The United Nations Security Council and International Conflict Resolution
Abstract of The United Nations Security Council and International Conflict Resolution
This research effort grew out of concern for the increasing use of force in settlement of disputes by the United States which has the tendency to reduce the moral stature of the UN (above all, the security council) an organization committed to the maintenance of international peace and security. It seeks to analyse the role of the United Nations security council in international conflict resolution, using the UN Weapons inspection in Iraq as a case study. This research work sets itself to determining whether the Weapons Inpectors did indict Iraq of possessing WMD. The central focus of the study is to determine whether the UN Security Council authorized the war or whether the war was a pre-emptive action on the
part of the U.S. and its allies. On the above premise, the theoretical framework of political Realism which holds that the overriding national interest of each State is its national Security and survival defined in terms of power. However, the study revealed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a clear-cut case of aggression and territorial annexation of another country and therefore a violation of State Sovereignty. The findings of this research are that the United Nations Security Council which is the only organ that can authorize war in modern International law did not authorize the war on Iraq. Consequently, in a bid to justify the war, the U.S and U.K anchored their action on UN Resolution 1441 which, however, never gave Member States an explicit permission to attack Iraq. The study also revealed that the U.S. led
war on Iraq was pre-emptive. Most importantly, the work revealed that the war has a significant relationship with the U.S. foreign policy on the Gulf region. Based on these findings; the study concludes that for peaceful co-existence among Nations, all States should uphold the integrity and authority of the United Nations and of International Law.
Chapter One of The United Nations Security Council and International Conflict Resolution
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The United Nations Organization was formed in 1945; it was to be a universal single purpose organization that would promote world peace and security. In order to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations, its members confer on the Security Council the 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.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the organ of the United Nations charged with maintaining international peace and security among nations. While other organs of UN only make recommendations to member governments, the Security Council has the power to make decisions which member governments must carry out under Article 25 of the United Nations Charter, which reads “the members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the president charter. The decisions of the Council are known as UNSC Resolutions. The Council is made up of 15 Member States, consisting of five permanent seats and ten temporary seats. The five
permanent seats are China, France, Russia, The United Kingdom and the United States. These big five hold veto power over substantive but not procedural resolutions. The ten temporary seats voted in by the UN General Assembly on a regional basis. The presidency of the Security Council is rotated alphabetically each month.
The Security Council performs these functions on the basis of a universal phenomenon that has come to be known as collective security. This is a system in which aggression against a state is taken to be aggression against all that are parties to the treaty; consequently, a collective action is to be taken by other states to counter such an aggression. A good example was in 1991, when the United States led a coalition force of about 23 countries in a battle code- named “Operation Desert Storm” on Iraq for the formers invasion and annexation of Kuwait on August 2, 1990.
Resolution 687, adopted in 3 April 1991 set out terms of cease fire which demanded respect of inviolability of Iraq- Kuwait border, as well as inspection and destruction of Iraq’s weapon which range greater than 150 kilometres, together with related items paragraph 9 of the Resolution provided for the creation of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) with the mandate to implement immediate on- site inspections of Iraq’s chemical, biological and missile Capabilities, on the basis both of Iraq’s own declarations and of the designation of the special Commission itself. Iraq was equally obliged to declare its nuclear material, equipment and sub-systems to the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA).
A major reason given by the Bush administration for waging war on Iraq was that she possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) as well as had links with al-Qaeda (Osama Bin laden and Saddam Hussein). This led to the adumbration of a doctrine of “pre-emption” by the Bush administration; in Blair’s words, “it is a matter of time unless we act and take a stand before terrorism and weapons of mass destruction come together, and I regard them as two sides of the same coin”.