Letter from the Secretary-General

UN Security Council and North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Open Agenda

A. UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL

Although States started establishing international organizations (many of which are now United Nations specialized agencies) on specific matters that would ensure the cooperation between them in 1865, first multilateral treaties that instruments for settling crises peacefully, preventing wars and codifying rules of warfare were signed and issued at the International Peace Conference in 1899.¹

The forerunner organization of United Nations, the League of Nations, was conceived during the First World War "to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security", however it terminated itself because of its failure to prevent Second World War.²

When World War II showed the need for an effective international organization to arbitrate disputes, representatives of 50 countries met at the United Nations Conference on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter and after many deliberations The United Nations (UN) officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the Charter had been ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council (China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States) and by a majority of other signatories.³

Primary purposes of the United Nations were offered to be maintenance of international peace and security; and, to this end, taking effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and bringing about means of adjustment or settlement of international disputes which may lead to a breach of the peace.⁴ Other purposes can be listed as development of friendly relations among nations and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace; achievement of international cooperation in the solution of international economic, social and other humanitarian problems; and affordance of a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the achievement of these common ends. Thus, a general assembly, a security council and an international court of justice were also offered to be established to serve in accordance with these purposes.⁵

I. Structure of the Security Council

a. Members of the Security Council

At its establishment in 1945, the Security Council was consisting of eleven member-states including the five permanent members; but later on, linked to the enlargement of the United Nations, the non-permanent members number was increased to ten, and accordingly number needed of in favour votes for adopting a resolution changed to nine in 1963.⁶ Those ten non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for two year terms (five each year); thus the election should be done accordingly to the pattern which was decided at the eighteenth session in resolution 1991 A (XVIII) as:

1. 
   Five from African and Asian States;
   
2. 
   One from Eastern European States;
   
3. 
   Two from Latin American States;
   
4. 
   Two from Western European and other States.⁷
   

Today the Security Council welcomes the representatives of Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Luxemburg, Morocco, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Rwanda and Togo as the non-permanent states with the five permanent members which are People’s Republic of China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America.⁸ Also a member-state of the UN may participate, without a vote; in the Council’s discussions when that country’s interests are affected; thus even a non-member state may be invited by the Council to take part in the debate without a vote, if they are parties to the dispute that is being considered by the Council.⁹

b. Voting: the Veto Rights

In the voting system, it is seen that there is a distinction between voting on the procedural and non-procedural (substantive) matters. Article 27 of the UN Charter, is the clause that gives the permanent five their veto power by stating that while decisions on procedural matters will be made by an affirmative vote of at least nine out of fifteen current members, decisions on substantive matters are made by affirmative votes of nine members, “including the concurring votes of the permanent members”.¹⁰ In order for a resolution to fail other than the usages of the veto power by one of the permanent five, seven countries have to vote against the resolution, abstain or be absent from the Council at the time of voting.¹¹

II. Competence and Responsibilities of the Security Council

Until the Cold War came to define global politics, the Council formed its role as preventing a third world war but after, the Council moved to tackle prevention of regional conflicts from turning into international disputes.¹² Accordingly, as stated in the article 24 of the UN charter, Member States have the responsibility to maintain international peace and security and the Security Council will be the body to carry out this mission by acting on their behalf.¹³ The Council's other responsibilities include recommending the admission of new members and the appointment of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) and together with the UNGA, electing the judges of International Court of Justice.¹⁴ Having these responsibilities, the Security Council can issue resolutions that are legally binding on all Member States while other organs of the UN can only make recommendations to the governments.¹⁵

a. Chapter VII and Measures to Maintain International Peace and Security

“Every person in the world capable of rational thought wishes and hopes not only for immediate peace, but that, so far as human agencies can make it, war shall be made impossible in the future. It is inevitable that thinking men, although inspired by the same high motives, shall differ as to the means to secure permanent peace and equity between nations.” ¹⁶

-Old Colony Trust Company

The system laid down in Chapter VII goes as follows: the Council, shall first decide whether a particular situation calls for action (Article 39), if such a situation has arisen, it may either make recommendations (Article 39), take provisional measures (Article40), or decide on enforcement issues not involving the use of force (Article 41), in order to remedy the situation. Moreover, if the Council considers these measures not to be effective, it may authorize the use of measures involving the use of force, to put an end to a threat or breach of the peace (Article 42).¹⁷

In order to fulfil its responsibility of maintaining international peace and security; and when faced with a conflict, the first action of the Council is to recommend to the parties that they reach an agreement through peaceful means; it may appoint special representatives, may ask the Secretary-General to appoint special representatives, and may set some principles for the peaceful settlement of the conflict, may issue ceasefire directives.¹⁸ The Council may also send UN peacekeeping forces or eventually decide on enforcement actions such as economic sanctions or collective military action. Moreover, Article 29 of the United Nations Charter sets out that the Security Council may establish subsidiary bodies as needed for the performance of its functions.¹⁹

b. UNSC peacekeeping operations

To fulfil the responsibility of maintaining international peace and security, Security Council may establish peace keeping operations which are one of the main instruments used by the UN to prevent war.²⁰ Under the Charter of the UN there is not a definition of peacekeeping. While this provides a wide range for the peacekeeping to deal with different kinds of threats to international peace and security, it causes problems related to the limits of peacekeeping.²¹ Although there is not a definition, there are some limits such as the requirement of state consent for the emplacement and the continuous presence of a peacekeeping operation; otherwise it will mean intervening in the domestic jurisdiction of the states which is a violation of the Article 2 (7) of the Charter.²²

