge University Press, 2005).Peter Carey is Laithwaite Fellow in History at Trinity College, Oxford, specializing onthe history and politics of South East Asia He is the author (with G Carter Bentley) ofEast Timor at the Crossroads: The Forging of a Nation (Honolulu: Hawaii UniversityPress, 1995); and (with Steve Cox), Generations of Resistance: East Timor (London:Cassell, 1995) He has recently published a major biographical study of the Indonesiannational hero, Prince Dipanagara, The Power of Prophecy, Prince Dipanagara and theEnd of an Old Order in Java, 1785–1855 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007)

James Cockayne is an Associate at the International Peace Academy An national lawyer who has worked in Sydney, Paris, Arusha, Freetown, and New York,James is Chair of the editorial committee of the Journal of International CriminalJustice, and former Director of the Transnational Crime Unit, Australian Attorney-General’s Department

inter-David Cortright is President of the Fourth Freedom Forum and a research fellow atthe Joan B Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of NotreDame His fifteen books include Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age ofTerrorism (Paradigm Press, 2006).

Gilles Dorronsoro is currently Professor of Political Science in the University ofPanthe´on-Sorbonne (Paris) He has recently published Revolution Unending,Afghanistan: 1979 to Present (Hurst and Columbia University Press, 2005), and iseditor of La Turquie conteste Re´gime se´curitaire et mobilisations sociales, (Editions

du CNRS, 2005)

J P D Dunbabin was from 1963 to 2004 Fellow and Tutor at St Edmund Hall,Oxford, latterly also University Reader in International Relations His publicationsinclude International Relations since 1945, i: The Cold War (rewritten edition,Pearson Longman, 2007), ii: The Post-Imperial Age: The Great Powers and theWider World (Longman, 1994), and an article on the League of Nations

Linda Gerber-Stellingwerf is Research Director of the Fourth Freedom Forum inGoshen, Indiana She contributes to the work of the joint Fourth Freedom Forum/Kroc Institute Sanctions and Security Project and the Center on Global Counter-Terrorism Cooperation

Christine Gray is currently Professor of International Law at the University ofCambridge and a fellow of St John’s College She has been at Cambridge since 1997and before that she was a lecturer at the University of Oxford from 1980

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, GCMG, is the Director of the Ditchley Foundation.Between 1969 and 2004, he held numerous positions in the British diplomaticservice, including Political Director of the FCO (1996–8), UK Permanent Repre-sentative at the United Nations in New York (1998–2003), and the UK SpecialEnvoy for Iraq (September 2003–March 2004)

Bruce D Jones is Co-director of New York University’s Center on InternationalCooperation, where he leads research on multilateral security institutions and the

UN and is series editor of the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, andConsulting Professor at Stanford University Previously, he was Senior Advisor inthe Office of the Secretary-General, and Chief of Staff to the Special Coordinatorfor the Middle East Peace Process

Nico Krisch is a lecturer in law at the London School of Economics and has been aresearch fellow at Merton College, Oxford, New York University Law School, and theMax Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg He is the author of amonograph on Security Council powers and the right to self-defence (Selbstverteidigungund kollektive Sicherheit (Springer, 2001) ) and of articles on the law on the use of force,

on hegemony in international law, and on the legal framework of global governance

George A Lopez holds the Rev Theodore M Hesburgh, C.S.C Chair in PeaceStudies at the Joan B Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the Univer-sity of Notre Dame His research on United Nations economic sanctions includesthe application of targeted sanctions against transnational terrorism With DavidCortright, he most recently published Uniting Against Terror (MIT Press, 2007).

Wm Roger Louis is Kerr Professor of English History and Culture at the University

of Texas at Austin and a past president of the American Historical Association He

is an honorary fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford His books include alism at Bay (Clarendon Press, 1977) and The British Empire in the Middle East(Clarendon Press, 1984) His collected essays were published by I B Tauris inSeptember 2006: Ends of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez andDecolonization

Imperi-Vaughan Lowe is Chichele Professor of Public International Law, and a fellow ofAll Souls College, in the University of Oxford He also practices in the field ofinternational law as a barrister from Essex Court Chambers, London, and hasappeared in cases before English and International courts, and sits on internationaltribunals

Edward C Luck is Vice President and Director of Studies at the International PeaceAcademy, as well as Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Respon-sibility to Protect (designate) He is currently on public service leave from Colum-bia University, where he is Professor of Practice in International and Public Affairsand Director of the Center on International Organization of the School of Inter-national and Public Affairs His most recent book is The UN Security Council:Practice and Promise (Routledge, 2006)

David M Malone is Canada’s High Commissioner to India and Ambassador toNepal and Bhutan A former Canadian ambassador to the UN, he oversawCanada’s multilateral and economic diplomacy with its Foreign Ministry, 2004–6

He was President of the International Peace Academy in New York, 1998–2004 Hismost recent book is The International Struggle over Iraq: Politics in the UN SecurityCouncil, 1980–2005(Oxford University Press, 2006)

Georg Nolte is Professor of Law at the University of Munich In 2003/4 he was avisiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford He has published on many issues ofpublic international law and comparative constitutional law He is a member forGermany of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the ‘VeniceCommission’)

Sarah V Percy is University Lecturer and Fellow in International Relations atMerton College, Oxford She has written widely about mercenaries, private mili-tary, and private security companies, including, The Regulation of the PrivateSecurity Industry (Routledge and the IISS, 2006), an article in International

Organization entitled, ‘Mercenaries: Strong Norm, Weak Law’ (61, no 2), andMercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations (Oxford UniversityPress, 2007) Sarah was awarded the CAMOS Dissertation Prize at the 2006American Political Science Association Convention for her dissertation, uponwhich her book is based.

