The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (144 page)
Authors: Adam Roberts,Vaughan Lowe,Jennifer Welsh,Dominik Zaum
26
See also the discussion of sanctions by David Cortright, George Lopez, and Linda Gerber-Stellingwerf, in
Chapter 8
; and the list of UN-authorized sanctions in
Appendix 4
.
27
See above, n. 3. Since the decision in the
Nicaragua case
in 1986 states have generally been scrupulous in reporting to the Security Council.
28
On the requirements of necessity and proportionality, see the
Nicaragua case
, paras. 194, 237; see also the
Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, ICJ Reports
, 1996, para. 226; and
Oil Platforms (Islamic Republic of Iran
v.
United States of America), ICJ Reports
, 2003, para. 43.
29
See, for example, Judge Jennings’ Dissenting Opinion in the
Nicaragua case
, at p. 543.
30
See Gray,
International Law and the Use of Force
, 129.
31
It deliberately avoided a decision on this issue in the
Nicaragua case
, at para. 194; it was not called on to decide this question in the Case Concerning
Oil Platforms;
and, most recently, in
Democratic Republic of Congo v Uganda, ICJ Reports
, 2005, it again expressly avoided a pronouncement at para. 143.
32
Yearbook of the United Nations
, 1981, 275.
33
GA Res. 60/1 of 24 Oct. 2005, paras. 138–9.
34
The government of Sudan consented to the deployment of an African Union mission in Darfur, but this ran into difficulties as it was not given adequate resources; and until 2007 it objected to the deployment of a UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur.
35
SC Res. 1368 of 12 Sep. 2001; SC Res. 1373 of 28 Sep. 2001.
36
The Court avoided addressing this question of self-defence against non-state actors in the absence of state involvement in its
Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, ICJ Reports
, 2004, where it dealt very briefly with the law on self-defence in para. 139. In
DRC
v.
Uganda
, para. 147, the Court expressly said that it did not need to consider this issue.
37
The International Court of Justice in the
Nicaragua case
, para. 195, set out the customary international law on collective self-defence. As with individual self-defence, the use of force should be necessary and proportionate. Also there should normally be a declaration by the victim state that it had been subject to an armed attack and a request for help by that state. Although there was much criticism of this position, in fact it was an accurate representation of state practice.
38
High-level Panel,
A More Secure World
, para. 190; Annan,
In Larger Freedom
, para. 125.
39
There was initially some doubt as to whether the relevant section of the National Security Strategy was setting out a statement on the law, but the US has since reasserted the right to preemptive action in its 2005 National Defense Strategy, see
American Journal of International Law
99, no. 3 (2005), 693; and in its 2006 National Security strategy.
40
Those states supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom did so on the basis of Security Council authorization and the revival of the authorization to use force given in SC Res. 678 of 29 Nov. 1990; see also above, n. 20.
1
Winston Churchill, speech at Fulton, Missouri, 5 Mar. 1946. Martin Gilbert,
‘Never Despair’: Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965
(London: Heinemann, 1988), 199.
2
‘General Principles Governing the Organization of the Armed Forces Made Available to the Security Council by Member Nations of the United Nations: Report of the Military Staff Committee’, UN doc. S/336 of 30 Apr. 1947. For an account based on British archives of the UN discussions in 1946–8, see Eric Grove, ‘UN Armed Forces and the Military Staff Committee’,
International Security
17, no. 4 (Spring 1993), 172–82.
3
Trygve Lie,
In the Cause of Peace: Seven Years with the United Nations
(New York: Macmillan, 1954), 98.
4
Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations
, vol. I,
Trygve Lie 1946–1953
, ed. Andrew W. Cordier and Wilder Foote (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 134.
5
Trygve Lie, Introduction (dated 5 July 1948) to
Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 1 July 1947–30 June 1948
, UN doc. A/565 (Lake Success, New York: United Nations, 1948), xvii–xviii.
6
‘A United Nations Guard: Report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly’, UN doc. A/656 of 28 Sep. 1948, appendix B, para. 1.
7
GA Res. 270 (III) of 29 Apr. 1949 set up a special committee to study the Secretary-General’s proposal for the establishment of a UN Guard. The committee consisted of representatives of the P5 plus Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Haiti, Pakistan, Poland, and Sweden.
8
‘United Nations Field Service: Report of the Special Committee on a United Nations Guard’, GAOR, 4th session, Supplement 13, 1949, para. 6. (The published version carries the date 10 Oct. 1949.)
9
Public Papers of the Secretaries-General of the United Nations
, vol. I,
Trygve Lie
, 186.
10
GA Res. 297 (IV) of 22 Nov. 1949. Part A stated it that it was within the Secretary-General’s authority to establish the Field Service, and simply noted his intention to establish it. Part B requested the Secretary-General to establish and maintain the list to be known as the UN Panel of Field Observers.
11
GA Res. 377 (V) of 3 Nov. 1950, paras. 7–11.
12
Second report of the Collective Measures Committee, GAOR, 7th session, Supplement 17, Oct. 1952, 12. See also GA Res. 703 of 17 Mar. 1953, which accepted the report but made no mention of the Legion or Volunteer Reserve proposals.
13
Third and final report of the Collective Measures Committee, GAOR, 9th session, Annexes, Agenda item 19.
14
Lie,
In the Cause of Peace
, 99.
15
William R. Frye,
A United Nations Peace Force
(New York: Oceana, 1957). See also the appendix by Stephen Schwebel on Trygve Lie’s proposals for a UN Guard and UN Legion.
16
Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn,
World Peace Through World Law
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), 300. The proposed force size was not changed in subsequent editions. See e.g. 3rd edn. (1966), 314.
