UN Flashcards
headquarters UN
New York
members UN
193 countries
mandate UN
to end international war, and to promote social and economic development
key structure UN
6
- UN General Assembly (plenary body)
- UN Security Council
- Economic and Social Council
- International Court of Justice
- Maribund Trusteeship Council
- Secretariat (with Secretary-General)
key obligations to the UN
- give up the use of force except for self-defense
- must carry out SC decisions
- can conclude no treaty that contradicts the UN Charter
UN as forum, actor and resource
FORUM: annual meetings of the UNGA
ACTOR: issues statements and resolutions
RESOURCE: resolutions are symbolic resources with which states/actors can influence global perception of the issues that interest them
UN Charter
- signed in 1945 in San Francisco
- forms something like a constitution for the international system
- empowering and constraining on governments
- principle and practice need to be understood together: interpreting the Charter is important
UN Charter amendment
- art. 108
- requires approval of the P5 and 2/3 majority in the UNGA
Principle v. Practice of the UN
aspirations of the UN often result in compromises between the aspirations and practical reality of power differences and competing views
P5 SC
Republic of China, France, the Soviet Union the UK and the US
UN SC members
P5
10 rotating with 2 year terms
Rotating members are shared among/by the regional groups:
- African Group 3
- Asia-Pacific Group 2
- Eastern-Europe Group 1
- Latin America and the Carribean Group 2
- Western and Other Group 2
UN SC voting
- P5 have veto powers on everything accept procedural matters
- 9/15 affirmative votes
Moribund Trusteeship Council
supervising any people and territories that have been placed under trusteeship with the UN (colonial undertone)
UN Obligations under the Charter
- Art. 2 limits the UN’s power by recognizing domestic domain of states (non-intervention on ‘‘essentially domestic’’ matters)
peacekeeping
negotiated between UN and the state, UN must leave if the state revokes its consent
UN intervention operations / UN peace-enforcement
response to a threat to international peace and security by the UNSC
Commitments of states to the UN
member-states are committed to obligations of the UN Charter, but also to any new obligations created by UN organs as they carry out their mandates
GA’s limited powers
can only make recommendations to states and the Secretary General
only decisive power: UN budget
GA resolution 377 ‘Uniting for Peace’
- 1950
- GA claims the right to hold special emergency sessions to create peacekeeping missions if the UNSC fails to ensure security and peace
- argument: SC has primary responsibility to ensure internatinoal peace and security, this implies that there is a ‘‘secondary or subsidiary’’ authority
- special emergency session has to be called within 24h after the vote of the SC
- proces: 7 SC (no veto) members have to vote for it, or a simple majority of the UNGA
- really hard to establish an actual peacekeeping mission: negotinating, legitimating, legally justifying, resourcing, implementing
SC legal authority
- binding on member-states
- authority to determine what is(n’t) a threat to international peace and security
- can make new legal obligations on states via resolutions
UNGA meetings
- General Debate in September: all state heads hold speeches
- regular schedule through the year
- emergency special sessions
plenary organ
organ where everyone can participate (every member is represented)
Structure UN GA
- subsidiary organs (committees that do the work: prepare, read)
- Councils
- Joint Inspection Unit
- UN Dispute Tribunal (administrative)
- seating arrangement: alphabetically + rotating
Joint Inspection Unit
report to the GA, looks at cross-cutting issues and to act as an agent for change across the UN system
+ oversees spenditure
UNGA decision making
important issues: 2/3 majority
- incl. peace and security, election of members of the UNSC and ECOSOC, acceptance of new members, suspension of membership, budgetary isses
other issues: simple majority
GA committees
6
- Disarmament and International Security Committee
- Economic and Financial Committee
- Social Humanitarian and Cultural Committee
- Special Political and Decolonization Committee
- Administrative and Budgetary Committee
- Legal Committee
function UNGA committees
prepare draft statemetns and draft resolutions + report back to the plenary meeting
resolutions are always introduced/altered by the committees before it enters the GA
work focussed on finding compromise
UN budget
- GA decides on general budget
- seperate budget for peacekeeping missions
- members pay max. 22% of the total budget
- 128 least paying countries together pay 1.3% of the budget -> technically this is a 2/3 majority -> poorest countries could decide on the entire budget -> unsettlement among richer countries -> 1986 informal agreement
1986 informal agreement on consensus about the budget
ACABQ proposal -> 5th Committee (2 readings) -> UNGA Plenary decision
ACABQ
Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions
‘nuclear option’ UN budget
if member-states are more than 2 years behind on their payment, they shall have no vote in the UNGA (this article is rarely invoked)
France and SU on the peacekeeping missions in the Middle East and Congo
found them outside of the UNGA’s jurisdiction -> refused to pay costs as it weren’t legitimate expences of the UN
*meant they could lose their vote in the UNGA, but the UNGA decided to operate by consensus rather than by formal votes
UN Membership procedure
- Formal application by state
- Secretary-General
- UNSC: 9/15 (P5 can veto)
- UNGA: 2/3
Different types of UN membership
decided upon by the UNGA
- Member States (193)
- Non-member observers (Holy See and Palestine), have the right to speak and vote on procedural matters
- IGOs with observer status (e.g. AU, OAS, League of Arab States)
- Enhanced observer status (specific rights of the EU since 2011: submit and amend proposals, circulate documents)
CASE: membership request by Palestine
1974 non-state observer status
2011 request full membership
- vetoed by US
Palestine did get membership in UNESCO (US left) and the ICC (2014)
2012: request for observer status accepted by the UNGA
UN Regional Grouping System goal
coordination among states (time consuming to let everyone speak)
!it has grown: influence on the election of the Secretary-General: every elections another group puts forward another candidate
Regional Groups UN
5
- African Group (54 countries)
- Asia-Pacific Group (53 countries)
- Eastern-Europe Group (23 countries)
- Latin America and the Carribean Group (33 countries) = aka GRULAC
- Western and Others Group (28 countries) = aka WEOG
UN compliance mainly relies on….