Sir Adam Roberts, KCMG, was Montague Burton Professor of InternationalRelations at Oxford University, and a fellow of Balliol College, from 1986 to 2007.His books include (edited with Benedict Kingsbury), United Nations, DividedWorld: The UN’s Roles in International Relations, 2nd edition (Oxford UniversityPress, 1993) and (edited with Richard Guelff), Documents on the Laws of War, 3rdedition (Oxford University Press, 2000) He lives in Oxford

Rahul Roy-Chaudhury is Senior Fellow for South Asia at the InternationalInstitute for Strategic Studies, London He has served in the National SecurityCouncil Secretariat in the Prime Minister’s Office in India He has also been asenior research fellow at the International Policy Institute at King’s College,London He writes regularly on South Asian security issues for IISS publications.Dan Sarooshi is Professor of Public International Law in the University of Oxford,and also practices as a barrister from Essex Court Chambers, London His bookshave been awarded the 2006 Myres S McDougal Prize by the American Society forthe Policy Sciences, the 2001 and 2006 American Society of International Law BookPrizes, and the 1999 Guggenheim Prize by the Swiss Guggenheim Foundation.David Scheffer is the Mayer Brown/Robert A Helman Professor of Law and Director

of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern University School ofLaw He served as US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues (1997–2001) and asSenior Counsel to the US Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1993–6).General Sir Rupert Smith, KCB DSO OBE QGM, retired from the British Army inJanuary 2002 after forty years’ service in East and South Africa, Arabia, theCaribbean, Europe, and Malaysia His last appointment was Deputy SupremeCommander Allied Powers Europe Prior to that he was the General OfficerCommanding in Northern Ireland; Commander UNPROFOR in Sarajevo; andGeneral Officer Commanding 1 (UK) Armoured Division, in the Gulf War 1990–1.William Stueck has written extensively about the Korean War, most notably in TheKorean War: An International History (Princeton University Press, 1995) andRethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History (PrincetonUniversity Press, 2002) Both emphasize the UN role, the first in greater detail He

is currently a distinguished research professor at the University of Georgia.Charles Tripp is Professor of Politics with reference to the Middle East, at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies, University of London His publications

include (with S Chubin) Iran and Iraq at War (Tauris, 1989); The Iraqi Aggressionagainst Kuwait (edited with W Danspeckgruber) (Westview, 1996); Islam and theMoral Economy: The Challenge of Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2006);and A History of Iraq, 3rd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Pat Walsh has worked with the UN in East Timor since 2000 and is currentlyAdvisor on Transitional Justice to President Jose Ramos-Horta From 2001 to 2005

he was seconded by the UN as Special Advisor to the Timor-Leste Commission forReception, Truth and Reconciliation (CVAR) Prior to going to East Timor, he wasDirector of Human Rights for the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, andrepresented the Council at many UN sessions and meetings on human rights andthe question of East Timor

Jennifer M Welsh is Professor in International Relations at the University ofOxford and a fellow of Somerville College She is the author, most recently, of AtHome in the World: Canada’s Global Vision for the 21st Century (HarperCollins,

2004) and editor of Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations (OxfordUniversity Press, 2004) She was recently named a Trudeau Fellow, and is currently

on a Leverhulme research grant working on a project on ‘sovereignty as responsibility’.Susan L Woodward is Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Center of theCity University of New York She was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution(1990–99) and at King’s College, London (1999–2000); and Head of the Analysisand Assessment Unit for UNPROFOR in 1994 Her writings include BalkanTragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Brookings Press, 1995), andSocialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945–1990 (PrincetonUniversity Press, 1995)

Dominik Zaum is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Reading,and author of, The Sovereignty Paradox: The Norms and Politics of InternationalStatebuilding (Oxford University Press, 2007) He has previously been a researchfellow at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

it can in principle take decisions that are binding on all members of the UN TheCouncil meets throughout the year, mainly to consider armed conXicts and othersituations or disputes where international peace and security are threatened It isempowered to order mandatory sanctions, call for ceaseWres, and authorize militaryaction on behalf of the UN The Council also has a role, with the General Assembly, inthe admission of new members to the UN, the appointment of the Secretary-General,and the election of judges to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) It has alsoassumed certain other roles not speciWcally laid down in the Charter, such as the self-conferred role of choosing judges and prosecutors for ad hoc war crimes tribunals.This book describes and evaluates the UN Security Council’s part in addressing –and sometimes failing to address – the problem of war, both civil and international,

in the years since 1945 The central theme is obvious, simple, and sobering.1 Whilethe Council is a pivotal body which has played a key part in many wars and crises, it

evidenced by many of the contributors to Thomas G Weiss and Sam Daws (eds.), The Oxford Handbook

on the United Nations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) Weiss and Daws accept (p 4) that ‘state sovereignty remains the core of international relations’ and they seek to contribute to ‘greater analytical precision and historical reXection about the balance between change and continuity within the United Nations’.

is not in practice a complete solution to the problem of war, nor has it been at thecentre of a comprehensive system of collective security It never could have been.The UN’s founders, despite their idealistic language, did not see it in such terms;and in practice, both during the Cold War and subsequently, the Council’s roleshave been limited and selective.

