Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.

com/abstract=1309103
ecurit y ou ci I
A project o] the International Peace Academy
FROM THE COLD WAR TO THE 21 ST CENTURY
EDITED BY
DAVID M. MALONE
L ~
Rl l NNE R
PlI OllSHERS
J.. l ) t J I :l I It
!ON O ON
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1309103
I
Introduction
DAVID M. MALONE
Why this volume now? Much has changed for the United Nations Security
Council since the end of the Cold War. Its decisions-largely improvised
and inconsistent though they may be-havc, for good and ill, profoundly
affected international relations . Among other things, the Council's deci-
sions have eroded conceptions of state sovereignty firmly held during the
Cold War years, altering the way in which many of us see the relationship
between state and citizen the world over.
Two crises in international relations centered on Iraq, in 1990-1991
and in 2002-2003. have led to two totally different views of the UN in gen-
eral and the Council in particular. Following the first , marked by the mobi -
lization of many countries to eject Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait
und er a stro ng Council mandate, extraordinary and unjustified euphoria
took hold among practitioners and some scholars about the potential of the
UN to serve as the agent for the "new world order" advertised by Pre sident
George H. W. Bush in 1990. At the time of the second crisis, obituaries
were written for the UN, as well as for the idea of international order that it
represents . In both cases, these extreme views of the UN suggested that
international practitioner, media, and scholarly opinion was not rooted in a
sound understanding of what the Security Council is good at and what it is
bad at. Moreover, there was a general failure to understand how the
Council continues to coexist with an older form of international relations
still based on sovereign states pursuing their various national interests. This
volume seeks to give a rounded asse ssment of the strengths and weaknesses
of the Council as an institution. It also seeks to identify what is novel and
what may be enduring in its approaches to a widening agenda of interna-
tional security issue s since the end of the Cold War.
Given the centrality of individual state interests at the UN, however
unpalatable to some. the question arises as to whether the Council, in terms
of the perceived legitimacy of its decisions, can be more than the sum of its
2 INTRODUCTION DAVID M . MALONE 3
parts. Perhaps the key driver in Council decisions today, both actively and
passivel y, is the agenda of the: United States. Thi s has raised que stions
about the extent to which the Council can resist (beyond the Iraq issue) the
"pull" of U.S. poli cy preferen ce s. As of mid-2003 , there is al so concern
that the Council could find itself confined to mandating UN humanitarian,
peacekeeping, and transitional govemment mop-up operations aft er U.S.-
led military interventions. This ten sion-between military and political
power and the power of legitimacy-runs through this volume.
Aim and Scope
It is hard enough to take a snapshot of the Council, with its long agenda,
opaque proceedings , and uncertain impact on international relations, at any
gi ven time. Perhaps for this reason, the Council has not been addressed
often other than through the lens of international law, a particular cri sis, or
one individual's memoirs . Sidney Bailey and Sam Dawss magisterial vol -
ume on the Council's procedures , which also covers with great acuity a
number of substantive issue s, is the principal reference tool for stud ents of
the Council .' Other hrief but incisive overviews were offered by Sir Brian
Urquhart and the late Sir Anthony Parsons in the early 1990s , but they are
now mostly of historical inreresr.s The Council today displays elements of
continuity with the Council described so admirably by Andrew Boyd in
Fifteen Men on a Powder Keg more than thirty years ago , not least with
respect to the salience of national interest within it.
3
However, with the
geopoliti cal setting completely altered by the end of the Cold War, the
issues addressed by the Council and the way in which they are addressed
have evolved radically. Furthermore, the Council occasionally today fea-
tures female amhassadors , most recently including Madeleine Albright of
the United States and Patricia Durant of Jamai ca .
By slicing and dicing in many different ways the Council's decisions
and activities , the substantive themes of its work, and the institutional
developments in its life, this volume attempts to assess its objectives and
performance during the turbulent, frequently hyperactive years it has expe-
rienced in the post-COld War era. The contributors represent a mix of prac-
titioners, many of whom have served on the Councilor sou ght to imple-
ment its mandates; knowledgeable academics , a number of whom have
published extensively on related topics; and members of the community of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) interacting frequently with the
Council.
As in any endeavor of this type, even an ambitious and long one Such
as this, choices were required. The reader might wonder why we address
certain trend s and not others-for example, why we do not offer a chapter
on developments in peacekeeping. As topics Iike this one are addressed in a
number of chapters from a variety of per spe ctiv es, we decided that offering
a synthesis chapter covering I hem risked repetition. In other instances, we
thought that a particu lar phenomenon or ca se, no matter how important or
interesting in its own ri ght , shed Iiule more light on the workings and aims
of the Council than did some other case offered in the volume. Accordingly,
while we do present in Chapter 7 a thoughtful exploration by Elizabeth
Cousens of the Council 's tent ative and unconvincing approach to conflict
prevention, we do not devote a chapter to peacebuilding (or "nation-build-
ing" as U.S. government official s sometimes refer to it) because a number
or our case chapters deal with the inadequacies of the Council 's strategies
to date for sustaining the peac e it sometime s help s to establish. As for Iraq,
its importance has been such within the Council that it is addressed in many
or the chapters , centrally so in those on the use of force, weapons of mass
destruction, and sanctions.
