Why Collective Security Is Not in Operation at the UN Security Council - Essay Example

Why Collective Security Is Not In Operation at the UN Security Council Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Name and Code: University: Date of Submission: Why Collective Security Is Not In Operation at the UN Security Council Abstract Save for the United Nations General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council is the other of the organization’s organs whose powers and functions are very pronounced. The United Nations Charter establishes the Security Council to which it bestows with the power of overseeing and maintaining international peace. While the United Nations, through the Security Council, has over the years strived to play its appropriate role in discharging out this particular mandate through collective security, numerous challenges still stalk it on this score. This paper outlines and discusses the various challenges that have impeded the Security Council’s effective use of the concept of collective security. Introduction The Charter of the United Nations establishes six principal organs of the Organization (Article 7). These six principal organs are the General Assembly, the Security Council, The Trusteeship Council, an Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice and lastly, the Secretariat. Each of these principal organs has their specific roles to play. However, this paper will focus upon the role of the Security Council, UNSC, in the maintenance of peace in the world. The Charter aptly sets the primary responsibility of the UNSC as being for the maintenance of the transnational peace as well as security (Article 24 UN Charter, see also Sarooshi, 2000). The powers conferred by the UN members upon the UNSC are set out within Chapters VI (Pacific Settlement of Disputes), Chapter VII (Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression), Chapter VIII (Regional Arrangements) and Chapter XII (International Trusteeship System). The UNSC’s plays its role of maintenance of peace in the world through a method referred to as collective security, as opposed to collective defence. Collective security refers to an arrangement of coalition building between several countries in which the said countries agree not to attack each other but the said countries are to defend one another if any of them attacks one of them (Conflict Research Consortium 1998 p. 1). The underlying principle in collective security is that an attack against any member of the coalition building countries constitutes an attack against all the rest. The principle of collective security is to be distinguished from collective defence. Under this principle, a group of countries which coalesce into a coalition agree to defend the group against any attacks from the outside. A few examples which may illustrate coalition building of countries which operate the collective defence mode are the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, and the Warsaw Pact (Bashow 1998, p. 2). The UNSC is constituted by a group of fifteen members, five of whom are permanent members who wield veto powers while the other ten members serve temporarily on two year terms (UN 2010). The five permanent UNSC members are Russia, China, United States of America, Britain and France. On the other hand, the ten temporary membership slots are filled by Gabon, Brazil, Portugal, Colombia, Germany, India, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nigeria, Lebanon and South Africa. While the United Nations has been in existence for close to seventy years, its success in matters relating to the jurisdiction of the Security Council is far from being satisfactory. The Organization has at times been able to successfully intervene at various spots in the world to ward off violence while at other times; the same has not been very successful. The question then is, how is it that the Organization’s much touted collective security has not been able to live up to its billing? This paper will consider the obstacles to the effective operation of collective security at the United Nations Security Council. Obstacles to Effective Operation of Collective Security at the UNSC A number of challenges have bedeviled the United Nations’ principle of collective security as was first conceptualized in the 1940s. Obviously, one issue that has no doubt been at the forefront in impeding the effective collective security at the world stage is the emergence of new sets of challenges that do not form part of the threats previously envisaged as constituting threats to world peace those so many years back. The world, in its continued flux, has witnessed new and complex phenomena which do not readily fit into the ideas of threat to world peace as had initially been conceived (Mathews 2009, p. 1, see also Fassbender 2005). The fact of the emergence of new challenges in the world stage which have greatly reduced the effectiveness of the collective security at the United Nations Security Council is one that even the UN has taken note of. For instance, in the year 2003, the then Secretary of the UN, Mr. Kofi Annan, appointed a High Level Panel of sixteen eminent persons to consider and evaluate the contemporary forms of threats to world peace and propose ways on how to improve the functioning of collective security (UNA-USA Policy Brief 2004, p. 1). The High Level Panel was to be guided by three aims. These were, firstly, to evaluate any current and emerging threats to world peace, secondly, to evaluate the United Nations’ performance in addressing the threats so identified and, lastly, the Panel was to make policy and institutional change recommendations out of the assessments made (Report of the High Level Panel 2004, p. 17). Indeed, the very appointment of the Panel to look into ways of improving collective security was, no doubt, a candid admission by the world political elite that the principle may not be working to the expectations it had been set up for. The Panel’s findings, though subtle, very aptly pointed to the principle of collective security’s waning influence in the UNSC’s maintenance of transnational peace in the world. According to the Panel, new sets of challenges very much divorced from the