- interests of states in preserving their reputations
- interests of states of maintaining an organization that is broadly useful for them
determining compliance
is often debatable (depends on interpretation) = recurring problem in international politics
e.g. Cuban missile crisis 1963: lawful arming of self-defence (Cuba) v. illegal provocation (US)
Enforcement UN Charter
SC: military enforcement
GA: creative, indirect ways to enforce its beliefs
- e.g. can push states, IOs and other actors to take certain actions
UN Trusteeship Council
- no mandate anymore
- predecessor: League of Nations Mandates Commission
- last territory = Palau (until 1994)
- hard to remove from the Charter
- office sometimes used by other organs
- proposals to give it new tasks
League of Nations Mandates Commission
predecessor of the UN Trusteeship Council
membership ECOSOC
-54 members elected for 3 years (every year 1/3 is being replaced)
functions ECOSOC
- outreach (economic, social, humanitarian, civil society)
- coordination (e.g. specialized agencies, NGOs)
- knowledge production (academics, research)
ECOSOC system
ECOSOC consists out of multiple commissions, bodies, programmes, agencies etc.
2021 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development
organised by the ECOSOC
'’Uniting for Peace’’ in action
Peacekeeping operations UNEF1 on Sinai (1956), ONUC mission Congo (1960-1964)
most recent: Ukraine (resolution calling for an end to the war)
Alma Ata Agreements
states being formed out of the former USSR agreed that Russia is the continuing state of the USSR in the UN
Russia’s justification for the military action in Ukraine
- acting at Donetsk’s and Luhansk’s request (Rusia recognizes their statehood) in a form of collective self-defense
- preventing genocide under Art. 1 of the Genocide Convention
What can the UNGA do in an emergency special session?
- call for an ICJ advisory opinion
- allocate funds from the UN budget towards mitigation measures
- call for additional funds to be directed towards a specific conflict fund
- investigative mechanisms
- call for ceasefires and withdrawals
- calling upon states to implement sanctions
- establishment and deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission
Uniting for Peace: Passing the Baton on the Ukraine Invasion fro the SC to the GA
Rob McLaughlin and Tamsin Philipa Paige
The Emergency Special Session on Ukraine
Diego Sanchez Borjas
Result GA emergency special session on Ukraine
resolution that demands Russia to refrain from unlawful use of force against Ukraine
- not legally binding
‘‘uniting for peace’’ resolutions are seen to have more coercive/forceful nature (e.g. ICJ sees it as more than just declaratory or horatory) - falls under important question criterion
- related to international peace and security, referred by the SC
- apparent threat to peace or act of aggression
- normative value in word choice
resolution can bring other states and actors to action
Case study: Goldstone Report
Human Rights Council asked Richard Goldstone to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law that might have been committed in the context of the military operations in Ghaza Dec. 2008 - Jan. 2009
Goldstone report found significant evidence of violations of the laws of war by all parties in the conflict
made recommendations:
- begin respecting humanitarian law
- Israel to cease interfering in the politics of the Occupied territories + pay reparations
- UNSC to enforce authority to force Israel to follow international humanitarian law
- ICC: to investiate the possibility of prosecution of those responsibe for war crimes
Human Rights Council
body of the GA to address human rights violations in UN member states
(47 members)
- 3-year terms secret ballot votes
Case: Cholera in Haiti - Who pays?