Our Approach
Our approach is not theoretically driven . When the contributors met in
January 2003, they debated key issues pertaining to the Counci I, joined by
a number of Council ambassador s. Helpfully urged on by Thomas M.
Franck, we did consider a number of possible models for the Council's role
in international relations: an Athenian model , essentially consultative; a
Congress of Vienna conclave model under which the Council -is devoted to
norm -development , as many in Washington would have us believe is the
Council's most characterist ic trait today; and a Roman model allowing for
mobili zational governance-under this scheme, the Council serves as a
senate constraining the emperor. In the post-Cold War era the Roman
model ma y apply best , with the U.S . president cast as emperor, hut contem-
porary history is proving sufficiently fluid that we were not persuaded that
any such theoretical approach would be profitable for this venture. We are
content to let our research and conclusions serve as theory fodder for
others.
One snare for any writer on the Security Council relates to its identity.
As a matter of convenience, authors sometimes refer to the Council when
they mean it s members, a majority of its members, or only some or it s
members. Another relates to assessments of UN "success" and "relevance. "
Differences of appreciation will be clear throughout the volume and in its
concl usions , being defined largely in the eye of individual beholders.
The table of contents makes clear our approach to the story . The first
section focuses on factors in Council decisionrnaking that arc new in the
post-Cold War era , often drivers of decisionmaking such as the humanitari -
an impulse or terrori sm. We move on to focu s for several chapters on one
key change: the greater resort to the provisions of Chapter VTT or the UN
4 5 INTRO DUCTION
Charter allowing for the enforcement measures of sanctio ns and the use of
force . Wr.; then offer ten chapters coveri ng evo lving institutional factors
affe ct ing the Counc il, from the role of NGOs to pressures for Council
refo rm. In order to illustr ate a number of these themes, we offer eleve n
brief case studies that we bel ieve shed par ticular light on new approac hes
by the Council. In the fi nal section, we seek to offer an interpretation and
an integration of points raised in all these chapters, doing j ustice to none of
the contributors singly, but aiming to offer one possible synthesis of their
views. In neither this introduction nor in the final section do we follow the
order of the table of contents; rather, we seek to isol ate key crosscutting
theme s.
The End of the Cold War at the UN
How did the changes in the Council in the post- COld War era come about?
Tbe Council initially viewed its role as prevent ing a third worl d war. As the
Cold War came to define global polit ics. the Council moved to tackle pre-
vention of regional confl icts (of ten between client states or proxies of the
superpowers) from spilling into a global conflagration. In this, the Council
made a helpful contribution on seve ral occas ions.
One importa nt signal of the decisive thaw in the Cold War was a
not iceable improvement in the clima te among the per manent five (P- 5)
members of the UN Security Council as of 1986. The first evidence of the
relaxa tion in East -West tensions within the Council was the coo perative
manner in which these countries discussed optio ns for the posi tion of UN
Secretary-General as Javier Perez de Cuellar 's first term drew to a close in
1986.
In late 1986, Sir John Thomson, the UK permanent represe ntative to
the UN, took the initiative to call together the P-5 ambassadors, at his resi-
dence away from UN headquarters and delegation offices, for an informal
discussion on how they could contribute to an early end of tbe murderous
Iran-Ir aq War." The others welcomed this initiative, although China appar-
ently remained reserve d over P-5 activism for some time. A system of regu-
lar P-5 informal meet ings soon took hold. These meet ings helped anticipate
and defuse conflicts among the five and allowed them to exchange notes on
their national posit ions respecting vario us crises of the hour, if not formally
to coordinate their pos itions.
As it turned out, the P-5 agreed without much difficul ty to a second
term for the incumbent, who in January 1987 chal lenged them publicly to
tackle resolution of the Iran-Ir aq War.> As of mid-1987, Security Council
proposals for a cease -fire, monitored by a small UN observer mission, were
making serious headway. The post- Cold War era, initially such a hopeful
one, had started at the UN.
D AVID M. MALONE
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbac hevs celebrated Pra vda and Izvestia
art icle of September 17, 1987, see king "wider use of ... the inst itut ion of
UN mil itar y observers and UN peace keeping forces in di seng aging the
troops of warri ng sides, observing cease-fires and armistice agree ments,"
called for the P- 5 to become "g uaran tors" of interna tio nal sec uri ty.s
However, P-5 cooperation requ ired some time to take root .?
Convergi ng perspecti ves among the P-5 on a number of international
crises, particul arly on the need to disent angle the superpowers from them,
allowe d the Council to initiate action toward settleme nts. Bet ween 1988
and laic 1989 it establi shed five peacekeepin g operations to assist the set-
tlement of conflic ts in Afghanistan (UNGOMAP) and bet ween Iran and
Iraq (UNll MOG) , to implement linked agreements on the withdrawa l of
Cuban troops in Angol a (UNAVEM I) and independ ence for Nami bia
(UNTAG), and to hel p the resoluti on of three conflicts in Central America
(ONUCA) .
