Humanity's Mirror

According to the UN Charter (Article 26), the UN Security Council is the primary organ responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Nuclear states agreed to the adoption of a UN Security Council Resolution that provided positive security assurances. The adoption of UN Security Council Resolution №255 on June 19, 1968, was of particular significance. This resolution stipulated that instances of aggression involving the use of nuclear weapons or the threat of such aggression against a non-nuclear-weapon state would require immediate action by the UN Security Council and its permanent members, who are nuclear-armed states. The aim of the work is to determine the role of the UN Security Council in the system of preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The methodological basis of the study will focus on the analysis and understanding of the impact of the UN Security Council on strategies and measures aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the international context. The results of our research have shown that the role of the UN Security Council in the disarmament of Iraq’s nuclear program, which could have led to the development of nuclear weapons, proved to be significant. To achieve this, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution №687 adopted on April 3, 1991, the Special Commission (UNSCOM) was established. During an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council at the highest level on September 24, 2009, Resolution UN Security Council Resolution № 1887 was adopted, aimed at supporting nuclear non-proliferation, criticizing Iran and North Korea. Resolution №1887 outlines measures to strengthen control and the rights of nuclear-weapon states to demand the return of nuclear materials and equipment in case of violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty or withdrawal from it. It also involves enhancing security measures for the storage of nuclear materials and strict export controls. Conclusions. In our opinion, the powers of the UN Security Council in the field of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction should be utilized more promptly and effectively. The insufficient effectiveness of this international mechanism in preventing proliferation remains a cause for serious concern among UN members worldwide. To enhance the effectiveness of the UN Security Council, we propose the adoption of a comprehensive resolution that includes provisions on the procedure for a state’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and its violation of commitments to refrain from acquiring nuclear weapons. This resolution should stipulate the imposition of sanctions against such a state based on a special report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Such a mechanism can ensure an effective impact of the international community on states that withdraw from the NPT.

The subject of the study is the role of the UN Security Council in the international system of countering money laundering and terrorist financing. The author pays special attention to the historical component, identifying the reasons for the transformation of the UN approach to money laundering and terrorist financing and tracing the link between the globalization of terrorist acts and the development of counteraction by the UN Security Council. The main functions of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC of the UN Security Council) and the Executive Directorate (CTED of the UN Security Council) are outlined. The article reveals the role of a number of UN Security Council documents as a systemically significant source of law in the context of the international system for countering money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as individual problems faced by states implementing the norms of resolutions into their national legislation. The methodological basis of the study was a combination of general scientific (logical method and analysis) and private scientific methods (comparative legal, historical legal, historical and sociological). The article systematically details the development of the UN Security Council's approach to the problem of money laundering and terrorist financing. Through careful consideration of individual provisions of the resolutions, the role of this UN Security Council and its bodies in developing measures and countering ML/FT is being specified. Based on the results of the study, the author concludes that the UN Security Council has played a systemically significant role in the formation of an international system for countering money laundering and terrorist financing, consolidating a number of advanced international standards developed by international organizations, para-organizations and other institutions. In addition, the author clarifies that it is thanks to the UN Security Council that it is possible to further "solidify" the FATF Recommendations and their full implementation into the international legal system.