2010 Earthquake in Haiti -> Un sent soldiers -> accidently spread cholera bacteria (they carried with them) along the Artibonite River (latrines of the soldiers didn’t meet building codes) -> cholera epidemic
UN used its political and legal powers to insulate itself in a zone of irresponsibility
2016 UN admitted the disease came from its soldiers + began talking about taking reponsibility
'’Zone of irresponsibility’’
- Scott Veitch
- many IOs (incl. UN) enjoy immunity from all domestic legal actions
positive: protects IOs from interference by local officials
negative: shifts the costs of negligence and bad behavior from the organization to the people it’s supposed to serve
UN Specialized agencies
- 15 agencies
- e.g. WB, IMF, WHO, UNESCO, ILO
- functional specialization
- independent IOs
- financed by assesssed contributions and voluntary contributions
- created outside or by UN organs
UN funds and programmes
- established by UNGA resolution
- thematic focus/specialization
- funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions
main difference UN Specialized Agencies v. UN funds and programmes
specialized agencies have a function specialization + have assessed and voluntary contributions
funds and programmes have a thematic specialization and are almost entirely funded by voluntary contributions
UN bureaucracy
name + head, staff and degree of authority
UN secretariat
UN Secretary-General
secretariat staff = international civil servants
- independent of member state interest (UN commission research found that EU commissioners did still have some sort of national mindset)
- primary interest to advance the greater common good and to make the IO work
staff hiring: regional distribution as key criteria
degree of authority = supportive OR operational OR decision-making
- depends on the mandate and positions that have been given to the secretariat
jus cogens
law that binds all states by virtue of their being states, regardless of their consent or opposition
UN Secretary General
every year another region puts forward a candidate
P5 needs to consent
in practice can serve only two terms (at the end of their second term they tend to be more outspoken: won’t be re-elected anyway)
tasks
- bureaucratic support
- agenda setting (art. 99): bring to the attention of the SC (hasn’t been invoked often, UN SG’s can also do this without invoking the article)
Boutros-Boutros Ghali
former UN Secretary-General
researched UN’s involvement in peace around the globe -> spurred the UN’s activities: peacekeeping, peacemaking and preventative democracy
introduced peacekeeping missions (not in the charter)
UNSC mandate
international peace and security (art. 24)
UNSC has decisive authority to impose itself on any country or dispute -> highly constraining on state sovereignty
contradicts an anarchical international system: sovereign states in the UN system accept that the Council has the ultimate legal authority over international peace and security
UNSC IO functions
forum: high-level negotiations senior diplomats
actor: collective decisions collective opinion, independent of any of its members (if no veto + majority)
tool: states use the decisions and statements of the SC among the raw materials for their foreign policies + they interpret the Charter in certain ways
UNSC membership
3
15 members
Permanent members: China, Russia, UK and USA
non-permanent members are elected for 2 years (every year 5 rotate)
- based on regional groups
*interesting: western group couldn’t chose between the Netherlands and Italy -> both got 1 year
UNSC decision-making
4
resolutions are legally binding (art. 25)
9 votes, incl. the P5 is sufficient,
veto doesn’t count in procedural decisions
the UN SC would not been in place had there not been a veto right
new: informal initiative ‘‘responsibility not to vote’’: P5 shouldn’t use their veto for cases of genocide and such
UNSC obligations/rights
3
the charter gives huge amount of legal autonomy to the SC
UNSC has the authority to decide what is a matter of international peace and security
SC is allowed to establish subsidiary bodies
UNSC compliance
4
political suasion + threat of military enforcement
huge coercive legal powers are hard to put in practice: lot of controversy and resistance
SC power mostly used as a resource or tool to shift political ground of a dispute among states, in a peace-keeping mode
the SC can rarely achieve goals by itself, it has learned to maximize its influence on other institutions
Enforcement powers SC
reliant on voluntary contributions
- art. 43 and 45 issue that members need to make some military forces available, but these clauses have never been enacted
rarely uses its strong enforcement mechanisms
Chapter 7 of the Charter
- sanctions: not involving use of force (art. 41) can be comprehensive or can be smart/targeted
- art. 42: action by air, sea, or land forces, incl. peace enforcement
Chapter 6.5 of the Charter
between peacekeeping and peace-enforcement
often hard to separate
Example dangerous to blur peace keeping and peace enforcement
Somalia operations 1992-1994 : peacekeeping mission -> US and UN forces saw that local militias were impeding aid -> started fighting the militias -> made the original humanitarian mission impossible
peace-enforcement
coercive invasions of countries by UN-authorized force, intent on eliminating a threat to international peace and security