traditional ones conceived during the adoption of the UN Charter have since emerged hence putting to doubt the effectiveness of the collective security (Usmanov n.d., p. 1). The contemporary phenomena that threaten the world’s peace, otherwise than by aggression as traditionally conceptualized, were identified as consisting of six clusters. The clusters were identified as; firstly, inter-state conflicts, secondly, poverty, infectious diseases as well as environmental degradation, thirdly, the effects of internal violence which include civil war, genocide, ethnic cleansing and the state failure, fourthly, the weapons of mass destruction which include chemical, radiological, biological and nuclear weapons, fifthly, is terrorism and lastly is the transnational organized crime (UNA-USA Policy Brief, p. 2). These assertions, while not being any new discoveries, are apt to partially explain and illustrate the fact that collective security by the UN Security Council has not been very effective in the maintenance of international security. For instance, although the collective security principle was in place in 1994, the Rwandan genocide was witnessed and continued unabated for the entire span of three months. Similar scenarios have been the case when state failure occurs, as is the present situation in Somalia which has not had a central government since 1991 among others. Very importantly for this discussion, the High Level Panel identified one overriding reason as to why the concept and principle of collective security may just have collapsed. The Panel noted that lack of development is responsible for the non effective operation of collective security at the Security Council. To buttress its assertions, the Panel singled out three reasons why, in its opinion, development needs to be addressed if collective security is ever to be an effective mechanism to be relied upon by the Security Council in the discharge of its mandate as stipulated by the Charter (IISS 2004, p. 1). The first of the reasons offered by the Panel is that development is the antidote needed to answer to all the urgent human security needs. The Panel’s intimation therefore is that unless and until the international community puts in place a concise development plan to ameliorate the human suffering in the society, then collective security will be all but a mirage. The second assertion by the Panel is that development is sufficient condition for the creation of states which would be in a position to responsibly exercise their sovereignty (UN Report 2004, p.6). The corollary to the above position is that without requisite development standards, then the states would be weak so that they fail to be in a potion to adequately enforce their sovereignty thus making collective security merely a pipe dream as is the case of Somalia today. Lastly, the panel noted that development is necessary to ward off poverty so as to be able to forestall a deadly conflict. In a nutshell therefore, the Panel noted that collective security’s operation fails today for lack of an essential ingredient of the human society: development. The second reason that may explain the non effective operation of collective security at the Security Council is the fact that each country has its own interests so that whereas they may have pledged to defend each other in case of any attack, they may feel not to have any obligations to do so as and if need arises (CRC 1998, p. 2). The truth is that a country may only want to get entangled into a military adventure where the circumstances are such as that the same advances its own interests and not just for the sake of involvement as witnessed in 1994 when the USA declined to get involved in stemming the Rwandan genocide. A number of examples would suffice to explain the assertion here. Firstly, for instance, the UNSC has all but been out of the scene in Somalia since 1995 when the United States led military intervention, Operation Restore Hope, collapsed. The non-involvement of the UNSC has been largely seen as resulting from the fact that most of the Western nations do not see how exactly the expensive military operation in the very risky country could advance their own interests in the long run. Consequently, they have dragged their feet in getting engaged in the country’s peace keeping efforts, leaving the task to the perpetually ineffective African Union and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, IGAD (BBC News Tuesday March 6, 2007). Collective security also fails due to the disregard of UNSC’s Resolutions by some members like the USA. The most glaring case in this point is the bilateral decision taken by the United States and its ally, the United Kingdom in March 2003. Then, these countries sidestepped the United Nations Security Council in declaring war against the regime of former Iraqi dictator, the late Saddam Hussein (Koyama 2003, p. 7). The US led war, upon its declaration, was ostensibly to annihilate the alleged weapons of mass destruction claimed to be held by the then Iraqi regime. Thus, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 illustrates how the principle of collective security may be used to perpetuate the very opposite intentions for which it was primarily established, hence undermining the principle. Indeed, this is the position that Conflict Resolution Consortium (CRC 1998, p. 2) offers as being one of the reasons why collective security is opposed by certain people. The argument by such opponents is such that collective security may be used as a basis for an aggressive coalition, such that rather than defending the interests of an attacked coalition member, the coalition instead attacks. Thus, the actions of both the US and UK against Iraq went to threaten and greatly undermine the very basis of collective security. By undermining the principles of collective security, the two UNSC member countries, which should have otherwise been at the forefront in propping up the same fundamentally gnawed at the unstable roots of collective security. In fact, their actions laid a dangerous precedent which may be relied upon by another UNSC member who may just decide to ignore the UNSC and unilaterally declare war against another country as the US and UK did