Introduction: Effectiveness of Multilateralism in the Field of Collective Security, Joachim Krause and Natalino Ronzitti Part I: Theoretical Approaches to and Historical Developments of Global Governance in the Field of Collective Security 1. Global Governance in the Field of Collective Security - How to Make Multilateralism more Effective, Joachim Krause 2. Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness of the UN Security Council in the Last 20 Years: a European Perspective, David Hannay 3. Effectiveness and Ineffectiveness of the UN Security Council in the Last 20 Years: a US Perspective, John van Oudenaren Part II: The UN Security Council 4. The reform of the UN Security Council, Natalino Ronzitti 5. The EU's Contribution to the Effectiveness of the UN Security Council between Presence and Impact, Nicoletta Pirozzi Part III: UN Peacekeeping 6. UN Peacekeeping Missions during the Past Two Decades - How Effective Have They Been?, Denis Tull 7. Options for Improving EU-UN Cooperation in the Field Of Peacekeeping, Alexandra Novosseloff Part IV: International Peacebuilding and State-building 8. International Peacebuilding and State-building Efforts: How Effective Have They Been?, Keith Crane 9. Building Peace in Post-Conflict Environments: Why and How the UN and the EU Interact, Thierry Tardy 10. Constructing a Framework of Effective Multilateralism: Conclusions for the Field of Collective Security, Inna Melnykovska and Nicoletta Pirozzi Appendices Appendix 1. The UN Security Council Reform Process: Recent Developments, Elisabetta Martini Appendix 2. Joint Declaration on UN-EU Cooperation in Crisis Management Appendix 3. Joint Statement on UN-EU Cooperation in Crisis Management Appendix 4. Major Stages of the Institutionalization of the UN-EU Cooperation Appendix 5. Contributions of European States to UN Peacekeeping Operations Appendix 6. EU Autonomous Operation in Support of a UN Peace Operations Appendix 7. Operations Involving UN-EU Cooperation since 2003

The use of force� /no matter how benevolent, enlightened, or impartial in intent� /has dramatic consequences. It shapes the struggle for power and helps to determine the outcome of political contests, which is why it is inherently controversial. It is why international debates about Libya� /the first road test of the Responsibility to Protect’s (R2P) coercive element (also known as Pillar Three)� /were understandably contentious. Pillar Three is defined as ‘‘the responsibility of Member States to respond collectively in a timely and decisive manner when a State is manifestly failing to provide ... / protection.’’ 1 While peaceful means of response are primarily preferred, should that prove inadequate to ensure protection, the international community should use more robust action: ‘‘no strategy for fulfilling the responsibility to protect would be complete without the possibility of collective enforcement measures, including through sanctions or coercive military action in extreme cases.’’ 2

The article analyzes main trends in the work of the UN Security Council on the Syrian issues. The author notes that the interaction of the Security Council members fully reflected the modern development of international relations, related to its transformation towards polycentricism. This process is associated with a reduction in the ability of the US to use the UN Security Council to conduct its own narrow-conjuncture policy, with the growing influence of new centers of power, primarily Russia and China. Those actors are ready to uphold the principle of inadmissibility of using the UN Security Council to interfere in the internal affairs of states in order to change regimes. To counter this trend, Washington and its allies pursued a policy of pressure on Moscow, trying to force it to abandon an independent course toward Syria. At the same time, the thesis of the “paralysis” of the UN Security Council with reference to the conflict in Syria was actively used because of Russia’s position. Simultaneously, Russian initiatives in the UN Security Council aimed at de-escalating the situation and launching an inter-Syrian dialogue were rejected. Nevertheless, the consistent position of Russia and China forced the West to gradually realize the non-alternative search for common denominators on the Syrian issue as well as collective partnership efforts to find measures to end the conflict. As a result, it became possible to adopt a number of decisions of the UN Security Council concerning various aspects of the settlement of the crisis. The main principles of the settlement, negotiating formats for the participants in the conflict and external players were agreed upon. Thus, it was the interaction in Syria that gave the UN Security Council the opportunity to become the embodiment and guarantor of a multipolar world, a platform for harmonizing approaches on an equitable collective basis in a changing world.

What explains China’s response to intervention at the UN Security Council? China and Intervention at the UN Security Council argues that status is an overlooked determinant in understanding its decisions, even in the apex cases that are shadowed by a public discourse calling for regime change in Sudan, Libya, and Syria. The book posits that China reconciles its status dilemma as it weighs decisions to intervene: seeking recognition from both its intervention peer groups of great powers and developing states. Understanding the impact and scope conditions of status answers why China has taken certain positions regarding intervention and how these positions were justified. Foreign policy behavior that complies with status, and related social factors like self-image and identity, can at times mean that China selects policy options bearing material costs. China and Intervention at the UN Security Council offers a rich study of Chinese foreign policy, going beyond works available in breadth and in depth. It draws on an extensive collection of data, including over 200 interviews with UN officials and Chinese foreign policy elites, participant observation at UN Headquarters and a dataset of Chinese-language analysis regarding regime change and intervention. The book concludes with new perspectives on the malleability of China’s core interests, insights about the application of status for cooperation, and the implications of the status dilemma for rising powers.

