The Un Security Council And The Center Of Power

The United Nations (UN) Security Council's mandate is to diffuse conflicts and provide opposing parties with an opportunity to settle conflicts non-violently. The council has influence in every corner of the globe. Some UN members believe that the council's five permanent members--the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France--have had too much control. Despite these criticisms, the Security Council continues to work hard on behalf of world peace. Learn more about the UN's seat of power in The UN Security Council and the Center of Power, one of the titles in The United Nations series.

The nature and scope of UN Security Council decisions - significantly changed in the post-Cold War era - have enormous implications for the conduct of foreign policy. The UN Security Council offers a comprehensive view of the council both internally and as a key player in world politics. Focusing on the evolution of the council's treatment of key issues, the authors discuss new concerns that must be accommodated in the decisionmaking process, the challenges of enforcement, and shifting personal and institutional factors. Case studies complement the rich thematic chapters. The book sheds much-needed light on the central events and trends of the past decade and their critical importance for the future role of the council and the UN in the sphere of international security.

When President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, he did so without the explicit approval of the Security Council. His father's administration, by contrast, carefully funneled statecraft through the United Nations and achieved Council authorization for the U.S.-led Gulf War in 1991. The history of American policy toward Iraq displays considerable variation in the extent to which policies were conducted through the UN and other international organizations. In Channels of Power, Alexander Thompson surveys U.S. policy toward Iraq, starting with the Gulf War, continuing through the interwar years of sanctions and coercive disarmament, and concluding with the 2003 invasion and its long aftermath. He offers a framework for understanding why powerful states often work through international organizations when conducting coercive policies-and why they sometimes choose instead to work alone or with ad hoc coalitions. The conventional wisdom holds that because having legitimacy for their actions is important for normative reasons, states seek multilateral approval. Channels of Power offers a rationalist alternative to these standard legitimation arguments, one based on the notion of strategic information transmission: When state actions are endorsed by an independent organization, this sends politically crucial information to the world community, both leaders and their publics, and results in greater international support.

This is the first major exploration of the United Nations Security Council's part in addressing the problem of war, both civil and international, since 1945. Both during and after the Cold War the Council has acted in a limited and selective manner, and its work has sometimes resulted in failure. It has not been - and was never equipped to be - the centre of a comprehensive system of collective security. However, it remains the body charged with primary responsibility for international peace and security. It offers unique opportunities for international consultation and military collaboration, and for developing legal and normative frameworks. It has played a part in the reduction in the incidence of international war in the period since 1945. This study examines the extent to which the work of the UN Security Council, as it has evolved, has or has not replaced older systems of power politics and practices regarding the use of force. Its starting point is the failure to implement the UN Charter scheme of having combat forces under direct UN command. Instead, the Council has advanced the use of international peacekeeping forces; it has authorized coalitions of states to take military action; and it has developed some unanticipated roles such as the establishment of post-conflict transitional administrations, international criminal tribunals, and anti-terrorism committees. The book, bringing together distinguished scholars and practitioners, draws on the methods of the lawyer, the historian, the student of international relations, and the practitioner. It begins with an introductory overview of the Council's evolving roles and responsibilities. It then discusses specific thematic issues, and through a wide range of case studies examines the scope and limitations of the Council's involvement in war. It offers frank accounts of how belligerents viewed the UN, and how the Council acted and sometimes failed to act. The appendices provide comprehensive information - much of it not previously brought together in this form - of the extraordinary range of the Council's activities. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

"The Security Council, the all-powerful UN body for maintaining world peace, remains mired in its World War II origins. The victors, the US, Russia, China, Britain, and France, continue to control it with their permanent membership and the veto. Their confrontations emasculated the Council during the Cold War and their cooperation spawned questionable military actions thereafter. The book traces the origins of international security cooperation and scrutinizes the moorings of the Security Council’s powers in international law. It critiques the permanent five’s manipulation of the Council to aggressively strengthen their global dominance and legitimise their exercise of power. Their doctrines and actions in countries like Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Libya have hindered the Council’s evolution as a responsible body which has the trust of a globalising world. This book is an essential read for practitioners and scholars to understand the Security Council and the failure to reform it. "

As the twentieth century ended, Canada was completing its sixth term on the UN Security Council. A decade later, Ottawa’s attempt to return to the council was dramatically rejected by its global peers, leaving Canadians – and international observers – shocked and disappointed. Canada on the United Nations Security Council tells the story of that defeat and what it means for future campaigns, describing and analyzing Canada’s attempts since 1946, both successful and unsuccessful, to gain a seat as a non-permanent member. Impeccably researched and clearly written, this is the definitive history of the Canadian experience on the world’s most powerful stage.

This impressive work sheds light on the recent history of the UN Security Council (UNSC), examining how the penchant for UN-backed humanitarian intervention in the 1990s has given way to an impotent UNSC, unable to play a meaningful role in the war in Iraq. It examines the precepts that govern UNSC politics, including the sanctity of sovereign states, the norm of non-intervention and state interests. Designed for readers who are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the workings of the UNSC, the attitudes of its members towards the use of force and sovereignty, as well as understanding its limitations in international politics, this volume: · evaluates key issues such as the principle of consent, the use of force, intervention and sovereignty · provides a rich array of case studies to understand the challenges of consent-based peacekeeping · presents strong analytical consistency drawing on a wide variety of sources

The politics of legitimacy is central to international relations. When states perceive an international organization as legitimate, they defer to it, associate themselves with it, and invoke its symbols. Examining the United Nations Security Council, Ian Hurd demonstrates how legitimacy is created, used, and contested in international relations. The Council's authority depends on its legitimacy, and therefore its legitimation and delegitimation are of the highest importance to states. Through an examination of the politics of the Security Council, including the Iraq invasion and the negotiating history of the United Nations Charter, Hurd shows that when states use the Council's legitimacy for their own purposes, they reaffirm its stature and find themselves contributing to its authority. Case studies of the Libyan sanctions, peacekeeping efforts, and the symbolic politics of the Council demonstrate how the legitimacy of the Council shapes world politics and how legitimated authority can be transferred from states to international organizations. With authority shared between states and other institutions, the interstate system is not a realm of anarchy. Sovereignty is distributed among institutions that have power because they are perceived as legitimate. This book's innovative approach to international organizations and international relations theory lends new insight into interactions between sovereign states and the United Nations, and between legitimacy and the exercise of power in international relations.