The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (7 page)

Despite 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 Security Council summit was held – on 7 September 2000, at the time of the Millennium summit of the General Assembly (GA) – it issued a ‘declaration on ensuring an effective role for the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security, particularly in Africa’, which made a brief reference to ‘the collective security system established by the UN Charter’.
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In 2004 the UN High-level Panel Report on Threats, Challenges and Change placed heavy emphasis on the proposition that what the UN must aim to establish is a ‘collective security system’:

The High-level Panel Report used the term ‘collective security system’ in an innovative way, to refer to a UN-centred system of international security that addresses a notably wide range of threats. This use of the term ‘collective security’ suggested continuity between the original purposes of the Charter and the proposed reforms. More specifically it raised the possibility of developing, within a UN framework, a broad view of security policy as addressing the problems of terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and state breakdown as well as more conventional security threats; and it indicated the possibility of building, on this basis, a common international approach to security issues. However, this approach had weaknesses. Although the term ‘collective security’ was used about eighty times, it was not defined. Partially echoing this emphasis, the 2005 World Summit Outcome – the document issued by a meeting of the UN General Assembly at the level of heads of state and government to celebrate the organization’s sixtieth anniversary – also referred to the UN as being at the heart of a system of collective security.
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Meanwhile the third Security Council summit, held at the time of this sixtieth anniversary summit of the General Assembly, passed two resolutions, on terrorism and conflict prevention in Africa, neither of which mentioned collective security.
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The idea of the Charter as a recipe for a system of collective security is potentially damaging to the organization. First, it inevitably brings to mind memories of unhappy episodes (including in the years 1919–39) in which attempts were made to create systems of collective security – attempts which proved to be a failure. In the wake of this bitter experience, the fact that the term was not used in the UN Charter was not an accident, and its revival is problematic. Secondly, the emphasis on the idea of ‘collective security’ means that the UN comes to be seen as hopelessly optimistic: as purporting to set up a general security system although in reality the UN, while it can perform a large number of useful security functions, cannot hope to constitute anything as ambitious as that. Thirdly, the emphasis on ‘collective security’ tends to distract attention from some of the Council’s important innovations in addressing conflicts, and likewise to obscure some notable elements of realism in and around the organization, including (in the 2004 High-level Panel Report) a frank recognition of the continuing role of states as ‘front-line actors in dealing with all the threats we face, new and old’.
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Finally, the emphasis on the idea encourages a line of argument which sees the Charter framework as a completely valid collective security scheme that would have been effective but for the faults and failures 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.

Some have suggested that a looser definition of collective security, or adoption of a different term, might do more to reflect the realities and possibilities of the UN. For example, in the 1990s James Goodby, with experience of working in the US government, suggested that the classical definitions have been ‘too narrowly constructed to be a practical guide to policy analysis, especially when considering the use of military force’. He therefore proposed a definition of collective security as ‘a policy that commits governments to develop and enforce broadly accepted international rules and to seek to do so through collective action legitimized by representative international organizations’.
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This less stringent conception of collective security better captures the record of how some states responded to war and other threats to the peace and security in the post-1945 period not only through the Security Council, but also through other bodies including NATO. Whether it adds up to a
system
, and whether the term ‘collective security’ is really appropriate to describe such cooperative approaches not always tied to a single organization, may be doubted.

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 of the organization. Many writers have been attracted by the idea that the UN is, or should be, a world government in the making.
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This view is sometimes tinged with what might be called the domestic analogy fallacy – the assumption that world order must necessarily assume a form similar to that of the government within a sovereign state, and therefore involves a general transfer of authority from states to the UN.
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The ‘domestic analogy’ obscures rather than clarifies the uniqueness of the 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 of sovereignty, especially through its support of decolonization. If it challenges the sovereignty of states, it is in very particular and limited ways, which are related to the Council’s unique and constantly developing roles in regard to armed conflicts and international security issues in all their many forms.

This book reflects an approach in which the actual practice of states and international bodies is seen as at least as important as prescription or theory; and in which variations on such constitutional arrangements as those of the UN Charter are seen as potentially creative as well as potentially destructive. Indeed, the constant interplay between law and practice that has characterized the UN era can help to yield a realistic and multi-dimensional picture of the organization and its capabilities. This interplay also may be part of the explanation of its successive adaptations in response to changed international situations.

While the UN Charter does not claim a monopoly for the organization in managing international order, it does contain a vision of an international system in which the UN has a central role. Yet in practice the UN system has coexisted with other institutions and other means of addressing key international order issues.