UN ON THE PATH TO REFORM

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Professors David Cameron and Michael Pugh, Megan Keogh and the following UN officials/consultants – Brian Atwood, Peter Barwick, Jamal Benomar, Michelle Brandt, Mario Buil-Merce, Lovemore Chikopa, Jill Cottrell, Surya Dhungel, Filippo Di-Capegra, Dennis Dijkeul, Guido Galli, Yash Ghai, Nicholas Haysom, Robert Husbands, Sakuntala Kagardimar, Katy Le Roy, Gianni Magazenni, William Maley, Fred Mwanthagere, Muna Ndulo, Cristiano Papile, Thusitha Pilapitiya Robert Pulver, Bertrand Ramcharan, Anthony Regan, Alvaro Rodriguez, Charmaine Rodriguez, Roland Rich, Peter Russell, Amos Sawyer, Susanne Schmeidl, Francois Simmards, Ramaswamy Sudarshan, Neçla Tsirgi and John M. Tuhaika – for materials, conversations and comments. Notes UN Security Council Res. UN doc., S/Res/1996, 8 July 2011. UN Security Council Res. UN doc., S/Res/1509, 19 Sept. 2003; UN Security Council res. UN doc., S/Res/1885, 15 Sept. 2009. UNDP Bhutan, Annual Report 2005, 2005, p.5. UNDP, ‘The Constitution and Its Relationship to the Legislature’, undated (at: http://mirror.undp.org/magnet/Docs/parliaments/Constitutions.htm), on file with the author. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Malawi Law Commission, ‘Report of the Law Commission on the Review of the Constitution’, report no.18, Aug. 2007, pp.8,13. UNDP Maldives, ‘Democratic Governance’, 2011 (at: http://undp.org.mv/v2/?lid=71). UNDP Pacific Centre, ‘Democratic Governance’, 2011 (at: www.undppc.org.fj/pages.cfm/our-work/democratic-governance/strenthening-parliaments-democratic-institution/constitutional-reform). Ibid. Ibid. UNDP Zambia, ‘Constitutional Reform: Support to the Constitution Review Process in Zambia’, 15 Jan. 2009 (at: www.undp.org.zm/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23:constitutional-reform-support-to-the-constitution-review-process-in-zambia&catid=5:democratic-economic-governance&Itemid=7). UNDP Zimbabwe, ‘Support to Participatory Constitution Making in Zimbabwe (SPCMZ) 2009–2011’ (at: www.undp.org.zw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92&Itemid=9). ‘UN Political Chief Pledges Organization's Continued Support for Transition in Egypt’, 28 Feb. 2011 (at: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37639&Cr=egypt&Cr1=); ‘Ban Pledges Full UN Help for Tunisia's Transition to Democracy‘, 22 Mar. 2011 (at: www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37860&Cr=tunisia&Cr1). It is anticipated that by the time this article goes to press, Libya will have become the thirteenth state to receive Security Council-mandated UNCA through the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), a peace mission. ee UN Security Council Res. UN doc., S/Res/2009, 16 September 2011, para. 12 (b). UN Security Council, ‘Special Research Report’, no.2, 5 Oct. 2007, p.3. UN, ‘Guidance Note on UN Assistance to Constitution-Making’, 8 June 2009. UN Charter, Ch.XIII, Arts.87–8; Katy le Roy, ‘Nauru Constitutional Review: Discussion Paper’, June 2006, p.3. ‘Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization’, UN doc., A/60/1, 2005, p.3. UN Charter, ‘Peaceful Settlement of Disputes’, Ch.VI, Art.33. UN Security Council, ‘Conflict Prevention Historical Chronology’ (at: www.securitycouncilreport.org/site/c.glKWLeMTIsG/b.3462777/). Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace, New York: UN, 1992. Ibid. UN Secretary-General, ‘The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa’, 16 Apr. 1998, para.105 (at: www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/sgreport/index.html); UN, ‘Guidance Note of the Secretary-General – UN Approach to Rule of Law Assistance’, undated. UN Secretary-General (see n.24 above); UN Secretary-General, ‘Report of the Secretary-General: Prevention of Armed Conflict’, UN doc. A/55/985–S/2001/574, 7 June 2001, para.78. UN Security Council (see n.1 above), para.18; Bertram I. Spector, Negotiating Peace and Confronting Corruption, Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2011. ‘Comparative Table Regarding the UN Security Council Committees Established Pursuant to Resolutions 1267 (1999), 1373 (2001) and 1540 (2004)’ (at: www.un.org/es/sc/ctc/pdf/comparative-table-2011-05.pdf). ‘Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’, Ch.1, Art.7, 2004; ‘Permanent Constitution of Iraq’, 2005, §1, Art.7. For an anti-terrorism provision in another UN-assisted constitution, see ‘The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan’ (2008), Art.8(5). UN Millennium Declaration, GA Res.55/2, UN GAOR, UN doc. A/Res/55/2, 18 Sept. 2000, para.6; UN, ‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All’, report of the UN Secretary-General, UN doc., A/Res/59/2005, 21 Mar. 2005. UN doc., S/Res/1325, Oct. 2000. UN (see n.17 above), pp.4–6. Ibid. See ‘Principles Relating to the Status of National Institutions’ (Paris Principles), Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Office (at: www2.ohchr.org/english/law/parisprinciples.htm). Vijayashri Sripati, ‘UN Constitutional Assistance: A TWAIL Perspective’, PhD thesis, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, 2010, chs.4–5. Ibid.; Spector (see n.26 above), pp.67–71; UNDP, Democracy and Development in the Least Developed Countries, New York: UN, 2006, pp.64–9. Ibid.; Sripati (see n.33 above), ch.5. Edward Newman and Roland Rich (eds), The UN Role in Promoting Democracy – Between Ideals and Reality, Tokyo: UN University Press, 2003, p.3. Secretary-General's remarks to the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly on the Proposed Programme Budget for the Biennium 2008–09, New York, 25 Oct. 2007 (at: www.un.org/apps/sg/sgstats.asp?nid=2815). For the nature of the conflict see ‘Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi’, 28 Aug. 2000, Art.4. Ibid. Security Council Res.1545, 24 May 2004, para.5. Security Council Res. 435, UN doc. S/Res/435, 29 Sept 1978. Ibid. Paul Szasz, ‘Creating the Namibian Constitution’, in Heribert Weiland and Matthew Braham (eds), The Namibian Peace Process: Implications and Lessons for the Future, Druck: Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, 1994, pp.243–56; Paul Lewis, ‘Paul Szasz, 72, Legal Expert; Helped Draft 2 Constitutions’, New York Times, 7 May 2002, p.A12. UNDP Rwanda, ‘Ten Years on: Helping Rebuild a Nation – the UN in Rwanda’, Kigali, Apr. 2004, p.15. Ibid.; Government of Rwanda, UNDP Rwanda and DIFD, ‘Rwanda: Programme for strengthening good governance’, 2007(at: www.undp.org.rw/Democratic-project46259.html?id=112 ). Security Council Res. 1590, UN doc. S/Res/1590, 24 March 2005, para. 4. ‘Agreement between the Republic of Indonesia and the Portuguese Republic on the Question of East Timor’, 5 May 1999. Ralph Wilde, International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and the Civilizing Mission Never Went Away, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, p.17; Sergio Viera de Mello (at: www.ohchr.org/EN/ABOUTUS/Pages/Vieira.aspx). Hon. Richard G. Lugar (Sen. Indiana), ‘Kosovo: A Way Forward?’, Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Relations US Senate, 109th Congress, First Session, 8 Nov. 2005, p. 1. Rambouillet Agreement – Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, US State Department, Feb. 1999 (at: www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html). Republic of Kosovo Assembly (at: www.assembly-kosova.org/?cid=2,128,1635). ‘United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI)’, Fact Sheet, 10 Aug. 2007, pp.1–5.