While the end of the Cold War had to some extent already unlocked the
Council's potential to contribute to the reso lution of ser ious probl ems of
int ernati onal peace and sec urity, drawi ng on ne wfound co opera t io n
bet ween the superpowers, the Council's approach to confl icts remained rel-
atively cautious until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
Operation Desert Storm and Its Immediate Aftermath
This event, and Iraq 's formal annexa tion of Kuwait only days later, led the
Council to adopt a mandate authorizi ng the use of force by a coalition of
member states.f Council decisions on Iraq, including measure s adopted fol-
lowing the March 1991 end of host ilities 10 bring about the partial di sarma-
ment of Iraq, 10 encourage protect ion of Iraqi minorities. and to provide
humanita rian assistance to the Kurdish population, were import ant not only
in their own right but also becau se they proved precedential in many
res pects.?
The success of the coalition's milit ary campaign against the Baghdad
regime, in retrospect , appears to have induced an era of euphoria in the
Council, an era that could not have arisen during the Cold War.!" Having
successfully tackled a conceptually straightforwar d challenge to interna-
tional pea ce and sec ur ity in the form of Sa dda rn Hussein' s attac k on
Kuwait, the Council now waded into the murki er waters of civil wars and
inr crconununal s trife, with which it had little ex perience . The Council
see med to believe that because enforce ment of its decisi ons against Iraq
had been successfully carried out , the constraints on and limitation s of UN
peacekeeping had fallen away. This era of euphoria can be described as
lasting roughly between March 6, 1991, the dat e of Resolution 686, on the
end of hostilities ill the Gulf region, and Oct ober 13, 1993 , when the
I r'" I r. VIJU'- Il u r.., LJAVID IVI. IVIALONE
Council adopted Resolution 873 followi ng the fai lure to de ploy s ucce ssf ul-
ly the UN Missio n in Ha iti (UNMIH)- this only a week after the deaths of
e ig hte en U.S . Ar my Ranger s in Somal ia had se r i o us ly undermin ed
pr ospect s for the sustai nabili ty there of UNOSOM 1l. 11 The unique circ um-
stance s of the Gulf crisis, notabl y the threat that supplies of petroleum, the
lifebl ood of the major West ern economies, could be cut off, did not recur.
Co nsequently, neither did the unity of purpose that characteri zed interna-
tional response to Iraq 's attack on Kuwait. During this pe riod of barel y thir-
ty-one months , the Coun cil accelera ted the pace of its wo rk, adopting 185
resolutions, versns 685 in the preceding forty-six years of UN hist or y, and
laun ching fifteen new peacekeeping operations as compared to seve ntee n in
the previous for ty-six yea rs.l
2
Bu ilding on an eme rg ing view in mu ch of the wo rl d th at th e UN
Security Conncil was at last coming into its own, the first ever Securi ty
Co unc il summit was convened January 31, 1992, to discuss new orienta-
tions and ac tivities for the Council. The summit's state ment , the high- wat er
mark of enthusia sm over a purported new internat ional or de r, noted (opti-
mi sti call y) that " the Sec uri ty Counci l has begun to fulfill more effecti vel y
its pr imary responsi bi lity for the mai nte nance of international peace and
security.">
Recentl y elected Secr et ar y-Gen eral Bout ros Boutros-Ghali respo nd-
ed with a wi de-rangi ng, tho ughtfu l, and ambit ious document, An Ag enda
for Peace. This rep ort advocated , int er ali a, co ns ide ra tion in certain ci r-
c ums ta nces of a " preventive depl oym ent " of UN peacekeeper s to fo re-
sta ll hostilit ies known to be looming; and, when circ umstances warrant-
ed, the nse of force by the UN itsel f ra ther than by coali tio ns of member
states . L4 An Agenda fo r Peace not ed tha t peacek eeping had been ca rrie d
out "hithe rto" wit h the co nsent of all parti es, hinting that thi s migh t not
be necessary in the future . It seemed to assume a quantum leap in the
willi ng nes s by member s ta tes to s upport UN actio n in the peace an d
sec ur ity fie ld.
