The United Nations' Reactions to Foreign Military Interventions

Abstract

This study investigates how the United Nations (UN) has reacted to foreign military interventions. The term foreign military intervention is defined and criteria for the selection of cases are formulated, resulting in the selection of seven foreign military interventions: Vietnam in Kampuchea, Tanzania in Uganda, France in the Central African Empire (CAE), the USSR in Afghanistan, the USA and several Caribbean states in Grenada, the USA in Panama, and Iraq in Kuwait. The relevant provisions of the Charter of the UN are presented and interpretations of Article 2(4) and Article 51 are made for the purpose of this study. This is followed by an examination of the UN reactions to the seven cases through the Security Council's and the General Assembly's responses to the interventions. The reactions are categorized as active (Kuwait), extensive (Kampuchea and Afghanistan), single (Grenada and Panama), and no reaction (Uganda and the CAE). The next step of the analysis is the formulation of a Hypothesis. This is done from a legal and normative approach to explaining the UN reactions. The Hypothesis is operationalized and tested through the formulation of two specifications. The result of this testing is that the Hypothesis has been found untenable. This indicates that the Charter is not the sole factor guiding and generating the UN reactions to foreign military interventions. The study also shows that there is a basis for arguing that the UN reactions to the seven cases were not consistent.