This central theme is not so much a conclusion as a starting point It puts into focus

a series of key questions, addressed in each of the sections: What have been the actualroles of the Security Council, and have they changed over time? Has the Council,despite the many blemishes on its record, contributed overall to the maintenance ofinternational order through its response to particular threats and crises? Why has theCouncil fallen short of some of the expectations held out for it? Are particularcountries to blame for such failures? Has it reacted constructively to the changes inthe character of war – including the prevalence of non-international armed conXictsand the rise of terrorism – and to broader transformations in international society,such as the rise of post-colonial states and the increase in the number of powers withnuclear weapons? Is the Council simply a meeting place of sovereign states, or does itput in place certain limits on the unfettered sovereignty of at least some states?

In this book we have sought the services of historians, lawyers, diplomats, andinternational relations specialists to explore the Security Council’s actual and poten-tial roles The book seeks to present an accurate picture of what the Council hasachieved, and not achieved, in regard to the continuing phenomenon of war Itanalyses the extent to which the UN Charter system, as it has evolved, replacesolder systems of power politics and justiWcations for the use of force It also considershow the functions and responsibilities of the Council have shifted since the creation ofthe UN in the concluding months of the Second World War Among the manyconclusions reached on the basis of this study, three stand out: that the Council wasnot created to be and has not in practice been a pure collective security system; thatthe constant interplay between the Charter’s provisions and the actual practice ofstates (both within and outside the Council) has produced not only some disasters,but also some creative variations on the Council’s roles and responsibilities; and thatwhen compared with other international institutions, the Council has a unique statusboth in terms of its authoritativeness and accountability vis-a`-vis member states

T h e C h a r t e r S c h e m e

This book is based on the proposition that the actual practice of the Security Council

is richer, more complex, and more paradoxical than can be captured by any singleprescriptive document or theory Yet an assessment of the Council’s roles necessarily

involves reference to the basic rules by which it operates The United Nations Charter,concluded at San Francisco in June 1945, is a remarkable amalgam of realism andidealism It appears, at least at Wrst sight, to be the harbinger of a radical transform-ation of the international system – especially in its handling of the problem of war.The Wrst lines of the preamble set the target high:

to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest

The Charter establishes six ‘principal organs of the United Nations’ These are: ‘aGeneral Assembly, a Security Council, an Economic and Social Council, a Trustee-ship Council, an International Court of Justice, and a Secretariat’.2 The SecurityCouncil is thus just one part of this architecture for international order, but it hasalways been seen as having a central role in the Charter scheme

The general principles of the UN and the detailed provisions governing thestructure of the Security Council (SC) and its management of internationalsecurity are laid down in Wve chapters (Chapters I and V–VIII) of the Charter

Chapter I: Purposes and Principles

Chapter I, which consists of just two articles, sets the framework for the later provisions,including those for the Security Council Article 1 is a ringing statement of purposes:

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1 To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take eVective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and

in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement

of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2 To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3 To achieve international co operation in solving international problems of an eco nomic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging

UN Charter, Art 7.

respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4 To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Article 2, on Principles, is mainly concerned with questions of international peaceand security Its provisions have been cited frequently in debates about the powers

of the Security Council

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1 The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

2 All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and beneWts resulting from membership, shall fulWl in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3 All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4 All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

5 All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

6 The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

7 Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.

Chapter V: The Security Council

Chapter V (Articles 23–32) sets out the Security Council’s composition, functions,powers, voting, and procedure The Council’s composition is speciWed in Article 23(as amended in 1965) as follows:

1 The Security Council shall consist of Wfteen Members of the United Nations The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom

of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the Wrst instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution.

2 The non permanent members of the Security Council shall be elected for a term of two years In the Wrst election of the non permanent members after the increase of the member ship of the Security Council from eleven to Wfteen, two of the four additional members shall be chosen for a term of one year A retiring member shall not be eligible for immediate

re election.

3 Each member of the Security Council shall have one representative.3

In the Charter scheme, the Security Council has primary, but not exclusive,responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.4 The Coun-cil is tasked with determining whether particular events or activities constitute athreat to international peace and security, and for authorizing the use of sanctionsand force in a wide range of situations As Article 24(1) puts it:

1 In order to ensure prompt and eVective action by the United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.

Remarkably, Article 25 of the Charter, like some articles in Chapter VII, speciWes that

UN members accept an obligation to do the Security Council’s bidding Its full text is:

The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.