By Janu ary 1995, following serious setbacks in Bosni a and the inabili-
ty to stop the genocide in Rwand a, the UN ' s mos t di sas trous failure in
decades, Boutros-Gh ali , in the Supplement to an Agenda f or Peace (more
of a reassessment th an an addendum) , was soundi ng a mor e " realistic"
note, dr awi ng lessons from the UN's experience on the ground over previ-
ous years : "Nei ther the Security Cou ncil nor the Secret ary- General at pres-
ent has the capac ity to depl oy, direct , comman d or con trol [enforcement]
operations except perhaps on a ve ry limi ted scale . . . . It wo uld be folly to
attempt to do so at the pre sent time whe n the Or gan izati on is resource-
starved and hard pressed to hand le the less demanding peacemaki ng and
peacekeeping respo nsibilities entrusted to it." 15
Maior Trends
Emergence ofthe Permanent Five
The much improve d cli mate among the P-5 in the post-Cold War era can be
ga uged by the sharp decline in the use of the veto: only 12 substantive
vetoes we re invoked from January 1990 to June 2003, compa red to 193
during the fi rst forty-five years of the UN 's hist or y. 16 Veto threats remained
highl y relev ant , as the Council 's dealings on Kosovo in 1999 and Iraq in
early 2003 make cl ear, but very few iss ues seriously divided the P-5 after
1987 (the Arab-Israeli conflic t remainin g one of them). The abi lity and dis-
position of the five perm anent member s-those holding ve to power-to
cooperate with eac h ot her seriously dimini shed the mar gin for maneuver of
other Coun cil members, as several chapte rs in this volume make clear (such
as Chapter 16, on Counci l working methods, by Susan Hulton , and seve ral
case studies by a variety of contributors) . Some of them, inclu ding Finl and
and Canada, had in ea rl ier times devel oped skills and occ upie d pol itical
space as "helpful fixers"; or , in the case of some devel oping nat ions, had
learn ed how to play the permanent member s aga ins t eac h ot he r, greatly
ampl i fying the voice and enha ncing the a ppa re nt infl uence of the non -
aligned movement within the Counci l. I ?
Soo n, however, elec ted me mbers were gr umbling that they were sys -
temati call y marginali zed, a complai nt give n more wei ght by a tendency of
the Secre tariat to co ns ult pri vat el y wi th some or all of the P-5 before
advancing recommendations to the Council as a whole. Chapter 17, on rela-
tions betw een permanent and elec ted memb er s of the Council, by Ki shore
Mahbubani , an ambas sador representing a non permanent member of the
Council, makes clear why thi s dynami c is grating and may have proved
co unte rproducti ve over time . Tacit co ll us ion bet ween the P- 5 and the
Secret ariat was agg ravated. from the perspective of other member s, by the
growin g resort to " informal co nsulta tions" for deci si onmakin g purposes
rath er than the ope n Co unci l meet ings that had se rve d as the pr incipal
forum for Counci l decisi onmaking in ea rlie r decades. IS Hi gh -h anded
behavi or by the P-5 reached a ze nith in December 2002, when the United
Stat es for ced the Co uncil presiden cy ( 0 rever se a Co unci l decision on
access to a report by UNMOVrC and inspectors of the Int ernat ional Atomic
Energy Age ncy, insisting on different iated arrange ments for permanen t and
elec ted memb er s. a hi ghl y undi gni f ied (and unu suall y publ ic ) pr ocess
widely denoun ced. not least by Kofi Annan. 19
The P-5 do not " manage" the Council, although tbey do dominat e it,
not least by monopoli zing most of the draft ing. Schedul ing is coor dinated
by the pr esiden cy, and individua l agenda ite ms have incr easingl y been
man aged by l imited-member ship stee ri ng gro ups , oft en "Gr oups of
9
INTRODUCTI ON 8
Fr iends" (ge nerally but not always composed of Council and rece nt past
Counci l members), who along with the Secretary-General propose options
and preferred courses of action to the Council as a whole. Teresa Whitfield
e xami nes thi s import ant , ofte n co ntrove rsia l, recent dev el opment in
Chapter 21.
The Permanent One
It would be misleading to suggest that the P-5 are not only often cohesive
but also equal. It has been clea r for some years, perhaps mostly striki ngly
so si nce the Dayt on Accords of late 1995, that the Unit ed States has
emerged not only as the sole remaining superpower but also as the principal
dr iver of the Council ' s agenda and decisions, passivel y and actively. Thi s
development introduced new challenges into management of the Council ' s
goals, work, and decisions, for both good and ill , as di scussed by Nathan
Miller and Frederick Rawski in Chapter 24, on the U.S. relationship with
the Sec urity Council, sometimes described elsewhere as an effor t at dual
containment.t?
An Expanding Agenda:Substantive Innovation
The post-Cold War period has been marked by the Council 's disposition to
tackl e many more conflicts than it had been able to ear lier, when it was
stymied by Eas t-West animos ities and the pleth ora of vetoes (cast and
threatened) by the permanent members. The end of the Cold War unlocked
impl ement ation of the Counci l 's earlier decisions on Namibi a, as doc u-
ment ed in Chapter 27 in Cedric Thornberry' s gr ipping account of this early
episode of UN-contr olled transi tional arrangements. Since 1990 there have
been momentous shifts in the Council's approach to conflict and its resolu -
tion. Factors held by the Council as constituting a threat to int ernati onal
peace expa nded to incl ude a coup against a democratic all y elected regime
(doc ume nted in Ch apt er 3 1, on Haiti , coautho red by Se bas tia n von
Einsiedel and myself, and in Chapter 5, on demo cratization, by Gregor y
Fox) ; a range of humanitarian catastrophes (disc ussed in Chapter 30, on
Bosnia. by Mats Berd al , and in Chapter 35, on Ea st Timor, by Stewart
Eldon), part icularl y those generating large outflows of di spl aced persons
and refugees, internally and internationally (as discussed in Chapter 3 by
Thomas Wei ss); and acts of terrori sm (as cataloged in Chapter 6 by Edward
Luckj .>' Steven Ratner, in Chapter 37, on the role of the Council in interna-
tional law, explores some of the relevant issues. .
