Thinking Different about the UN Security Council

According to the UN Charter (Article 26), the UN Security Council is the primary organ responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Nuclear states agreed to the adoption of a UN Security Council Resolution that provided positive security assurances. The adoption of UN Security Council Resolution №255 on June 19, 1968, was of particular significance. This resolution stipulated that instances of aggression involving the use of nuclear weapons or the threat of such aggression against a non-nuclear-weapon state would require immediate action by the UN Security Council and its permanent members, who are nuclear-armed states. The aim of the work is to determine the role of the UN Security Council in the system of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The methodological basis of the study will focus on the analysis and understanding of the impact of the UN Security Council on strategies and measures aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the international context. The results of our research have shown that the role of the UN Security Council in the disarmament of Iraq’s nuclear program, which could have led to the development of nuclear weapons, proved to be significant. To achieve this, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution №687 adopted on April 3, 1991, the Special Commission (UNSCOM) was established. During an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council at the highest level on September 24, 2009, Resolution UN Security Council Resolution № 1887 was adopted, aimed at supporting nuclear non-proliferation, criticizing Iran and North Korea. Resolution №1887 outlines measures to strengthen control and the rights of nuclear-weapon states to demand the return of nuclear materials and equipment in case of violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty or withdrawal from it. It also involves enhancing security measures for the storage of nuclear materials and strict export controls. Conclusions. In our opinion, the powers of the UN Security Council in the field of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction should be utilized more promptly and effectively. The insufficient effectiveness of this international mechanism in preventing proliferation remains a cause for serious concern among UN members worldwide. To enhance the effectiveness of the UN Security Council, we propose the adoption of a comprehensive resolution that includes provisions on the procedure for a state’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its violation of commitments to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons. This resolution should stipulate the imposition of sanctions against such a state based on a special report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Such a mechanism can ensure an effective impact of the international community on states that withdraw from the NPT.

The subject of the study is the role of the UN Security Council in the international system of countering money laundering and terrorist financing. The author pays special attention to the historical component, identifying the reasons for the transformation of the UN approach to money laundering and terrorist financing and tracing the link between the globalization of terrorist acts and the development of counteraction by the UN Security Council. The main functions of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC of the UN Security Council) and the Executive Directorate (CTED of the UN Security Council) are outlined. The article reveals the role of a number of UN Security Council documents as a systemically significant source of law in the context of the international system for countering money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as individual problems faced by states implementing the norms of resolutions into their national legislation. The methodological basis of the study was a combination of general scientific (logical method and analysis) and private scientific methods (comparative legal, historical legal, historical and sociological). The article systematically details the development of the UN Security Council's approach to the problem of money laundering and terrorist financing. Through careful consideration of individual provisions of the resolutions, the role of this UN Security Council and its bodies in developing measures and countering ML/FT is being specified. Based on the results of the study, the author concludes that the UN Security Council has played a systemically significant role in the formation of an international system for countering money laundering and terrorist financing, consolidating a number of advanced international standards developed by international organizations, para-organizations and other institutions. In addition, the author clarifies that it is thanks to the UN Security Council that it is possible to further "solidify" the FATF Recommendations and their full implementation into the international legal system.

Seated at the famous horseshoe table in the United Nations Security Council chamber in New York on 25 October 1962, US Ambassador Adlai Stevenson presented fellow Council members with photographic evidence of Soviet missile installations in Cuba. Unveiling the evidence collected by US intelligence services over the previous weeks and months, Stevenson’s performance produced a supreme and memorable moment of Cold War drama. Some 40 years later, Secretary of State Colin Powell, making the case Review Essay

