Appraisal of the Security Council as Machinery for the Maintenance of International Peace and Security under the UN Charter

Abstract

The United Nations which was founded in 1945 after the Second World War reflects humanity’s aspiration for peace; security and progress. Thus, one of the cardinal points of the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations is that members of the organization resolve to pool their resources together to actualize certain objectives. These objectives include inter alia; the practice of tolerance; to live in peace with one another as good neighbours; to bring about an international regime for the maintenance of international peace and security and ensuring that armed force shall not be used except in the common interest. To this end one of the purposes of the United Nations as stated under the Charter is the maintenance of international peace and security. The primary question therefore explored in the dissertation is whether the United Nations as an organization, is capable of maintaining an international peace and security regime by means of a collective security system as outlined under the Charter of the United Nations. This work argued that the collective security system as contemplated under the Charter has been vitiated due to disagreement among the members of the Security Council especially the permanent members of that Council. This attitude has given way to the United Nations peacekeeping mission as an improvised mechanism for confronting threats to international peace and security an unrealistic effort. Secondly, this work attempted to highlight the fact that the notion of threat to international peace and security has under gone a considerable dynamics. Thus, conflict in a state if unabated, together with international terrorism and nuclear proliferation may threaten global peace and security. The result of this study revealed that the success of the collective security system depends on the continuing cooperation and unanimity of the permanent members of the Security Council. In other words, the findings showed that, the United Nations as an organization is capable of realizing global peace and security subject to international cooperation especially among the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is therefore safe to conclude that, the veto power held by the permanent members of the Security Council is not the real problem. The real problem is disagreement among those with the power.