The subject of disarmament is addressed in much more cautious terms in the UNCharter than it had been in the League Covenant.5 Article 26 speciWes the SecurityCouncil’s responsibilities regarding the regulation of armaments thus:

In order to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources, the Security Council shall be responsible for formulating, with the assistance of the Military StaV Committee referred to in Article 47, plans to be submitted to the Members of the United Nations for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments.

Article 27, on voting, requires decisions of the Security Council to be made by anaYrmative vote of nine members – in other words, by a three-Wfths majority (Thisrule has the interesting implication that the Non-permanent Members have ineVect a ‘sixth veto’: a capacity to deny a resolution the nine aYrmative votes needed

Before that date the Security Council consisted of eleven members, of whom six were elected by the General Assembly The second sentence of Art 23(2) originally read: ‘In the Wrst election of non permanent members, however, three shall be chosen for a term of one year.’

Advisory Opinion of 20 Jul 1962 on Certain Expenses of the United Nations: ‘The responsibility conferred is ‘‘primary’’, not exclusive.’ ICJ Reports 1962, 163 This case, which conWrmed that the Security Council is within its powers in initiating peacekeeping operations and requiring member states to pay for them, is mentioned further in notes 8 and 33 below.

Assembly; and in Art 47(1), which is in Chapter VII, on the Security Council.

to pass.) Its best-known provision is that it gives each of the five PermanentMembers (P5) a veto power As it delicately puts it, Council decisions on mattersthat are not procedural ‘shall be made by an aYrmative vote of nine membersincluding the concurring votes of the permanent members’.6 The veto power of theP5 has been a subject of controversy throughout the history of the UN Even whenthe veto is not actually used, it casts a shadow This signiWcant departure from pureideas of collective security is discussed further at various points below.

The provisions for the Council’s procedure, laid down in Articles 28–32, arenotably Xexible The Council is required to be able to function continuously,whether at UN headquarters or elsewhere (Article 28) It is free to establishsubsidiary organs, and to adopt its own rules of procedure (Articles 29 and 30).7Under these rules, the Council’s presidency rotates among the members for one-month periods in alphabetical order The Charter speciWes two circumstances inwhich states that are not members of the Council may participate (always withoutvote) in its deliberations: if the Council considers that the state’s interests arespecially aVected by the issue under discussion (Article 31); and if a state is a party

to a dispute under consideration by the Council (Article 32)

Chapter VI: PaciWc Settlement of Disputes

Chapter VI (Articles 33–8) comprises an ambitious scheme for settling disputes of akind that might endanger international peace and security The Security Council isassigned a major role Whereas the General Assembly is mentioned only in Article

35, the Security Council is mentioned in all six articles of this chapter It can callupon parties to settle their disputes peacefully (Article 33), investigate any dispute

or situation (Article 34), have disputes referred to it by states (Article 35), mend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment (Article 36), and recom-mend the terms of a settlement or make other recommendations to the parties(Articles 37 and 38)

recom-The considerable powers vested in the Security Council under these terms ofChapter VI have provided one basis for its many and varied involvements in

Before that date the requirement was for an aYrmative vote of seven members (out of a total Council membership of eleven).

been only minor subsequent changes, the last of which was on 21 Dec 1982, the rules remain provisional On their negotiation and content, and also the evolving role of custom, see Sydney D Bailey and Sam Daws, The Procedure of the UN Security Council, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 9 18, and 441 54 for the rules themselves The rules can also be found at www.un.org/ Docs/sc/scrules.htm In addition, a valuable guide to procedure and practice is The Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council, issued at regular intervals by the Secretary General at the request of the General Assembly, all volumes of which are available at www.un.org/Depts/dpa/repertoire

numerous situations of incipient or actual conXict Sometimes seen as simply thenon-forceful part of the UN Council’s tool-kit, Chapter VI has in fact provided abasis for its actions both in seeking to prevent war and in getting involved inconXict situations – whether through peacekeeping forces or other kinds ofmissions.

Although the UN Charter makes no explicit reference to peacekeeping forces,Chapter VI has also been seen as a principal Charter basis for most UN peace-keeping operations However, in cases where such operations’ mandates includeauthorization to use armed force (e.g to prevent widespread atrocities, or to stopviolations of a ceaseWre) there is reference to Chapter VII in the relevant mandatingresolutions Because peacekeeping operations were not envisaged in the Charter,and often involve an overlap of powers under Chapters VI and VII, they havesometimes been called ‘Chapter 6½’ operations However, if this term implies thatthere is a gap in the Charter or a degree of confusion over the basis of authorization

of such forces, it can be misleading: the Security Council’s establishment of suchoperations and its authorizations to them to use force are now generally under-stood as being within the broad terms of reference of Chapters VI and VII.8

Chapter VII: Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression

Chapter VII (Articles 39–51) deals with the crucial matter of action in face of avariety of threats to international peace and security In contrast to the ambiguouslanguage of the League Covenant, the Charter seeks to identify a single agent –namely the Council – as having the power to interpret the implications of conXictsand crises, and to determine for international society as a whole whether a breach

of the peace has occurred Article 39 states (in full):

The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall

be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Article 40 empowers the Council to ‘call upon the parties concerned to complywith such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable’ Then Article 41provides for the Council to impose ‘measures not involving the use of armed force’,including economic sanctions and the severance of diplomatic relations Article 42provides, in part: ‘Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for

contention that led to the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of 20 Jul 1962 in the Certain Expenses of the United Nations case ICJ Reports 1962, 163, & 175 7.

in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take suchaction by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restoreinternational peace and security.’ Thus there is no necessity for the Council to trysanctions before resorting to force.