Introduction. The relevance of the study of sanctions as a tool of US foreign policy lies in the fact that today sanctions have become so rapid that they have become one of the most important mechanisms in modern international relations. The relevance of this study is confirmed by the fact that taking a strong place in the foreign policy of many countries and international organizations, sanctions have become an alternative or addition to the use of force to force individual states to fulfill the political demands of the countries initiating sanctions. In the context of globalization of the world economy, the process of intensification of the application of sanctions policies by individual states is taking place in order to increase its role in the international arena. Given that today sanctions are the leading instrument of foreign policy and are considered as a compromise response to undesirable actions of a particular state, it is necessary to consider the legal and institutional framework for their implementation. Materials and methods. As the materials of the study were taken data presented in both monographic studies and journalistic articles of domestic, but to a greater extent foreign experts in the field of international law and the General modern history. The article is written on the basis of an international legal analysis of the articles of the UN Charter, resolutions of the UN Security Council, as well as a detailed historical and comparative analysis of the legal framework for the application of EU sanctions, the United States, RF and Canada. Results. The results of the study showed that sanctions international legal relations are based on the Charter of the United Nations (Article 39 and 44), and are implemented through the resolutions of the UN Security Council. Having identified a threat to peace or international security, the UN Security Council has the right, on the basis of a collectively adopted decision, to attract the offending object to international responsibility, that is, to impose sanctions measures against it. At the disposal of the UN Security Council there are special sanctions committees that are engaged in the implementation of sanctions policy. Conclusions. Today the UN has a streamlined legal and institutional mechanism for the implementation of international sanctions. If we consider the sanctions imposed by individual states, in most cases the mechanism of introducing the same, as a rule, decision on the adoption of sanctions is entrusted to the president and the executive authorities. In addition, each state in the issue of the introduction of restrictive measures is repelled by its national legislation. Sanctions as an instrument of American government influence have undergone major changes. Their effectiveness has increased significantly over the past twenty years, so the United States aims to continue to provide a solid foundation for the effectiveness of the sanctions policy for many years.

This article assesses whether the 2003 invasion of Iraq can be justified as a humanitarian intervention. Because of the potential loss of life inherent in any military action, the author contends that a threshold test of a humanitarian intervention is whether it is necessary to stop ongoing or imminent mass slaughter. Although that test might have been met, say, at the time of the 1988 genocide against the Kurds, there was no ongoing or imminent mass slaughter in Iraq in March 2003. That lack is decisive in undermining claims that the invasion of Iraq was a humanitarian intervention. Apart from this threshold test, the author also considers several secondary factors: whether force was the last resort, whether the invasion was guided primarily by a humanitarian purpose, whether it was conducted with maximum respect for international human rights and humanitarian law, whether it was likely to produce more good than harm, and whether, ideally though not necessarily, it was endorsed by the UN Security Council. The author concludes that the invasion of Iraq fails most of these secondary tests as well: the war as conceived in early 2003 was not primarily about stopping atrocities; non-military options for achieving its other stated purposes had not been exhausted; although the invading forces generally respected international humanitarian law, there were certain major exceptions; and the UN Security Council was never asked to contemplate a humanitarian intervention in Iraq. At most, it was reasonable to conclude in March 2003 that overthrowing Saddam Hussein might do more good than harm. On balance, therefore, the author concludes that the Iraq war cannot be justified as a humanitarian intervention.

This chapter is devoted to investigating the multifaceted activities carried out by the UN to counter foreign fighters. The phenomenon of foreign fighters has captured the attention of the UN system in relation to the recent events taking place in Syria and Iraq. However, the topic is not new on the UN agenda and it has already been tackled within the framework of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. This burning issue will be analysed and discussed in light of the activities and initiatives carried out by the Security Council and by the General Assembly as well as by other UN entities such as the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre, and the UN Security Council (UNSC) Counter-Terrorism Committee. After providing an overview of the UN framework dealing with counter terrorism, this contribution will focus on the two most recent, and both unanimously adopted, UNSC Resolutions, namely 2170 (2014) and 2178 (2014), which attempt to present a holistic approach to the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters. In particular the latter Resolution, given its ‘legislative’ nature, triggers many questions concerning the far-reaching powers of the UN Security Council, already exercised through the adoption of Resolution 1373 (2001). Such questions and the criticism towards the alleged ultra vires acts of the UN Security Council will be critically addressed in this contribution.