The UN Security Council has presented a complex and challenging site for women and feminists. It is the organ of the UN with the narrowest and most militaristic function. Further, it is the organ of the UN that is most exclusionary in its composition and decision-making, composed of only five permanent member states and ten non-permanent member states. There are three key axes along which we might consider the topic and scholarship on women and the UN Security Council: the first is women within the UN Security Council, including the involvement of women in negotiating its mandate and its ongoing decision-making and activities; the second is the impact of the Security Council on women, for example through its peacekeeping and sanctions activities; and the third is the Security Council’s thematic agenda on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), adopted in 2000 as part of the Council’s broader post–Cold War turn to “human security.” As this entry will make clear, there is a significant disparity between the volume of scholarship dedicated to each of these three axes. Scholarship addressed to women within the Security Council is scant. Scholarship on the impact of Security Council activities on women is more developed and has a longer trajectory since the early-mid 1990s. Scholarship addressed to the WPS agenda is voluminous and emerges from across multiple disciplines and draws on diverse theoretical and methodological approaches. WPS scholarship emerged soon after the adoption of the initial resolution and has continued to gather pace ever since. It is therefore appealing to collapse any discussion of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and women into the UNSC’s thematic agenda on Women, Peace and Security, but to do so would overlook both essential historical context that preceded the Council’s adoption of WPS in 2000, as well as the many ways in which women intersect and cross-cut with other attributes, powers, and activities of the UNSC. Consequently, while this entry does dedicate much discussion to scholarship of the WPS agenda, this scholarship is contextualized within broader international legal scholarship on women, feminism, and gender at the UN Security Council.

media-genic: countries debate, votes are taken, drama abounds as when Colin Powell made his case for intervention in Iraq. The Council's composition is sup posed to reflect coercive power in the world, and it is the only institution whose decisions are expected to be binding on all member states of the UN. Sometimes it does not seem to work well and reformers want to change its composition bet ter to reflect current power. The UN Security Council and the Politics of International Authority seeks to encour age us to think differently about the institution, reflecting radically alternative way to conceptualize power in supranational institutions. It is different from the usual take on the Security Council, which can focus on process and issues dealt with, like Edward Luck's (2006) UN Security Council: Practice and Promise, or David Malone's (1998) analysis of the specific case of Haiti in his Decision-making in the UN Security Council, or Chinmaya Gharekhan's (2006) personal memoire in The Horseshoe Table: An Inside View of the UN Security Council. Bruce Cronin and Ian Hurd start the process in their introductory chapter, which sets out their focus on authority and legitimacy as key factors in the Council's effectiveness. Authority here means a relation among actors within hierarchy in which one group is recognized as having both the rights and the competence to make binding decisions for the rest of the community... (p. 6). As such it is related to legitimacy, form of very soft power. Hurd's next chapter elaborates on this and sets up tests of authority as way of assessing the Council. This is based on Hurd's earlier work on legitimacy in After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council (Hurd 2007). Eric Voeten's chapter on the nature of Security Council authority combines an institutionalist and realist perspective on how decision making can be seen as bargaining between public goods perspective (peace and security are good for everyone) and private goods perspective (a given State's national interest). He shows that the decision-making process is evolving in such way that agree ment in the Security Council is becoming increasingly important. Bruce Cronin's chapter on how international consensus has expanded the Security Council's legal authority is central argument in the volume. It demon strates that consensus, which is the prevailing means of decision making at the international level, allows international law to develop. As he notes, ...it reflects the growth of legal norms that are derived not from individual state consent,

