How Does the UN Charter Try to Limit the Incidence and the Severity of Wars? Does It Work?

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Recommended: Role of united nations organisation in world peace

During World War I and World War II countries lost enough human and economical resources that they decided to establish principles embodied in the form of the United Nations to

“practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and...”

According to the Charter of the United Nations, maintaining international peace and security is the main purpose of the United Nations. To ensure that this goal can be meet, the Security Council has been set up as the UN organ that decides about the security issues and does not need the agreement of all or the majority of 192 member countries for its decisions to be effective. Special powers have been assigned to the Security Council enabling this organ to act on behalf of the members (Chapter V, Article 24). The Charter mentions that the Security Council is expected to use these specific powers to maintain international peace and security- that is to limit the incidence and the severity of wars. Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the UN Charter detail these powers which give the UN Security Council a major role to keep the peace and stability in the world. To discuss how the UN Charter acts, via the Security Council, to maintain the peace and avoid wars, this essay heavily relies on the related content of the UN Charter. First we need to overview the highlights of the Charter as a great deal of the Charter has been employed to explain the procedures and principles the UN takes to carry out this task. Then we refer to the interpretations of the Charter art...

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...362-376. Retrieved from: http://law.nus.edu.sg/sybil/downloads/articles/SJICL-2000-2/SJICL-2000-362.pdf

• Glennon, M.J. (1991). The Constitution and Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. The American Journal of International Law. 85(1), 74-88. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2203559

• Kittikhoun, A. Weiss, T.G. (2011). Imperfect but Indispensable: The United Nations and Conflict Resolution. Retreived from: http://www.ethnopolitics.org/isa/Wolff.pdf

• Kunz, J.L. (1947). Individual and Collective Self-Defense in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. The American Journal of International Law.41(4), 872-879. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2193095

• Morris, J & Wheeler, N. (2007).The Security Council's Crisis of Legitimacy and the Use of Force. International Politics. 44(2), 214-231. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ip.8800185.

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