This, in turn, allowed the Council to act on a range of conflicts, mostl y
internal in nature , which it most likely would have avoided in the past ,
when the Cold War antagonists often played out thei r hostility thr ough
regional proxies and were prepared to frustrate Council involvement. These
D AVID M. MALONE
included co nflicts in EI Sa lvado r (disc ussed, in Cha pter 28 by Blanca
Antonini ); Sierra Leone (detailed in Chapter 33 by John l Iirxch); the former
Yugosl avia (dealt with in this volume most di rec tly by Mat s Ber dal in
Chapter 30, and Paul Heinbecker in Chapter 34); Mozambiqu e (di ssected in
Chapter 29 by Aldo Aje llo and Patri ck Wittmann); and Rwanda (discussed
in Chapter 32 by Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke, and enriched by sepa-
rate insider accounts from Colin Keating and Ibrahim Gambari in Chapters
32. 1 and 32.2). In many of these conflicts, the Security Council found itself
contend ing wi th armed nonst ate actors, a new phenomenon addressed here
in Chapter 8 by Andres Franco. The Council's dec isi ons in the 1990s
proved highl y innovative in shaping the normative framework for interna-
tional rel ati ons and stimula ted seve ral radi cal legal developments at the
international level, notabl y the crea tion of international criminal tribunals
for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 respectively. This
greatly int ensified pressur e for a more univ ersal International Criminal
Court (lcq, a statute for which was adopted at a diplomatic conference in
ROIm: in 1998. These devel opment s are covered in this volume hy ICC
judge Philippe Kirsch, John Holmes, and Mora Johnson in Chapter 19. As
Cameron Hume argues in Chapter 38, the Council will have to continue to
be creati ve in ada pting to new cha llenges posed by faili ng states and
transnati onal threats.
Interstate conflicts did not altogether cease to break out, as Chapter 36
by Adekeye Ade bajo , on the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflic t of the late 1990s,
demon strat es. However , wi th ver y few exceptions, the wreckage of the
Cold War was successfully addresse d once the super power confrontation
came 10 an end. Certain conflicts of an earlier era, such as the Israel i-Arab
dispute, addressed hy Bruce Jones in Chapter 26, and the worrying tensions
over Kashmir , still bedevil the international agenda, hut they arc rare, Peter
Wallcnstccn and Patrik Johansson, in Chapter 2, make clear that , contrary
to media and publ ic percept ions, conflict is on the decline and there are few
reasons to harbor nostalgia for the nuclear terror-induced "s tability" of the
Cold War.
An intriguing trend relates to the Counc il's role in mandatin g UN roles
in the ove rs ight of terr itories . This occ urre d not only in Namibi a and
Eastern Sluvonia but also, ill a less comprehensi ve form, in Cambodia and
Bosnia. It reached its zenith in Kosovo, touched upon in Chapter 34 by
Paul Hcinbcckcr, and East Timor, cove red in Chapt er 35 by Stewart Eldon
and supplemented in Chapt er 35. 1 wi th a separ ate view from the field by
Ian Martin. The Council's role in mandating such "virtual trusteeships" is
discussed in Chapter 15 in a crossc utting manner by Simon Chesterman.
Neverthel ess, in the lat e 1990s, serious tensions resurfaced in the
Council over issues relating to state sovereignty. legitimation of the usc of
force, and the growing incidence of uni latcrali sm by some major UN mcm-
10 II INTRODUCTION
bel's. Differences cry st allized in 1 l and 1999 over co nfl icting objecti ves
and approac hes among the P-5 to Iraq and Kosovo. Whil e di scord ove r
Kosov o was contained by agre ement on the parameters of a UN -adminis-
tered tran sitional regime in thi s territory, the agree me nt was ac hieved at the
price of lack of c larity over future constitutional arra nge me nts and could
hold the see ds of future probl ems. Iraq remained highl y nettlesome, with
the P-5 coming togeth er on key resolutions such as 1284 and 1441 , but ulti-
mat el y deadlocked by mid-March 2003, when military ac tion agains t Ir aq
was initiated by the United St ates and several of its allies.
Th e ebb and flow of Counci l business has tend ed to obsc ure the ex tent
to whi ch its deci sions cumul atively since 1990 have undermined rigid co n-
ce ptions of state sove reignty and eroded the po sit ion of govern me nts clai m-
ing the sovereign right to conduct themsel ves at home free of int ernational
int erfer ence, even on matt er s that could undermine domest ic security and
the stability not only of their own countries but eventually of nei ghboring
ones (for example, by ma ssively abu sing human rights or enga ging in e th-
nic enginee ring or cleansing) .