Articles 43–5 provide for armed forces to be available to the Security Council.These are among the most remarkable of the Charter articles (the others includeArticles 25 and 49) that appear to give the Council a substantial degree of authorityover the member states In reality, however, the provisions of Articles 43–5 havenever been implemented – mainly because states have been reluctant to hand over

to the Council a blank cheque on how their forces should be used In Article 43 allmember states ‘undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and

in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance andfacilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaininginternational peace and security’ These agreements were supposed to be concluded

‘as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council’ Article 44 providesthat when the Council has decided to use force, states asked to provide armed forcesfor such operations may participate in the decisions of the Council concerning howtheir armed forces are to be employed Article 45, written before the analyses ofstrategic bombing in the Second World War aroused serious doubts about theeYcacy of air power, conjures up a vision of the UN’s military role that has nevercome into eVect:

In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air force contingents for combined international enforce ment action The strength and degree of readiness of these contingents and plans for their combined action shall be determined, within the limits laid down in the special agreement

or agreements referred to in Article 43, by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military StaV Committee.

Articles 46–7 provide for the Military StaV Committee, consisting of the seniormilitary representatives of the Permanent Members of the Council This committeewas intended to ‘be responsible under the Security Council for the strategicdirection of any armed forces placed at the disposal of the Security Council’ Thisprovision conWrms the special role of the P5 in the Charter conception, but beyondthat it has had little importance The major military powers have not used theMilitary StaV Committee to make joint plans for the application of armed force.The Committee’s role could possibly have grown as Council practices developed,especially as common arrangements for UN or UN-authorized forces are far fromself-evident However, this has not happened

Articles 48–50 outline the involvement of states in carrying out the measuresdecided upon by the Security Council Article 48(1), by specifying that someactions may be taken by groups of states rather than the membership as a whole,provides a basis for the Council’s later practice ‘The action required to carry out

the decisions of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peaceand security shall be taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some ofthem, as the Security Council may determine.’

In Article 51 the Charter makes it clear that states have an already existing right ofself-defence, which is simply recognized (and not conferred) by the Charter

‘Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual orcollective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the UnitedNations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintaininternational peace and security.’ It also establishes the Council as the body towhich uses of force in self-defence must be reported; and it recognizes the right ofthe Council to take action in such cases

Chapter VIII: Regional Arrangements

Chapter VIII (Articles 52–4) addresses the key issue of how global and regionalsecurity arrangements might coexist and even reinforce each other This had beendiscussed extensively in negotiations during the Second World War, partly because

of a realistic recognition that not every international security problem could betackled at the global level A balance had therefore to be found between UN-basedand regional arrangements Article 52(1) states:

Nothing in the present Charter precludes the existence of regional arrangements or agencies for dealing with such matters relating to the maintenance of international peace and security as are appropriate for regional action provided that such arrangements or agencies and their activities are consistent with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.

Article 53 addresses the delicate question of how the Security Council and regionalarrangements or agencies are supposed to relate to each other In similar fashion toArticle 48 noted above, it envisages something akin to the eventual pattern of theCouncil acting through regional bodies when it states that the Council ‘shall, whereappropriate, utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement actionunder its authority’ It continues: ‘But no enforcement action shall be taken underregional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of theSecurity Council, with the exception of measures against any enemy state.’9 It isasking a lot of states, and of the Council, to expect this precept to be followed in allcases, but if the Charter had failed to require such Council authorization it wouldhave undermined the primacy of the Council even before it came into existence In

Naturally the provisions of the Charter directed against them (i.e those in Articles 53, 77, & 107) came

to be seen as out of date The General Assembly’s 2005 World Summit Outcome document contained

a commitment to delete the references to ‘enemy states’ in the UN Charter See ‘2005 World Summit Outcome’ of 16 Sep 2005, UN doc A/Res/60/1 of 24 Oct 2005, para 177 The ‘enemy state’ provisions

of the Charter had not been amended by the end of 2007.

practice the requirement that the enforcement actions of regional bodies must beauthorized by the Security Council was of limited relevance in the Cold War, butsince 1991 many Council resolutions have referred to the military actions ofregional organizations.10

Article 54 states: ‘The Security Council shall at all times be kept fully informed ofactivities undertaken or in contemplation under regional arrangements or byregional agencies for the maintenance of international peace and security.’ Whilethis has not happened in every case, there has been much reporting to the Council

on this basis

It was hardly to be expected that the Charter could resolve all the complex issuesinvolved in the UN’s division of security responsibilities with regional organiza-tions What it did do was to establish the key principle that the UN could not tackleall problems, and would act in conjunction with such bodies In practice, therelations between the UN and regional bodies have been even more varied andcomplex than envisaged in 1945, involving for example some regional bodies actingwith Council approval outside their own region, and some Council resolutionsgiving retrospective approval to certain actions of regional bodies

