THE UN AS A DISPUTE SETTLEMENT SYSTEM: THE ROLE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

THE UN AS A DISPUTE SETTLEMENT SYSTEM: THE ROLE OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

The concept of ‘international security’ implies a common interest in security transcending the particular interests of sovereign states. The recognition of that common interest carries with the aspiration to create a communal framework to replace the need for unilateral national security measures. From the very outset the establishment of a new framework for international security was seen as the United Nation’s primary task. Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter, on the peaceful settlement of disputes, stands at the heart of the Organization's system of collective security. While the framers of the Charter understood clearly the need for an enforcement mechanism, and provided the use of force against threats to international peace and security, their hopes for a better world lay in the peaceful resolution of armed conflicts. When the Charter is viewed as a coherent legal text, Chapter VI appears as one of two sections at its very centre. I sets the overarching principles of the UN, the rules regarding membership, and the structure of the two major political organs. Chapter VI is the first chapter to provide detailed mechanisms for the implementation of the goals of the Organization. Immediately following it appear the other group of articles offering such mechanisms, Chapter VII and VIII, followed by issues deemed by its drafters less fundamental to maintenance of the peace, such as economic and social matters, non-self-governing territories and trusteeship, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. This structure parallels the language of Article 1(1), which sets out the UN's first purpose as maintaining the peace and describes the two means to that end: eliminating threats to the peace and bringing about the 'adjustment or settlement' of disputes that could lead to such threats.

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