ChapterVII of the UN Charter
Pri or to 1990 there was little resort to those pr ovisions in the UN Charte r
relating to the coerci ve measures tbe Council ca n invoke. Mand ator y sa nc-
ti on s we re impos ed by th e Council in onl y two in st an ces : So uthe rn
Rhodesia in 1966 and South Afri ca in 1977. A naval blockade to enforce
the Rhodesi a sa nc tions regime was authori zed but rapidly fail ed once it
became clear that forc e would not be used to back it up. The use of force
itself was ex plici tly authorize d onl y in the case of Korea in the early 1950s
(in the absence from the Council of the Soviet Union) , and in a much more
tentative and limited wa y in the Congo in the ea rly 1960s. Th e latte r
episode was not wide ly cons idered a success, confirming in many the vie w
that the use of force should be avoided by the Council in its deci si onrn ak-
ing.
With th e ne w mood amon g the P-5 , th e Council , with seve ra l
intract abl e co nfl icts on its agenda , moved rapidl y in the post-Cold War era
to impose its will on a ran ge of international ac tors through a di zzying
array of sanc tions regimes (occa sionall y backed up by nav al blo ck ades)
discus sed in Chapter I I by Da vid Cortright and George Lop ez and throu gh
the frequ ent authoriz ation of force, both by troops und er UN comma nd and
by coa litions of member s tates . In Chapter 13, David Angell adds a per son-
al co mme nt on Canada' s efforts to en sure a degree of enforceme nt of the
sa nc tions regime agains t UNITA in Angola . New issues, suc h as internal
disarmament , became subject to enforce me nt, not abl y in Ir aq as di scussed
in admirably di spassionate fashion by Pa scal Tei xeira da Silva in Ch apter
DAVID M. M ALONE
14. Adam Robert s di scusses in Chapt er 9 the links between the use of force.
international law, and the autho rity of the security counc il, while Frank
Berman dis sect s in Chapt er 10 perhaps the most famous of the enforceme nt
resolutions, 678 of No vembe r 1990, on Iraq . Chapt er VlI deci sions occa-
sional1 y gave rise to significa nt ten si ons among the permanent five, as do c-
umented in Chapter 12 by Peter van Wal sum in a per son al account of his
two years as chair of the Council's Iraq sa nctions co mmittee. Much of thi s
struggle unfolded pri vately. although insightful rep orting by Colum Lynch
of the Washing/on Post and Carola Hoyos of the Financial Times occasion-
all y reve aled it through the media.
While the Coun cil ' s asserti ve ex plora tion of the Chapter Vl l provisions
initially see med 10 hold out the hope that a ne w world order could be con-
structed with the UN at its ce nter. many of the coerci ve s tr ateg ies of the
Council fail ed because of the applicat ion of i nsufficient or inappropri ate
resources , wi shful thinking, and a fl ight from reality that see med to over-
take the Council in the yea rs 1992-1995. Doubtless a sense of indi vidual
rcsponsibility of member states was serious ly undermined by the mechan-
ics and compromises of committee deci sionmakin g. but several instances
of spe cta cular Coun cil failure see m no less lurid years later than they did in
the headlines of the day, not abl y those aris ing from the UN's involvement
in Bosnia. Somali a, and Rwand a.
Because of a greater resort to the Council to authorize the use of force
internationall y, but also because of a noti ceabl e tend ency to avoid doing so
in certain ca ses, arguments have grown that , even beyond narrowl y con-
structed cases of self-defense, ex plicit Council authoriza tion for the use of
forc e may no longer be required , howe ver politi call y useful it can prove.
Institutional Factors
During itx early decades, the Co uncil had few institution al partner s. This
has changed radi call y since the ea rly 1990s . Today , due to limited resources
and for reas ons of substant ive burden -sharing, the Coun cil' s decisions ofte n
fore see cooperation with regi onal organizati ons (broadly defined to include
such instituti ons as NATO as well as mor e class ic regional organizations as
originally envi saged in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter). This trend is di s-
cussed in Chapter 20 by Shepard Forman and Andrew Gr one. NGOs have
also come to play an important rol e, although a largel y unheralded one, in
the Council ' s life. James Paul di scu sses aspect s of this de velopment in
Chapter 25, as does Joanna Weschl er in Chapter 4, on human ri gbts in the
life of the Council.