in 2003 (See e.g. UNSC Resolutions 1441 and 1511). The principles of collective security by the UN Security Council have equally been undermined by financial constraints usually experienced by the world political body. Peacekeeping operations are very expensive exercises which require very large financial commitments by member countries. When the UN fails to obtain the requisite funding for what should legitimately be its activities towards the maintenance of international peace as per the terms of its Charter; then collective security will be an automatic casualty of that financial setback (Holt, Taylor & Kelly 2009, p. 3) Another greatest setback to the collective security principle at the UN Security Council is the nature of politics and the prevailing international political nuances. The effect of politics on this matter cannot just be dispensed with for a number of reasons. First, and very importantly, is the fact that the very institution of the United Nations is itself a political institution and thus becomes amenable to the nature of world politics and political developments (Gallina 2006, p. 20). The second level at which politics affects the efforts of the United Nations Security Council through collective security is that the UNSC’s deliberations are themselves political and do take into consideration the prevailing political interests of the countries concerned. The raging Libyan revolt provide an apt example at just how much political considerations largely influence the UN Security Council’s deliberations, and indeed, its operations. For instance, the French and United States were very unequivocal in supporting the enforcement of “No Fly Zones” on the Libyan airspace in order to prevent the use of Libyan Air Force from launching air strikes against civilian targets (Resolution 1973 of 2011). The French however, this served as an opportune moment to validate their political maneuvers against the Colonel Muamar Gaddafi’s government; a government they dad disowned through their recognition of the government and flag of the Eastern rebels (Daily Nation Newspapers 15th March 2011, p. 26). While the United States, France and the United Kingdom led one wing of the permanent UNSC members in pressing for the enforcement of the No Fly Zone, the Chinese and Russians were cautiously reluctant. In fact, when the idea of need to arm the Eastern rebels by the West was mooted, the Russians opposed the same very strongly on the ground that this was in excess of the UN’s mandate as deriving from Resolution 1973 of 2011 (Chan, 2011, p. 3). The centrality of international politics to the deliberations and operations of not just the UN Security Council but the United Nations in its entirety has been greatly illustrated by both the Libyan and Ivory Coast’s political crises that have been raging for a while now. The irony of the whole thing is that although the Ivory Coast’s crisis has persisted longer than Libya’s and even has a peacekeeping force in place, popularly known as United Nations Operations in Corte d’Ivoire, UNOCI, the response of the UN through the Western powers over the Libyan crisis has been much swifter and more decisive. The crisis in Ivory Coast, notwithstanding the fact that the country is the world’s top cocoa producer, never seemed to hold the western countries’ psyche as much as the one in Libya. This has brought to the fore allegations of double standards in terms of how the West regards and treats Sub-Saharan countries vis-à-vis the Maghreb countries within the African continent. Indeed, Hosur has pointed out that the level of double standards exhibited by the West over the two crises on the African continent is not strange. The reasoning offered by Hosur on this matter is that since the outcome in Libya would certainly affect the entire Middle East, the West had to be keener on it because of the region’s importance, especially economically as compared to the Sub-Saharan region of the continent (Hosur 2010, p. 4). Indeed, the allegations of double standards based on political convenience as an issue that has stalked the UNSC so as to impede its effective use of the principle of collective security, has been noted by China. The country, in a speech that left no doubt as to the question of whether the UNSC has done enough to ward off violence in the trouble spots of the Middle East and Africa, argued through its then Assistant Foreign Minister, Mr. Shen Guofang, that more could be done for these regions. The Chinese further called for the UNSC to act very decisively in such regions instead of giving only flowery speeches after when damage has been done (Guofang, 2003). However, the UN Security Council’s reactions towards the two crises at point may have more than just politics. The same may have equally had to do with economic interests for the Western powers and interests. The Libyan oil interests put so much economic interests at stake for the western countries than the cocoa exports from the Ivory Coast ever could. It has been argued that depending on the economic and political interests that the members of Security Council, especially the permanent ones, have upon a matter, their reactions would be varied so that each of them takes a stance that would favour its position. The taking of varied stances by different members of the UNSC on matters that are or crucial security and peace bearings in the world greatly undermine the collective security (Mesquita & Smith 2009, P. 6). One example to illustrate this position is the variant positions that the United States and Russian Republic have taken over the Iranian nuclear Programme. In the year 2007 for instance, whereas the Russians through then President Vladimir Putin supported the Iranian nuclear programme on the basis that Iran had the right to pursue the said programme, the United States took a diametrically opposed position. Within a span of one week upon the pronouncement of the Russian President over the matter, the United States responded by launching a stinging criticism on the said programme and instead, announcing unilateral sanctions against the Iranian government (Gockel, 2007, p. 4). The taking of diametrically opposed positions on a matter by members of the Security Council, more so