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

Year 2018, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 19 - 32, 17.05.2018

Elena Andreevska

Abstract

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.

Keywords

United Nations, Dispute, Security Council, International Security, Sovereign States

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