One example is disarmament and arms control – a field in which both the Security Council and the General Assembly have responsibilities under the Charter. Both bodies have passed numerous resolutions on armaments and disarmament: indeed, the first resolution passed by either body was a General Assembly resolution on control of atomic weapons.
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Several important agencies concerned with disarmament, including the International Atomic Energy Agency which was established in 1957, have a close association with the UN. The UN has a long record of organizing conferences on disarmament, and these have contributed to significant agreements on this subject, including the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Yet many UN conferences in this area have been notably unproductive. At the same time, many arms control and disarmament agreements have been concluded largely outside a UN framework. Examples include the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the 1972 US–Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Accords, and the 1987 US–Soviet Agreement on the Elimination of Intermediate-range Missiles. In these cases, the reasons for negotiating outside a UN framework included the view of the United States and the Soviet Union that the rest of the world did not
have any
locus standi
to co-determine how the two superpowers should agree between themselves to manage their arsenals. There was also concern about the tendency of large multilateral conferences to be stronger on rhetoric, and sticking to well-established principles and policies, than on getting down to deals.

Similarly, some effective negotiations on regional problems have been outside a UN framework. For example, on the Arab–Israel issue, and on southern Africa in the apartheid years, negotiations under UN auspices were encumbered by the fact that they tended to involve so many countries, and were based on clear stances about the problems of these regions that had been expressed in resolutions of the UN General Assembly – especially those condemning the Israeli occupation of neighbouring territories, and the continuation of white minority rule. In both cases, certain key negotiations took place outside a UN framework, often with the US rather than the UN as a key player. A defining characteristic of many such negotiations has been the mixture of UN and extra-UN activity, with the UN regularly laying down the guiding principles, helping keep the parties to them, and then acting as the rallying-point in gathering political support for the end result.

In general, the era since 1945 has witnessed – alongside the new institution of the United Nations and the multilateral diplomacy that it embodies – the continuation of all the classical institutions of the international system: great powers, alliances, spheres of interest, balances of power, and bilateral diplomacy.
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Even those most questionable of international institutions, war and threats of war, continue to have some place in the relations of states.

The Security Council itself has been deeply affected by the survival of the older institutions of international order. As regards the organization and direction of armed force, the Council has operated in a manner which has differed from certain aspects of the scheme as envisaged in the UN Charter. This tendency began during the Cold War years (up to about 1989) and has continued subsequently.

Some of these variations are largely uncontroversial. For example, Article 27(3) of the Charter, which provides for the veto on the part of the five Permanent Members, states that a Security Council resolution requires ‘the concurring votes of the permanent members’. In practice this provision has been interpreted to mean that a Permanent Member has to vote against a resolution in order to veto it: abstention or absence is not enough. Since this practice is arguably based on an interpretation of the Charter rather than a variation on it, and since it manifestly assists the conduct of business, it has been widely accepted.

Certain other variations on some parts of the Charter scheme are neither minor nor, in some cases, uncontroversial. Five in particular stand out.

First, the practice of the Council of authorizing the use of force by coalitions led by an individual state differs from the main Charter vision of military action being under UN direction and control. On numerous occasions the Council has authorized coalitions of states to take forceful action, with one country taking a lead role. The US, UK, France, Italy, and Australia have all, in different crises, been clothed with such a role.

Secondly, the Council has become deeply involved in establishing and managing peacekeeping operations – a form of action that is not mentioned in the Charter, but has become one of the UN’s principal forms of action, and even a symbol of the organization itself.

Thirdly, while many states have concluded standby agreements with the UN, they have never made forces permanently available to the UN in the manner envisaged in Articles 43 and 45 of the Charter. In all such agreements, states have retained discretion about when and how their forces are used.

Fourthly, the Military Staff Committee has never had anything like the role in advising on, assisting, and planning the application of armed force as set out in Articles 45–7. Although there have been more than a thousand meetings, they have generally been perfunctory. The fact that they have been held is a symptom of reluctance to abandon the Charter vision of a transformed world.
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Fifthly, under the ‘Uniting for Peace’ procedure the General Assembly has a potential involvement in certain crises and wars beyond that already provided for under Articles 10–12 of the Charter. Under this procedure the Assembly has passed a number of important resolutions, for example calling for ceasefires and troop withdrawals in regional conflicts.
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The fact that a practice has differed from the Charter scheme does not make it illegal under the Charter. As noted, the broad terms of the Charter give the Council considerable latitude. For example, the establishment of peacekeeping forces, even if not envisaged in the Charter, is within the Council’s powers under
Chapters VI
and
VII
.
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Similarly, the use of authorized military forces and coalitions, rather than forces under direct UN control, is consistent with the Council’s powers, and in particular with the terms of Articles 48 and 53 which envisage action being taken by some UN members or regional arrangements.