17
Letter from John Foster Dulles to UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, 18 Nov. 1958.I am grateful to Brian Urquhart for making a copy of the letter available to me, and for having drawn attention to it in his article ‘UN Peacekeeping Was and Will Remain Invaluable’,
International Herald Tribune
, Paris, 17 Feb. 1995, p. 6. On US attitudes see also the section of ‘Standby Arrangements for a United Nations Peace Force’ in Circular Instructions from the Department of State to Certain Diplomatic Missions, Washington, 7 Aug. 1959, reprinted in
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960
, vol. II,
United Nations and General International Matters
(Washington, DC: GPO, 1991), 162–3.
18
D. W. Bowett,
United Nations Forces: A Legal Study of United Nations Practice
(London: Stevens, 1964), 327. See generally the discussion of a permanent UN force at 316–27, 334–7, and 347–60.
19
Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping
, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to the Statement Adopted by the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 Jan. 1992 (New York: June 1992), paras. 42 and 43.
20
Ibid., para. 44.
21
Ibid.
22
Ibid., para. 51.
23
Timothy Stanley, John M. Lee, and Robert von Pagenhardt,
To Unite our Strength: Enhancing the United Nations Peace and Security System
(Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1992), ch. 2.
24
Partners for Peace: Strengthening Collective Security for the 21st Century
(New York: United Nations Association of the United States, 1992).
25
Brian Urquhart, ‘For a UN Volunteer Military Force’,
New York Review of Books
, 10 June 1993, 3. See also the comments in subsequent issues.
26
Brian Urquhart, ‘The UN and International Security after the Cold War’, in Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury (eds.),
United Nations, Divided World: The UN’s Roles in International Relations
, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 102.
27
‘Approximately 800,000 people were killed during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.’ First sentence of the ‘Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda’, UN doc. S/1999/1257 of 16 Dec. 1999, 3.
28
General Roméo Dallaire, cable to Maj.-Gen. Maurice Baril, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General, UN HQ, 11 Jan. 1994. Copy on file with the author.
29
General Roméo Dallaire, speech at Hague Symposium, 23 Mar. 1995, written text, 3 and 14. See also Dallaire with Brent Beardsley,
Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
(Toronto: Random House Canada, 2003).
30
Eventually, in Dec. 1994, Rwanda held the presidency. By this time there was a new Permanent Representative of Rwanda, representing the new RPF government.
31
SC Res. 912 of 21 Apr. 1994.
32
Figures from UN,
United Nations Peace-keeping Information Notes: Update May 1994
(New York: UN, 1994), 164–6.
33
UN doc. S/1994/518 of 29 Apr. 1994.
34
SC Res. 918 of 17 May 1994.
35
As Boutros-Ghali ruefully observed in ‘Supplement to An Agenda for Peace’, para. 43.
36
SC Res. 925 of 8 June 1994.
37
SC Res. 929 of 22 June 1994.
38
Julia Preston, ‘UN Drops Effort for Rwanda Refugees’,
International Herald Tribune
, Paris, 25 Jan. 1995.
39
Michael N. Barnett,
Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda
(Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. x. The author, an academic, was on a year’s secondment as a political officer of the US Mission to the UN, starting in late summer 1993.
40
On these documents, see below nn. 44, 45, and 46.
41
‘Stand-by Arrangements for Peace-keeping: Report of the Secretary-General’, UN doc. S/1994/777 of 30 June 1994, para. 2. This short document (2 pages plus 2 pages of bar charts) failed to mention the May 1994 debacle over the raising of troops for UNAMIR; but the document none the less conveyed an air of scepticism about the adequacy of such standby arrangements. It was discussed at a meeting of the Security Council on 27 July 1994, when a presidential statement (UN doc. S/PRST/1994/36) summarizing the discussion was issued.
42
Information on UNSAS from
www.un.org/Depts/dpko/milad/fgs2/unsas_files/sba.htm
accessed 18 Apr. 2007. Remarkably, this web page carried this out-of-date notice: ‘The Secretariat would be grateful if the Member States could reconfirm their pledges to the System by 15 June 2005.’
43
See Statement by the President of the UN Security Council, UN doc. S/PRST/1994/22 of 3 May 1994, discussing the Secretary-General’s report ‘Improving the Capacity of the United Nations for Peace-keeping’, UN doc. S/26450 of 14 Mar. 1994.
44
The Clinton Administration’s Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace Operations
(Washington, DC: US Department of State Publication 10161, May 1994), 15 pp. This US document, issued on 5 May 1994, is virtually the text of Presidential Decision Directive 25, less some appendices.
45
Department of National Defence,
1994 Defence White Paper
(Ottawa: Government of Canada, 1994), 27–39.
46
‘Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations’, UN doc. A/50/60 of 3 Jan. 1995, para. 44.
47
‘Supplement to An Agenda for Peace: Position Paper of the Secretary-General on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations’, UN doc. A/50/60 of 3 Jan. 1995, para. 77.
48
UN doc. S/PRST/1995/9 of 22 Feb. 1995, 2. France reportedly wanted a more positive response to the Secretary-General’s ideas on a rapid-reaction force, but failed to get sufficient support.
49
This rapid-reaction capability for UNPROFOR was authorized in SC Res. 998 of 16 June 1995. For an account of controversies surrounding its creation, and of its subsequent use in the operations that ended the siege of Sarajevo, see ‘Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 53/35: The Fall of Srebrenica’, UN doc. A/54/549 of 15 Nov. 1999, paras. 213–20 and 442–50.
50
UN, ‘Report of the Secretary-General on Srebrenica’, para. 442.
51
Hans van Mierlo at UN General Assembly, 49th session, 27 Sep. 1994.