authorized to wage war to accomplish the political goals set out by the SC
Chapter 7
peace-enforcement missions are rare
examples UN peace-enforcement missions
- 1991 mission to force Iraq from Kuwait (Iraq usurped the authority of the legitimate government of Kuwait = threat to international peace and security)
- 2011 mission to protect the Libyan population against the depredations of its government (dictatorship Qaddafi threatened to massacre in the city of Benghazi + use military force to defeat political opposition)
became a hybrid war, inter-state war and UN-peacekeeping mission
Qaddafi killed in late October 2011 by anti-government forces
*example of R2P norm
peacekeeping missions
non-coercive
state consent guarantees that the UN doesn’t intervene with domestic jurisdiction
national contingents wearing blue helmets (no standing army + states want to maintain command over the troop (sovereignty concerns))
protection of civilians norm: the UN should be able to protect/shelter individuals in danger in a peacekeeping mission
triangle of UN peacekeeping missions
host consent
non-use of force (except for self-defense)
impartiality
history peacekeeping missions
Boutros-Ghali: Agenda for Peace 1992 = defining peacekeeping missions
mandate = prevention of war and making of peace -> multi-dimensional (support organization of elections, DDR and SSR, promote human rights, restore rule of law)
peacekeeping DDR and SSR
DDR = Disarmament, demobilization, reintegration of former combatants
SSR = security sector reform
UN peacekeeping those who play and those who pay
countries that pay for peacekeeping don’t often send troops for peacekeeping missions
some countries wouldn’t be able to sustain their army in the same way if they weren’t contributing to the UN
this debate (paying v. playing) is the origin of the separate budget of peacekeeping missions
challenge for peacekeeping missions
there are more and more intrastate conflicts, it is hard to establish peacekeeping missions (international vs. sovereignty)
R2P
norm of responsibility to protect (react, and rebuild)
2005 World Summit
still, nothing can happen without UNSC authorization
!! first step/obligation of R2P is that governments protect their own civilians, only if this first step of R2P has failed, there can be interference
UNSC case: Rwanda
1994
government organized and encouraged mass killings (Tutsi, Hutus) as a tool to tighten its power
UNAMIR peacekeeping mission: powers negotiated between UN, Rwandan government and the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front, who wanted to overthrow the government)
Genocide began in 1994: peacekeeping mission couldn’t intervene
UNSC didn’t intervene because it was a domestic matter (disaster in Somalia (peacekeeping-> peace-enforcement) played a role in this decision)
increasing refugee flows out of Rwanda were seen as a threat to international peace and security -> SC intervention
peace-enforcement mission UNAMIR-II came too late (lack of contributors): genocide was over: RPF had overthrown the government
UNSC Case Darfur
1990s and 2000s
Sudanese government organized/encouraged attacks on the people in the Darfur region in the west of Sudan
2007 hybrid peace operation
- peacekeeping: support of the Sudanese government + support political reconciliation negotiated by the AU in the Darfur Peace Agreement
- peace-enforcement: violence more broadly in defense of the goals of the mission itself and protection of civilians
*Sudan insisted on an ‘‘African’’ mission rather than an international one
UNSC case Syria
2010s
people’s revolution against dictatorship President Bashar al-Assad -> violence by the government
US started openly bombing ISIS that took over areas were the government retreated
Russia supported Assad by attacking rebel forces in 2015
SC has issued may cases,, but hasn’t used it’s enforcement powers because of disagreements in the P5:
- Russia supports Assad
- France, US, UK want him overthrown
concerns UNSC -> debate about reform of the UN
5
- legitimacy/representation concerns
- effectiveness concern
- participation: P5 great power in agenda and policy + SC hard to reach for NGOs and delegations
- decision-making: vast power of the P5 impedes actions that would support the UN Charter
discrepancy of countries financing and fighting: fighting countries should get more influence
last reform UN SC
1965
extended membership from 11 to 15
conditions for UNSC reform
Art. 108 Charter: 2/3 majority UNGA (incl. P5 of the SC)
P5 will never agree with big changes
*P5 should bear in mind that the SC is only useful to them as long as UN member states see them as legitimate and are willing to heed its actions
wishes for UNSC reform
abolishment P5 veto
expanding
- competition for permanent seats: G4 (Germany, India, Japan and Brazil) + uniting for consensus (aka coffee club): Italy, Spain, Pakistan, South Korea, Argentina
possible realistic reforms
- expanding UNSC non-permanent members ~20
- equitable geographical representation (payers and players)
- more transparency
- less vetoes (responsibility not to veto)
responsibility not to veto
initiative to abstain from using veto powers in cases of mass atrocities (crimes against humanity etc.)
G4
Germany, India, Japan and Brazil
Uniting for Consensus / Coffee club
Italy, Spain, Pakistan, South Korea, Argentina