The UN Security Council addressed the issue of due process protection for individuals designated for counter-terrorism sanctions when it created the Office of the Ombudsperson in 2009. However, fundamental rights to due process continued to be denied for those designated for individual UN sanctions for other (non-terrorism) activities, which account for the majority of the individuals and entities currently designated for sanctions by the Security Council. This has created ongoing challenges to the legitimacy of the Council due to its inattention to the rights of individuals designated for sanctions. A significant enhancement of the Focal Point Mechanism first created within the Secretariat in 2006 was made possible with the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2744 in July 2024. This article charts the course of incremental, procedural reform at the Security Council on this issue, identifies core elements of due process, describes recent litigation trends challenging UN designations worldwide, summarizes the core elements of UNSCR 2744, and suggests specific proposals for addressing the remaining legitimacy deficit related to UN sanctions on individuals.

Abstract: The UN Security Council plays a crucial role in maintaining global peace and security. However, the Syrian Civil War and data reveal that the abuse of the veto and the decline in the representativeness and legitimacy of the permanent members hinder its effectiveness. The international community needs to reconsider the powers and structure of the UN Security Council, including reforming the veto system, the permanent seats, and the distribution of powers within the Security Council and other United Nations bodies. Furthermore, this study proposes several reforms, such as limiting the scope of veto use, especially in cases of conflicts threatening international peace, and introducing regional representation to better reflect the geopolitical realities of the 21st century. Additionally, the International Court of Justice should be empowered to interpret the UN Charter, enhancing the role of the Secretariat, and granting the General Assembly greater oversight over the Security Councils actions. These reforms aim to increase the UN Security Councils legitimacy, fairness, and capacity to act decisively in maintaining peace and security, ensuring it remains an effective body in the evolving landscape of international relations.

Since 2006 to 2017 the Security Council has passed a resolution on North Korea's nuclear test act. Article 25 of the UN Charter states that Members of the United Nations agree to accept and implement the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with this Charter. North Korea as a UN member state that obtained the UN Security Council Resolution is obliged to implement the sanctions resolution. However, the sanctions contained in the resolution did not make North Korea stop its nuclear program and it shows North Korea's noncompliance with UN Security Council resolutions. Implications accompanying any denial by North Korea against the UN Security Council resolution which in general affects four fields, namely the fields of economy, politics, defense and international cooperation. In addition to non-military sanctions, the Security Council under chapter VII Article 42 of the UN Charter can impose military sanctions where possible, the Security Council can also impose sanctions through the UN General Assembly on its recommendation to suspend the rights of UN membership) and expulsion of a country from UN membership).

The Rwanda civil war that in 1994 degenerated into a slaughter of the country's Tutsi, amounting to genocide, was possibly the world's most devastating bloodbath of the 1990s. In 1994, the newly formed Czech Republic took up its place as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council; Karel Kovanda was the Czech Ambassador at the time. Drawing on internal documents of the Czech Foreign Service and on his own private notes, as well as on a wealth of published information, Kovanda details in this personal memoir the step-by-step evolution of the Rwandan tragedy as he and his delegation perceived it, and the Czech reaction to it. He repeatedly highlights the information gap: on the one hand, insufficient and biased information provided by the UN Secretariat; on the other hand, the detailed, accurate, and timely information his delegation received from NGOs. Kovanda estimates that during the first weeks, the Security Council gave perhaps 80% of its attention to the civil war between Rwandan government forces and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and 20% to how to handle the difficult position of UNAMIR, the peacekeeping operation then on the ground in Rwanda. Only after weeks of delay did the Security Council even start to come to grips with the ongoing genocide—a term that Ambassador Kovanda was the first to employ publicly in an official UN meeting. While focusing on Rwanda proper, Kovanda also explains and describes the sometimes little-known mechanisms that play a role in the day-to-day workings of the Security Council: the role of the UN Secretariat, informal consultations, groupings of Security Council members, and so on.