C o m p a r i s o n w i t h t h e L e a g u e

o f N a t i o n s S y s t e m

To understand certain strengths of the UN arrangements for international security,

it is instructive to compare them with those of the League of Nations, established atthe Paris Peace Conference in 1919 While the League had represented a ground-breaking advance in international organization, it also had many weaknesses thatthe founders of the UN sought to overcome For example, the League Covenantprovided for a Council which can in some ways be seen as a precursor to the UNSecurity Council; but the arrangements for it proved to be ineVectual

As regards the League Council’s membership there were three main problems.First, the Council never contained all the major powers of the time: the US neverbelonged to the League at all, Germany was a member only from 1926 to 1933, Japanalso left in 1933, and Italy left in 1937 Secondly, Britain and France, the two powers thatwere consistently members of the League Council, were colonial powers – a fact whichcontributed to suspicion of the League on the part of states and peoples that werecritical of European colonialism And thirdly, each member of the League Council,

Press, 2004), 282 327.

whether permanent or non-permanent, had a veto In the 1930s the Council bership progressively increased, and with it the number of vetoes.11

mem-In addition, the arrangements for the League Council’s management of national security were vague on paper and ineVective in practice The Covenant,while reXecting certain collective security ideas, was notably weak in its delineation

inter-of threats to international security, in its procedures for determining such threats,and in its provisions for enforcement The Covenant generally, and Article 10 inparticular, was preoccupied above all with confronting ‘aggression’: not only is

‘aggression’ notoriously diYcult to deWne, but in reality certain international lems, such as systematic violations of treaty regimes in a wide range of matters, canpose major threats to the peace without being classiWable as aggression Article 10 wasalso weak in what it said about the League’s response to threats The deeply Xawedtext of Article 10, which starts strongly and ends weakly, stated (in full):

prob-The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulWlled.

Other articles conWrmed that the provisions for the League Council to decide uponaction against a violator, and to ensure that states took such action, were notablyweak For example, Article 11(1) stated:

Any war or threat of war, whether immediately aVecting any of the Members of the League

or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and eVectual to safeguard the peace of nations In case any such emergency should arise the Secretary General shall on the request of any Member

of the League forthwith summon a meeting of the Council.

If a state resorted to war in deWance of the Covenant, the League was committedonly to economic sanctions, and there was much less clarity about military action,which could be merely recommended, but was not made mandatory As Article

16(2) stated:

It shall be the duty of the Council in such case to recommend to the several Governments concerned what eVective military, naval or air force the Members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.

A further weakness of the Covenant is that it involved the Council in an apparentlystrong but actually ineVective commitment to disarmament This was mainly inArticle 8, the Wrst paragraph of which stated:

and UK) plus four non permanent ones, each elected for a three year period In the subsequent two decades the numbers of both the permanent and the non permanent members changed The number

of non permanent members was progressively increased In the last such increase, by revision of 2 Oct , the Council raised the non permanent membership from ten to eleven.

The Members of the League recognise that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction

of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforce ment by common action of international obligations.

Article 8 went on to require the Council to formulate plans for such reduction.When states failed to achieve disarmament, especially after the ignominious end ofthe League’s great set-piece Conference for the Reduction and Limitation ofArmaments (1932–4), the League was perceived as having set an impossibly hightarget and then as having failed

Having learned from the problems of the years 1919–39, the authors of the UNCharter devised a scheme that diVered from that of the League in many respects.The key ones are easily summarized The Charter as a whole was drawn up with thecentral aim of ensuring that the major powers would be willing to join, and remain

in, the organization At the same time, the Charter’s emphasis on equal rights andself-determination of peoples ensured that the UN was compatible with the cause

of decolonization The provisions for the UN Security Council were diVerent fromthose for the League Council: by restricting the veto to Permanent Members, theSecurity Council had fewer vetoes than its ill-fated predecessor; it was empowered

to address a broader range of security problems than the case of ‘aggression’ thatwas supposed to be the focus of the League Council’s concerns; the SecurityCouncil was entitled to use force without in every case attempting economicsanctions Wrst; and the Security Council was envisaged as taking military measures

in its own right, rather than merely advising or recommending action to states Itwas even envisaged as having armed forces continuously available to it, so that itwould be in a position to use force to maintain international peace and security.The UN security system was more explicitly envisaged as being paralleled byregional security arrangements Disarmament was addressed more cautiously inthe UN Charter than it had been in the League Covenant In all of these respects,whatever its defects, the UN Charter represented a deliberate, and major, advance

on the Xawed terms of the League Covenant

T h e U N C h a r t e r : N e i t h e r

P u r e C o l l e c t i v e S e c u r i t y

n o r W o r l d G o v e r n m e n t

The UN Charter system provides a much more robust framework for collectiveaction than any previous attempt at global order It diVers hugely from all itspredecessors, including the Concert of Europe in the nineteenth century and the

League of Nations in the interwar years As a result, it has often been asserted thatthe Charter represents a scheme for collective security.12 However, we questionwhether the Charter, even in theory, provides the basis for a general system ofcollective security, at least if deWned in the classical sense Still less does it provide abasis for world government These two issues are explored further below.