Foreword Stef Blok Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations 1 Introduction Niels Blokker, Nico Schrijver and Sarah Mead Part I: Elected Members: Law and Practice 2 Non-permanent Members of the Security Council: A Charter Perspective Stephen Mathias and Keiichiro Okimoto 3 Elected Members Today: Overcoming the Handicaps Ian Martin 4 Campaigning for an Elected Seat in the UN Security Council Ann-Marie Ekengren and Ulrika Moeller 5 More Non-Permanent Members? On the Need for a Second Enlargement of the Security Council Niels Blokker Part II: Elected Members: Inside and Outside Experiences 6 Pursuing Peace and Justice on the Security Council: The Canadian Experience Alistair Edgar 7 The Role of Elected Members on the UN Security Council: The New Zealand Experience 2015-16 Gerard van Bohemen 8 The Dutch Approach of Promoting the International Rule of Law and Constructive Multilateralism on the Security Council Nico Schrijver 9 Belgium in the UN Security Council: Responsibility Without Power? Jan Wouters and Nina Pineau 10 Representing the European Union at the United Nations: The Security Council Dimension Thomas Mayr-Harting 11 Serving on the Security Council: More Like Playing Poker than Like Chess Peter Wilson Part III: Niches for Elected Members 12 What Kind of Rule of Law Should Elected Members Promote? Alejandro Rodiles 13 Elected Members and Agenda-Setting: The Security Council as Peace Broker Daniella Dam-de Jong 14 Managing the Ebb and Flow of Sanctions Reform: An Important Role for Non-Permanent Members Jeremy Farrall and Christopher Michaelsen 15 The Office of the Ombudsperson and the Elected Members of the Security Council Kimberly Prost 16 Environmental Peacebuilding and the UN Security Council Amanda Kron 17 Non-Permanent Members of the Security Council and International Criminal Justice: A Proposal for Revitalization Giuseppe Nesi 18 Working from the Outside to Change the Working Methods of the Security Council: Elected Members as a Bridge between the Permanent Members and the Rest of the UN Membership Christian Wenaweser About the Contributors Table of Treaties Table of Resolutions Presidential Notes and Statements Case Law Index