Th e rel ationship between th e Secr e tar y-General and the Securit y
Council is explored in Chapter IRby Marrack Goulding, the UN' s premier
negotiator for man y years, who contras ts the tenure of Secretary-General
12 13 INTRODUCTION
Boutros Bourros-Ghali (1992- 1996) with that of Secretary-General Javier
Perez de Cue lla r ( 1982- 199 1). He (and Mahbubani) make clear th at the
Secretari at 's relationship with the Council is often intermediated by the P-
S. In Cha pter 22, Connie Peck offe rs an account of that increasingl y ubiqui -
tous figure in international relat ions, the special represent ati ve of the UN
Secretary-General , mostl y responsible for overseeing complex peace opera-
tions or mediation efforts in the field . The Council' s relati onship with these
individu als has varied in form and substance but is increasingly recognized
as important. In a Council retreat during December 2002, extensive discus-
sion occurred on the funct ion and importance of appropriate incurnbent s.R
With the more active role played by the Council in international rela-
tions has come pressure for Council ref orm under several headin gs: its
working methods, composi tion, and the veto all came under heavy criticism
as of the ea rly 1990s. However, pressure for reform has achieve d little
change beyond the Council 's increasingl y open working methods, as dis-
cussed by Bardo Fassbender in Chapter 23, and there is littl e prospect of
early agreement among the membership on significant change in years to
co me , not least because it is widely accepted that ther e is a tr adeoff
between expansion of the Council, to achiev e a more represent ative compo-
sition, and effectiveness of the body, which continues to be much prized by
a number of powerful governments. Wbile most countri es have developed a
scheme for Council reform perfectly tailor ed to maximi zing their own situ-
at ion with respect to a reformed Council , their preferr ed faUback is not
some other country' s scheme but the status quo.
The Medio
The medi a play an important role in the li fe of the Council, often producing
internati onal pressure for action to address man-made di sasters or to head
off catacl ysms, including those conce rning North Kor ea and Iraq and
pot enti all y involvi ng weapons of mas s de struc tion. The Cable Ne ws
Network (CNN) has often been described as the Council' s "sixteenth mem-
ber," and it s UN bur eau has done much through it s weekly pr ogr am
" Diplomatic License" 10 make the Council and its decisions better under-
stood. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has consistently sought
to interpret insightfull y iconic images of Council ambassadors meeting in
the fabled Council chamber and then delivering themselves of comp etitive
but often misleading (and soon forgot ten) pronouncements on the proceed-
ings.
The medi a influ ence the Council most strongly through its member
states. Government s react to public pressure, largely shaped by the medi a.
Governments mostly like to tax and spend. By and large, they are averse to
risk. Thus, when international cri ses develop and public pressure to address
DAVID M . MALONE
them builds through the medi a, a defau lt option for gove rnments is to dele -
gall: to multil ateral organi zati ons such as the UN the respon s ib ilit y to
respond.
That said, media report ing of the Council itself is mostly reacti ve and
event -driven. The Council 's "home" broadsheet , the New York Times, has
gi ven it con sider able attention, ofte n in commendable depth through the
writing of Barbara Crosse tte and James Tr aub. The Pari s daily Le Mende
has also done an excellent job of looking beyond the wire service head-
lines , and the Financial Times has fielded talented corr espondents at the
UN." \ However, there may not be much more to be said, and we conse-
qucnrly do not offer H chapter specifically cove ring this topic.
Envoi
In order to set the stage , Peter Wall ensteen, one of the world 's foremost
thi nkers on both the nature and the pattern of vio lent co nfl icts today,
togeth er with Patrik Johansson, discusses in Chapter 2 the trends in Counc il
decisions in recent years. Thereaft er, as outlined above, we address a num-
ber of individual factors and cases relevant to the Council 's performance in
the post-COld War era. Our conclusions aim to offer a range of broader the-
matic observations.
Notes
1. Sydney D. Bailey and Sam Daws, Tile Procedur e ofthe Security Counci l.
3rd cd, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998).
2. Brian Urquhart, "The UN and International Security after the Cold War,"
and Anthony Parsons, "The UN and the National Interests of States," in Adam
Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury, eds.. Unit ed Nation s, Divided World: ril e UN's
Roles in lnternaiional Relations , 2nd ed. (Oxford: Cl ar endon, 1993), pp. 81- 124.
3. Andrew Boyd, Fift een Men on a Powder Keg : A Hi st or y 0/ The UN
Security Council (New York: Stein and Day, 1971 ).
4. For an account of evolving dynamics within the UN Security Council, par-
ticul arly amongthe P-5, 1986-1990, see Cameron Hume, The United Nations, Iran,
and Iraq: How Peacemaking Changed (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press,
19(4), es p. pp. 81-82,88- 102.
5. January) 3. 1987, p. 5.
(,. Mikhail S. Gorbuchev, "Reality and the Guarantees of a Secure World,"
nus /Jail y Report: So viet Union . September 17, 1987, pp.
7. Interviews with Alexander M. Belonogov, permanent representative of the
USSR 10 the UN, t986- 1990, and John Thomson, permanent representative of the
UK to the UN, 19R2-1 987, conducted respectively in Ottawa on March 20, 1996,
and ill Princeton Oil April 15, j 996.
8. Resolution 678. November 29, 1990. Operation Desert Storm originally
was confined to aerial attacks on Iraq. The broader military campaign was designat-
ed as Operation Desert Saber, hut the moniker Desert Storm eventually displaced it.