permanent members with veto powers, is an ominous sign for the effective operation of the collective security at the UN Security Council. It becomes abundantly clear that in all likelihood, the veto wielding countries will, more often than not, pull in varied directions; one group comprising the USA, UK and France with the other being made of China and Russia. These subtle deep-seated political differences, which are relics of old Cold War ideological differences, do not portend well for the effective operation of the collective security at the UN Security Council. It is also to be suggested that another reason as to why the collective security principle seems not to be in operation at the United Nations Security Council is because of the Charter of the United Nations is reactionary in nature, rather than being proactive. For instance, with respect to the Security Council’s mandate of maintenance of international peace, the procedure set out in the process of discharge of this mandate is one that seems is intended to react to aggressions while not being able to take proactive measures for any anticipated conduct of aggressions from any country (Chapters VI, VII, VIII and XII of the Charter). This rather cumbersome reactive approach by the Security Council which obligates it to utilize and exhaust other mechanisms such as the use of sanctions and pacific settlement of the dispute in question before it can authorize the use of force has made the UNSC be declared almost irrelevant. More specifically, the relevance of Article 51 of the Charter which predicates self defence on an attack is almost obsolete under the present sets of challenges. This is because whenever it is to authorize use of force, it does so when the damage is already done. This explains why in all situations of peacekeeping operations, the peacekeepers have gotten into the scene very belatedly when a lot of violence had been committed by one side to the conflict. Consider for instance the violence in the Balkans in the early 1990s, Kosovo in 1999, Rwanda genocide in 1994, the East Timor in 1998 just to mention but a few. In each of these instances, there were ominous signs of impending threat to the peace well in advance such that the Security Council should have been in a position to be proactive; the tragedies would have been averted (Kim 2008, p. 6). The very nature of the UN Security Council’s collective security which seeks to defend, rather than attack if and when there is need, failed the world miserably at its most critical hour of need for peace. As a matter of fact, the UN failed Rwanda as it never authorized the use of force while Kosovo had to depend upon the NATO intervention force to relieve the renegade Serbian province which was later to declare independence on February 17 2008. Conclusion This paper has considered the reasons which have been responsible for the non effective operation of the collective security within the United Nations Security Council. Varied reasons have been advanced as being responsible for this occurrence. The said reasons have ranged from politics to the substantive provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. Simply put therefore, the said reasons are both the creation of the Charter as well as outside the UN control. One fundamental shortcoming of the Charter that has been noted is its limiting role in the maintenance of international peace by being a reactionary forum, rather than a proactive one. It was noted with lots of disapproval for instance that Article 51 of the Charter which provides for self defence limits the role that a country can play in defusing an anticipated aggression. Rather than being provided with a window of opportunity by which it can reasonably utilize in order to take precautionary measures if and when there are sufficient reasons, a country is only expected to act after it would have been attacked. For instance, circumstances under which countries like Kuwait found themselves in may have required a legitimate declaration of war against Iraq before the invasion. This is a vacuum which may be abused by an aggressor; more so in an age when the technological advancement has produced weapons of mass destruction which when used upon a country may never be able to allow the country attacked a reasonable opportunity to hit back. This window of opportunity for self defence is one that was designed for the 1950s when aggressive tendencies were also very traditional, as opposed to the present times when new and much more complex forms of aggression have emerged. In order therefore for collective security to continue being relevant in the contemporary society and age, there are needed to be put in place both institutional as well as substantive reforms to the Charter of the United Nations. Bibliography Articles/Books/Reports Bashow, David, L, Canada and the Future of Collective Defence, Centre for International Relations, Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (1998). Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce and Smith, Alastair, Selling Out on The UN Security Council, Wilf Family Department of Politics of New York University, (2009) Chan, John, (2011) China and Russia Criticize Libya Bombing Campaign. 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Stedman, Stephen, ‘Strengthening the United Nations to provide collective security for the 21st century’, UNA-USA Policy Brief, (2004) No. 4 Stromberg, R, Joseph, The United Nations Charter and the Delusion of Collective Security, (no date) Usmanov, Sardor, “UN Security Council reform and the EU’s Common Foreign Policy”, Institute of Political Studies, Bordeaux, France, n.d. Wuthnow, Joel, ‘China and the Processes of Cooperation in UN Security Council Deliberations’, Chinese Journal of International Politics, (2003) 3 (1), 55-77 Legislations The Charter of the United Nations Other Sources Guardian Newspapers Thursday 17 March 2011, UN Security Council 1973 on Libya Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kenya Government http://www.google.co.ke/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=ministry+of+foreign+affairs%2C+kenya+government&aq=o&aqi=g10&aql=&oq Nation Media Group, Daily Nation Newspapers for 25th March 2011 Read More