The article examines some aspects of the problems of reforming the United Nations, which is the largest international organization in the world, established after the end of World War II to maintain peace, develop friendly relations and intergovernmental cooperation among member states. The study focuses on the activities of the UN Security Council, which is one of the key organs of the international organization, as it performs the main function of the UN - ensuring international security. A significant feature of this body is that it is empowered to make decisions which are binding on all countries that are members of the organization. It is emphasized that the veto right of permanent member states should act as a stabilizer ensuring the collegial nature of the UN Security Council's activities and adoption of important decisions in the field of international security. It is pointed out that the veto power in the UN Security Council is provided for to avoid counteracting the interests of the founding members of the Organization, but given the global expansion of the United Nations in the second half of the twentieth century, it seems obvious that such a right may impede the achievement of justice and equality of member States. The attention is focused on the inadmissibility of using the veto power not in the interests of maintaining peace and security, but on the basis of the member states' own interests.

This chapter concentrates on the basic political and legal dynamics of decision-making on the Security Council. The Security Council is a part of the United Nations and is based on a treaty, the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter gave the Council the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the power to make binding decisions, and to carry out enforcement actions in cases of threats to peace, breaches of peace and acts of aggression. The Security Council needs to act in a consistent manner and avoid the impression of applying double standards. This may require the Security Council itself to adopt general guidelines for future action, such as when to intervene in man-made humanitarian disasters. Keywords: decision-making; international law; UN charter; UN Security Council

Since the early 1990s, the UN Security Council has used its enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to address different aspects of international refugee protection from the root causes of forced displacement to the search for durable solutions to the refugee problem. At the same time, however, the Security Council has been criticized for impelling trends towards state security concerns that have emerged in the refugee-protection regime over the past two decades. By establishing safe areas in Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda, or linking refugee status to terrorism, the Security Council has been accused of violating established refugee-protection standards. This paper seeks to use the prism of international refugee protection to draw a more nuanced picture of the normative effects of SC actions on the development of international law generally. Shifting the analytical focus from the much-discussed responsibility of the Security Council for wrongful acts, it is submitted that the practice of the Security Council has had a considerable influence on the development and even making of norms in the field of international refugee protection, thereby eroding established refugee-protection standards. This normative erosion through the inherently political actions of the Security Council will be assessed with regard to the principal measures by which the Security Council has addressed international refugee protection, namely peace operations and economic sanctions.

During the 1990s, and particularly since 9/11, state-sponsored terrorism gradually declined, while transnational terrorism, which largely operates without direct state support and features cross-border network structures and a greater propensity to mass-casualty attacks, has gained in importance. Setting out from this observation, the purpose of this article is to examine whether the UN Security Council (SC) has adapted to transnational terrorism and, if so, how. Providing a systematic and theory-guided comparison of the SC's approach to these different types of terrorism, the article shows that, contrary to common considerations, the SC did adapt to transnational terrorism. The SC applied sanctions against terrorists and committed every state to instituting far-reaching generic counter-terrorism measures. Moreover, in an unprecedented way, it made use of managerial compliance strategies to foster implementation. In this way, the SC adapted to transnational terrorism by demanding more from states and intervening deeper into their domestic realm, while at the same time offering more support with respect to implementation. While such an approach is unlikely to become common SC practice in the short term, it is nevertheless symptomatic of a broader trend in the evolution of governance patterns in the post-national constellation today.

The paper analyses the debates within the UN Security Council on the role of regional organisations in peace operations and examines associated pro and con arguments. The systemisation of the findings is facilitated through the application of SWOT analysis that requires an insight into the unit and system levels of analysis. The first one looks at regional organisations and studies the strengths and the weaknesses that could promote or obscure their greater involvement in peace operations. The second level studies the international political environment that could provide opportunities for greater regional involvement or pose threats (obstacles) to it. The study indicates that there is a clearly established numerical predominance of supporters of greater regional involvement in peace operations over the regio-sceptics. However, the conclusion is that while the permanent members of the UN Security Council continue to endorse such involvement in the field, they will keep avoiding the formalisation and institutionalisation of the role of regional organisations on a political level.