The effectiveness of peacekeeping operations depends on the expectations and assessments of the parties, therefore; a UN peacekeeping force should be “strictly impartial”; thus “it must be prejudice to the rights, claims or positions of the parties concerned.”²³

c. Use of Force in Peacekeeping Missions

The use of force in peacekeeping operations has two aspects that are parallel to the use of force in international law, the first one being the minimum use of force and the second one being the use force for self-defence only.²⁴ A clear definition of “the use of force except in self defence” has been made by the academician James Sloan as: “men engaged in the operation may never take the initiative in the use of armed force, but are entitled to respond with force to an attack with arms, including attempts to use of force to make them withdraw from positions which they occupy under orders from the Commander, acting under the authority of the Assembly and within the scope of its resolutions.”²⁵

III. Use of Force and the Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, Prohibition on the Use of Force and Exceptions

The ban on the use of force has often been described as the ‘cornerstone’ of the modern international system.²⁶

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, obliges UN members to ‘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’, stating that in Articles 42, 43 and Article 51, the Charter recognizes two exceptions to this prohibition: forcible enforcement measures within the framework of the organization’s collective security system, and the right of self-defence of nations against armed attacks.²⁷

Conversely, the Charter regime on the use of force, notwithstanding its fundamental importance or even its role as a cornerstone, has been anything but static. Faced with challenges such as those referred to in the preceding paragraph, the international community has not formally amended the Charter rules, but has re-appraised them through interpretation.²⁸ In many respects, the interpretation has produced clear and stable results, but it has also led to processes of adaptation and adjustment in the light of new realities or perceptions.²⁹

a. Self Defence

The law of the UN Charter provides two exceptions from the prohibition expressed in Article 2(4); first one of them is stated in Article 51 of the Charter, is available to states which find themselves to be victims of aggression:³⁰

"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.”³¹

b. Collective Security

With regards to the second exception according to the Chapter VII; Security Council may, if deems necessary, take military actions involving the armed forces of member-states, or with an authorisation of states which are willing individually or in ad hoc coalitions or acting through regional or other international organisations with one of them being the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).³²

c. Humanitarian Intervention

Although humanitarian intervention does not have an accepted definition, it aims at preventing or ending widespread and grave violations of the fundamental human rights of individuals, without the permission of the state within whose territory the force is applied.³³ The concept of humanitarian intervention has evolved as a subset of the laws governing the use of force and has very quickly come to occupy an institutional position alongside self-defence and Security Council authorization as a legal and legitimate reason for war although it is widely accepted as highly controversial.³⁴ Bearing in mind that other writers affirm other definitions; an example can be given as “coercive actions by states involving the use of armed force in another State without the consent of its government, for the purpose of preventing or putting an end to massive violations of human rights or international humanitarian law.”³⁵

d. Responsibility to Protect

Responsibility to protect was established by the adaptation of the 2005 World Summit Outcome by UN.³⁶ It envisages a set of principles taken with regard to the understanding that sovereignty is a responsibility falling under the competence of governments which implies that governments bear utmost responsibility for the protection of their peoples.³⁷ In case of a situation where a group of people suffering from serious harm, as a result of (a) internal war, (b) insurgency, (c) repression or (d) state failure, generally emerges as ethnic cleansing; and the state in question is reluctant or unable to determine “the principle of non-intervention to the international responsibility to protect.”³⁸

Agreement on a shared responsibility to protect means that people who live under the threat of genocide from their own governments, state-sponsored actors or other non-state actors now have a new tool to battle the often deadly indifference and paralysis of the international community.³⁹ Thus, three particular responsibilities are mentioned: preventing, reacting and rebuilding.⁴⁰

e. Fighting Terrorism

Whether states can use force against terrorists based in another country is a crucial discussion. The relevant articles of the UN Charter have to be interpreted. It is argued that the restrictive approach to anti-terrorist force obtaining 20 years ago has come under strain thus as far as collective responses are concerned.⁴¹ It is no longer disputed that the Security Council could authorize the use of force against terrorists; however, it has so far refrained from doing so and more controversially, the international community during the last two decades has increasingly recognized a right of states to use unilateral force against terrorists.⁴² This new practice is justified under the doctrine of self-defence.⁴³ Bearing in mind the conditions of Security Council action, it remained at least doubtful whether terrorist attacks could have amounted to a threat to, or breach of, the peace in the sense of Article 39 UNC.⁴⁴

B. NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

I. Introduction

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is one of the most significant political and military formations in the international arena. It has 28 member-states both in Europe and North America.⁴⁵ The fundamental idea behind the organization is the safety, security and the freedom of its members in addition to the trans-Atlantic multilateralism and military cooperation.⁴⁶ Although the initial idea behind the founding of the organization in 1949 was collective self-defence, today NATO countries collectively combat terrorism, use of weapons of mass destruction and government oppression of civilian populations, leading to a three-pillar task structure: collective defence, crisis management and collective security through partnerships.⁴⁷

Directory: guides
guides -> I. Regulations
guides -> Global Operations Evaluations Guide As of: 26 May 05 J3 Suspense Dates: 
guides -> Chapter 3 selecting and using assessments
guides -> Things you will need: Router Login Information
guides -> Chapter 8 Budgeting for Planning and Control Learning Objectives
guides -> Risk management guide for dod acquisition sixth Edition (Version 0) August, 2006 Department of Defense Preface
guides -> Enswitch Administrator Guide Enswitch Release 10
guides -> Enswitch Administrator Guide