Departures from collective security

The term ‘collective security’, in its classical sense, refers to a system, regional or global,

in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, andagrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace.13 This isthe meaning followed here, with emphasis on collective security being a system Theassumption is that the threats to be addressed may arise from one or more stateswithin the system Collective security as deWned here is distinct from, and moreambitious than, systems of alliance security or collective defence, in which groups ofstates ally with each other, principally against possible external threats

There is a long history of the armed forces of many diVerent states being used in

a common cause There is also a distinguished pedigree of leaders who have sought

to establish a system of collective security, viewing it as superior to the balance ofpower as a basis for international order Cardinal Richelieu of France proposedsuch a scheme in 1629, and his ideas were partially reXected in the 1648 Peace ofWestphalia.14 Sadly, the history of proposals for collective security is a long record

of failure.15

There have been some elements of collective security arrangements in the twoprincipal international organizations established in the twentieth century – theLeague of Nations and the UN Yet neither was set up as, still less operated as, a fullcollective security system The UN Charter, which does not refer to the term

‘collective security’, includes the following main departures from such a system:. The veto power as laid down in Article 27 ensures that the P5 cannot have actionmandated by the UN Security Council used against them, or indeed against aclose ally The veto system is much criticized, but it may have saved the UN fromwasting time and political capital in contemplating hazardous actions against

UN’s history See e.g Fernand van Langenhove, La Crise du syste`me de se´curite´ collective des Nations Unies

Commentaire Article par Article (Paris: Economica, 1985), 7 & 75; and Bruno Simma (ed.), The Charter of the United Nations: A Commentary, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 42, 760, & 770.

Leicester University Press, 1977), 149.

Wight, Systems of States, 62 & 149 50.

major powers and their close allies; and it is actually less of an obstacle to actionthan was the more general veto system in the League of Nations Council.. Article 39 (which is in Chapter VII), assigning to the Security Council the duty ofdetermining whether a situation constitutes a threat to international peace andsecurity, grants it a substantial degree of discretion regarding both the types ofsituation with which it deals and the nature of the measures to be taken.. Article 51 (still in Chapter VII) states, in part: ‘Nothing in the present Chartershall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armedattack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.’ While the SecurityCouncil retains the right to take measures in such circumstances, this Articlerecognizes that states retain a right of self-defence, and do not have to put alltheir eggs in the basket of collective security.

. Article 52 (which is in Chapter VIII, on Regional Arrangements), by providingfor the coexistence of a UN-based security system with regional arrangementsand agencies, implicitly accepts that the Security Council itself may not be able toaddress all threats to international peace and security In theory, any gaps in the

UN security system might be Wlled on a regional basis: regional organizationshave the advantage of greater knowledge of local societies, but they also suVerfrom the disadvantage of fear of local hegemonic powers Some regional securityorganizations have certain elements of a collective security system as part of theirinstitutional framework, but in no case have these elements been followedconsistently in practice

. Articles 53 and 107 left each of the wartime allies a free hand to handle theirrelations with enemy states in the Second World War outside the Charterframework These articles were a signiWcant concession to unilateralism in theconduct of the post-war occupations, but they have been a dead letter for manyyears, and since the World Summit of September 2005 they face oblivion.16Thus the Charter is not a blueprint for a general system of collective security – atleast if deWned in the classical way mentioned above Nonetheless, there has been atendency to invest in the UN Security Council hopes for collective security thatexceed what can be prudently based on the Charter and on the Council’s record.For example, this happened in 1992, following the Wrst UN Security Councilsummit, and again in 2000 and 2004–5, in connection with two major UN summitmeetings

Hopes for a UN-based security system were particularly high in 1992 When on

31January 1992 the Council’s Wrst-ever summit was held – at which the memberstates were represented by heads of state and government – they met to consider

‘the responsibility of the Security Council in the maintenance of internationalpeace and security’ The Wfteen leaders who had assembled in the Council chamber

‘enemy states’ in the UN Charter, see above, n 9.

in New York issued a statement strongly reaYrming ‘their commitment to thecollective security system of the Charter’.17 They also invited Secretary-GeneralBoutros Boutros-Ghali to make recommendations on strengthening the UN’scapacity in peacekeeping, peace-making, and preventive diplomacy This led tothe publication in June 1992 of An Agenda for Peace, with its set of ambitiousproposals to enhance the capacity of the UN to respond to the challenges of thepost-Cold War world It referred to ‘the concept of collective security as contained

in the Charter’ and ‘a universal system for collective security’.18 However, although

it usefully deWned many terms, it did not deWne collective security, nor did itaddress the long-standing and diYcult problems that confront the idea.19 When, inJanuary 1995, Boutros-Ghali issued the ‘Supplement to an Agenda for Peace’, itstone was much more cautious, as it was bound to be after the diYculties andfailures of international action in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda.20Despite the setbacks of the 1990s, the view of the UN Security Council as the core

of a system of collective security did not disappear When the second SecurityCouncil summit was held – on 7 September 2000, at the time of the Millenniumsummit of the General Assembly (GA) – it issued a ‘declaration on ensuring aneVective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peaceand security, particularly in Africa’, which made a brief reference to ‘the collectivesecurity system established by the UN Charter’.21