The article is devoted to the legal analysis of the use of the veto by the permanent members of the UN Security Council. The purpose of the article is to comprehensively study the principles of minimizing the abuse of the veto power in the UN Security Council. The article analyzes the current legal framework of the UN Charter regarding the possibility of using the veto power in the UN Security Council. The author examines the legal content of such grounds and analyzes the legal and political motives for such use. The study identified gaps in the international legal regulation of situations where a particular state openly abuses the veto power in the UN Security Council. The study of the topic is based on the provisions of the general theory of international law and practical experience of application and interpretation of the provisions of the UN Charter. The article provides specific examples of abuse of the veto power and approaches to reforming the operation of this instrument. The scientific research is based on the analysis of the provisions of international law and the analysis of the actual behavior of states in the international arena. The publication draws conclusions on potential ways to reform the veto power in the UN Security Council. The article provides for the coverage of topical issues and regulatory features of the use of the veto power in the context of military aggression.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Darfur Samuel Totten and Eric Markusen In launching the first issue of Genocide Studies and Prevention, we, the four editors (Alex Alvarez, Herb Hirsch, Eric Markusen, and Samuel Totten), feel compelled to address one of the most pressing issues facing genocide scholars today—the current crisis in Darfur, Sudan. It is a crisis that erupted in early 2003 and continues today. It is one in which government of Sudan troops (GoS) and the Janjaweed (Arab militia) are responsible for the mass murder of an estimated 180,000 black Africans (primarily from the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit tribal groups) and possibly more than 250,000 others as a result of genocide by attrition (depriving the more than two million internally displaced persons of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care). Once again—as happened in Rwanda in 1994 and in Srebrenica in 1995, to mention but two instances—the international community’s response to the unfolding crisis was late in coming and far too tepid and anemic when it did come. As far back as December 2003, Jan Egeland, UN undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, declared Darfur to be the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and yet the international community proffered words over action in ‘‘addressing’’ the crisis. While various non-governmental organizations decried the situation in Darfur, the UN Security Council dithered by issuing one timid resolution after another in which it made idle threats to sanction Sudan if the killing, mass displacement, mass rape, and destruction continued. The mass murder—some, including the US government, deemed it genocide, while others, including the UN, deemed it crimes against humanity—continued unabated, but the United Nations did not see fit to alter its response in any real way. Instead of taking firm steps to halt the mass killing, rape, and wholesale destruction of the black Africans’ villages and their way of life (it is estimated that more than 2,000 black African villages have been utterly destroyed and burned to the ground), the UN Security Council welcomed the African Union’s offer to deploy troops as monitors in the Darfur area. The UN Security Council knew full well that the AU mission would be not only undermanned and under-resourced but working with an inadequate mandate, but it did not seem to care about such critical limitations and liabilities. It is also true that the AU mission ostensibly provided the UN Security Council with an easy ‘‘out.’’ That is, as long as the African Union was on the ground in Darfur—and continued to demand that it be allowed to handle the crisis on its own— the UN Security Council was more than willing to capitulate to these demands, for the simple but profound reason that this provided the council with a rationale for not acting. Such an approach also met the specific wishes of at least three of the permanent members of the Security Council: China (which has huge petroleum interests in Sudan), Russia (which has a large and extremely lucrative arms deal with Sudan), and the United States (which now considers Sudan a partner in its so-called war on terrorism). Once again, realpolitik won out over real humanitarian concern. This special issue on Darfur provides a glimpse into various aspects of the crisis. René Lemarchand, an expert on the Great Lakes region of Africa, contributes an overview of the crisis that places it within the larger context of Sudan’s history. Scott Straus, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, presents a comparative study of the genocides perpetrated in Rwanda (in 1994) and in Darfur. Samuel Totten, a scholar of genocide studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, provides a critique of the US State Department’s Atrocities Documentation Project—whose data resulted in the determination by the US government that genocide had been (and possibly continued to be) perpetrated in Darfur—along with a critique of the motives and ramifications of the ‘‘finding’’ of genocide. Kelly D. Askin, a lawyer, scholar, and expert on mass rape, delineates and discusses the crimes that have been perpetrated against girls and women in Darfur since early 2003. Jerry Fowler, a lawyer...

After President Aristide was overthrown by the Haitian military in September 1991, the UN Security Council and the OAS instituted a progression of measures to restore him to power. This unique and intriguing study examines how and why the UN Security Council took its decisions on Haiti, including authorization in July 1994 of the use of force by a US-led multinational coalition against the de facto regime. After outlining key trends in the Council's work from 1990–97 and providing a sketch of Haiti's history, the author reviews the milestones in the Haitian crisis, focusing principally on their international dimension, but also discussing Haitian domestic factors that influenced the crisis. Drawing on an unprecedented range of UN and OAS documents, media reports and original interviews, the author explores how and why the Haiti case found its way on to the Security Council's agenda, probes the motivations and roles of key actors, examines the Security Council as an institutional framework for action, and assesses the success of Security Council strategies on Haiti. The study touches on issues of power and influence within the UN Security Council, the links between the Security Council's decisions on Haiti and its reactions to other, recent, international crises, UN cooperation with the OAS, and the factors shaping national positions in the Security Council, with a particular focus on the impact of US domestic events.

The last ethnic conflict in the Balkans was ended on 10 June 1999. On the same day, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1244, in which the Security Council announced their decision to deploy international civil and security presence in Kosovo, under United Nations auspices. Taking into account that the UN Security Council is responsible for maintaining international peace and security, there is a question what did the UN Security Council do to avoid the conflict in Kosovo in 1999. The aim of the article is to find the answer to the question why the UN Security Council failed and why the NATO took the leading role in the wake of a deepening conflict in this region. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p436