U;.o.VIU j-I .I-IJ-lr.LUNt
l"t INIKUUULI IUN I ;J
9. A number of the measures ado pted by f rance, the UK, the Un ited States,
and their alli es. parti cularl y in northern Iraq (to protect , through a no-fly zo ne, and
pr ovi de ass is tance to the Kurds), were ini tiat ed without explic it Council author iza -
ti on . These me as ures were, howev er, not then se r io us ly cha llenged withi n the
Co uncil. So me of the hu man itari an act ivities of Ope ra tion Provide Co mfor t wer e
eventua lly taken ove r by the UN.
10, Co ntri buting import antly to the unit y of the int ern at ional communi ty iu
confronting Sadd arn Hussein in 1990 wa s an impressive dipl omat ic ca mpaig n by
Pre sident George H, W, Bus h, hi s secretary of state, James Baker , and their skilled
U.S. am bassado r at the UN, Thomas Pi ckering, to assemble a formidable dipl omati c
coalition to this end . These cond itions we re not re produced in 2002 wh e n the
United St ates sought ro incr ease pr essure on the Baghdad regime.
II. Re solut ion R73 reimposed sa nc tions on Haiti.
12. Durin g this peri od , the UN launch ed the fo llowi ng ne w peacekeepin g
operations: UNIKOM in Kuwait (1991 ) , MI N URSO for West ern Sa ha ra ( 199 1),
ON USAL in EI Salvado r ( 199 1) , UNAVEM JI i n An gol a (1 991) , UNAMIC in
Ca mbo dia ( 1991), UN PROFOR in the former Yu gosl avi a (1 992) , UN TAC in
Cambo d ia ( l 992), UNOSOM in So ma lia (1 992), ON UMOZ i n Mo z ambiqu e
( 1992). UN OSOM II ( l993) . UNOMUR in Uganda- Rwanda ( 199 3) . UNOMIG in
Georg ia (1993) , UNOMI L in Libcria ( 1993) , UN MIH in Ha i ti (1993) , and
UNAMIR in R wanda ( 1993) . In addi tio n, th e Counc il authorized the U,S, -Ied
Unifie d Task Fo rce in Somali a (UNITAF, 1992), and a UNPROFOR presence, in
effec t a prev enti ve depl oym ent , in Macedoni a (1992) .
13. S/23500, Janu ar y 31, 1992 , p. 2,
14. A/47/277, June 17, 1992.
15. A/50/60, Januar y 3, 1995, p, 18,
16, All vetoes si nce May 1990 were by tbe Un it ed Sta res (mostly on th e
Israe li- Pa lestinian str ugg le), except for two by Russi a (one over the fin an cing of
UNFICYP in Cy pr us and anot he r over sanct ions agains t Se rbia) , and two by China
( bo th on peacek eep in g operati ons , one in Gu at emala, thc o ther in th e former
Yugoslav Republic of Ma cedonia, al thoug h each was mot ivat ed by a Tai wan co n-
necti on ). Thi s co un t does not in clude veto es on the se lec tion of the UN Sec retary -
Genera l, mostl y regi stered du ring nonpubl ic sessions of the Co unc il.
17, Dur ing peri ods whe n seven members of the nonali gned mov ement si t in
the Co uncil, they theor eti call y possess a "s ixth ve to." By all withholding cons ent
simult aneou sl y, they ca n bl ock resolutions , However, the co hes ion of the movement
has pr oved weak within the Council in recent years (alt ho ugh it wa s displayed to it
degree in March 2003 on Iraq).
I R. For an account of the evolving dynamics within the Security Council, see
Hurne, The United Nat ions, Iran, and 11' 01/ ; and C. S. R. Murthy, "Chan ge and
Co ntinuity in the Func tioning of the Security Counc il Since the End of the Co ld
War ," International Studies 32 , no. 4 (October-December 1995): 423,
19, Ju lia Prest on , "U,S, Is Fir st to Get a Copy of Report on Iraqi Weapon s,"
Ne....... York Times, December 10. 2002.
20, Se e Simon Chesterman and David M, Mal on e, "High St akes: The Fa te of
the Security Co unci l," Imemati onal Herald Tribune, Jan uar y 27 ,2003,
2 \. How far the Council' s agenda has ope ned up to nontraditi onal issues can
be ga uge d from its refu sal in 191\ 9 to accede to UK pressure for di scussi on of int er -
nati on al narcotraffi cking and c nv iron mental issue s as potential thr eats to peace ,
whi le on Janu ar y 10, 200 0, under a U.S. presid ency (in the person of Vice Presid ent
Al Gore) . it engaged in a debate on the impli cation s of the AIDS pandemic in Africa
for 'labilit y and peace on that conti nent in tbe twent y-fi rst ce ntury,
22 , S/2002/1388, December 20, 2002 ,
23 , In fact , all thr ee 0 f the maj or wi re servic es , Agence France Presse, the
Associ at ed Pr ess, and Reut er s , rep ort ver y we ll on the UN thr ough insightf ul and
shar p cor res ponde nts , but the nature of their clientele di scourages extensive ana ly -
sis. The Int er-Press Ser vi ce, an agen cy fa voring de vel oping-country per spec tives,
has done well at the UN on thi s latt er score.