Responsibility to recommend: the role of the UN General Assembly in the maintenance of international peace and security

Abstract

The international community's failure to respond to the large-scale commission of international crimes points to an abiding flaw in the United Nations (UN) system, namely the inability or unwillingness of the Security Council's permanent members to act in response to such atrocities. This article focuses on the problematic confluence of international governance and humanitarian response. Specifically, it analyses two major efforts to address these issues and their possible interaction. First, the ‘Uniting for Peace’ Resolution (U4P), which provides that where the Security Council is unable to act due to a veto, the General Assembly can make recommendations for collective measures, including the use of force, in a situation of a breach of international peace and security or aggression. Second, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P), encompassing the notion that if a state is manifestly failing to protect its citizens, the international community may, where necessary, take forceful action to protect those affected. This article argues that the UN embodies a system of collective security and that when the necessity of intervention to halt atrocities is defeated by a Security Council veto resulting in a governance vacuum, the U4P Resolution affords the Assembly a mechanism to recommend measures under the third pillar of R2P. Although R2P has arguably been fundamentally damaged by events in Libya, and more recently Syria, the utilisation of the U4P resolution could serve to fill the lacuna caused by Security Council deadlock and potentially reinforce and legitimise the R2P concept.