In 2004 the UN High-level Panel Report on Threats, Challenges and Changeplaced heavy emphasis on the proposition that what the UN must aim to establish

is a ‘collective security system’:

The central challenge for the twenty Wrst century is to fashion a new and broader under standing, bringing together all these strands, of what collective security means and of all the responsibilities, commitments, strategies and institutions that come with it if a collective security system is to be eVective, eYcient and equitable.22

government and two foreign ministers.

keeping, Report of the Secretary General Pursuant to the Statement Adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992 (New York: Jun 1992), paras 42 & 63 Originally issued as UN

on the UN website, www.un.org/english

ity’, Survival 35 (1993), 3 30.

the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations’, UN doc A/50/60 of 3 Jan 1995.

on Threats, Challenges and Change (New York: United Nations, 2004), UN doc A/59/565 of 2 Dec , synopsis.

The High-level Panel Report used the term ‘collective security system’ in aninnovative way, to refer to a UN-centred system of international security thataddresses a notably wide range of threats This use of the term ‘collective security’suggested continuity between the original purposes of the Charter and the pro-posed reforms More speciWcally it raised the possibility of developing, within a UNframework, a broad view of security policy as addressing the problems of terrorism,nuclear proliferation, and state breakdown as well as more conventional securitythreats; and it indicated the possibility of building, on this basis, a commoninternational approach to security issues However, this approach had weaknesses.Although the term ‘collective security’ was used about eighty times, it was notdeWned Partially echoing this emphasis, the 2005 World Summit Outcome – thedocument issued by a meeting of the UN General Assembly at the level of heads ofstate and government to celebrate the organization’s sixtieth anniversary – alsoreferred to the UN as being at the heart of a system of collective security.23Meanwhile the third Security Council summit, held at the time of this sixtiethanniversary summit of the General Assembly, passed two resolutions, on terrorismand conXict prevention in Africa, neither of which mentioned collective security.24The idea of the Charter as a recipe for a system of collective security is potentiallydamaging to the organization First, it inevitably brings to mind memories ofunhappy episodes (including in the years 1919–39) in which attempts were made tocreate systems of collective security – attempts which proved to be a failure In thewake of this bitter experience, the fact that the term was not used in the UN Charterwas not an accident, and its revival is problematic Secondly, the emphasis on theidea of ‘collective security’ means that the UN comes to be seen as hopelesslyoptimistic: as purporting to set up a general security system although in realitythe UN, while it can perform a large number of useful security functions, cannothope to constitute anything as ambitious as that Thirdly, the emphasis on ‘col-lective security’ tends to distract attention from some of the Council’s importantinnovations in addressing conXicts, and likewise to obscure some notable elements

of realism in and around the organization, including (in the 2004 High-level PanelReport) a frank recognition of the continuing role of states as ‘front-line actors indealing with all the threats we face, new and old’.25 Finally, the emphasis on the ideaencourages a line of argument which sees the Charter framework as a completelyvalid collective security scheme that would have been eVective but for the faults andfailures of particular states This line has corrosive political consequences as blame

is attached to a few states and individuals for weaknesses in the UN system that are

in fact the result of deep and enduring problems of world politics

High level Panel, A More Secure World, synopsis, p 11.

Some have suggested that a looser deWnition of collective security, or adoption of

a diVerent term, might do more to reXect the realities and possibilities of the UN.For example, in the 1990s James Goodby, with experience of working in the USgovernment, suggested that the classical deWnitions have been ‘too narrowly con-structed to be a practical guide to policy analysis, especially when considering theuse of military force’ He therefore proposed a deWnition of collective security as ‘apolicy that commits governments to develop and enforce broadly accepted inter-national rules and to seek to do so through collective action legitimized byrepresentative international organizations’.26 This less stringent conception ofcollective security better captures the record of how some states responded towar and other threats to the peace and security in the post-1945 period not onlythrough the Security Council, but also through other bodies including NATO.Whether it adds up to a system, and whether the term ‘collective security’ is reallyappropriate to describe such cooperative approaches not always tied to a singleorganization, may be doubted

Not a prototype of world government

Similarly, the idea that the UN, and more particularly the Security Council, should

be seen as a prototype of world government does violence to the complex role ofthe organization Many writers have been attracted by the idea that the UN is, orshould be, a world government in the making.27 This view is sometimes tinged withwhat might be called the domestic analogy fallacy – the assumption that worldorder must necessarily assume a form similar to that of the government within asovereign state, and therefore involves a general transfer of authority from states tothe UN.28 The ‘domestic analogy’ obscures rather than clariWes the uniqueness ofthe Council’s role The Council consists of sovereign states and exists in a world

of sovereign states It has helped to shape and promote the principle and practice ofsovereignty, especially through its support of decolonization If it challenges thesovereignty of states, it is in very particular and limited ways, which are related tothe Council’s unique and constantly developing roles in regard to armed conXictsand international security issues in all their many forms

Crocker and Fen Osler Hampson (eds.), Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to Inter national ConXict (Washington, DC, US Institute of Peace Press, 1996), 237 Goodby had been special representative of the President for nuclear security and disarmament during the Clinton administration.

Government (London: Allen Lane, 2006).

University Press, 1989).