Selective Responsibility in the United Nations
Selective Responsibility in the United Nations

Author: Katy Harsant

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-08-30

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1786610302

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The United Nations claims to exist in order to maintain international peace and security, providing a space within which all states can work together. But why, then, does the UN invoke its responsibility to protect through humanitarian intervention in some instances but not others? Why is it that five states have the power to decide whether or not to intervene? This book challenges the dominant narrative of the UN as an institution of equality and progress by analyzing the colonial origins of the organization and revealing the unequal power relations it has perpetuated. Harsant argues that the United Nations is unable to fulfill its claims around the protection of international peace and security due to its very structure and the privilege of certain states. Moreover, through a rigorous examination of the history of the UN and how those structures came to be, she argues that the privilege afforded to these states is the result of power relations established through the colonial encounter. In order to understand the pressing contemporary issues of how the United Nations operates, particularly the Security Council, this book discusses issues of power and sovereignty by de-silencing the narratives of resistance and reconstructing a history of the United Nations that takes this colonial and anti-colonial relationship into account. This is a bold challenge to the eurocentrism that dominates International Relations discourse and a call to better understand the colonialism’s role in preserving the existing global order.

The United Nations and the Politics of Selective Humanitarian Intervention
The United Nations and the Politics of Selective Humanitarian Intervention

Author: Martin Binder

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-12-23

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 3319423541

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This book offers the first book-length explanation of the UN’s politics of selective humanitarian intervention. Over the past 20 years the United Nations has imposed economic sanctions, deployed peacekeeping operations, and even conducted or authorized military intervention in Somalia, Bosnia, or Libya. Yet no such measures were taken in other similar cases such as Colombia, Myanmar, Darfur—or more recently—Syria. What factors account for the UN’s selective response to humanitarian crises and what are the mechanism that drive—or block—UN intervention decisions? By combining fuzzy-set analysis of the UN’s response to more than 30 humanitarian crises with in depth-case study analysis of UN (in)action in Bosnia and Darfur, as well as in the most recent crises in Côte d’Ivoire, Libya and Syria, this volume seeks to answer these questions.

Selective Security
Selective Security

Author: Adam Roberts

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-28

Total Pages: 97

ISBN-13: 1135871485

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In contrast to the common perception that the United Nations is, or should become, a system of collective security, this paper advances the proposition that the UN Security Council embodies a necessarily selective approach. Analysis of its record since 1945 suggests that the Council cannot address all security threats effectively. The reasons for this include not only the veto power of the five permanent members, but also the selectivity of all UN member states: their unwillingness to provide forces for peacekeeping or other purposes except on a case-by-case basis, and their reluctance to involve the Council in certain conflicts to which they are parties, or which they perceive as distant, complex and resistant to outside involvement. The Council’s selectivity is generally seen as a problem, even a threat to its legitimacy. Yet selectivity, which is rooted in prudence and in the UN Charter itself, has some virtues. Acknowledging the necessary limitations within which the Security Council operates, this paper evaluates the Council’s achievements in tackling the problem of war since 1945. In doing so, it sheds light on the division of labour among the Council, regional security bodies and states, and offers a pioneering contribution to public and governmental understanding of the UN’s past, present and future roles.

The Justification of Responsibility in the UN Security Council
The Justification of Responsibility in the UN Security Council

Author: Holger Niemann

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-04

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780367504809

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Frequently the UN Security Council is accused of failing its objectives for maintaining international peace and security, but this book argues that instead of undermining the legitimacy of the Council, processes of contestation, politicisation and delegitimation can be productive in international organisations such as the Security Council.

The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations
The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations

Author: Thomas G. Weiss

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2008-11-13

Total Pages: 1025

ISBN-13: 0199560102

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This major new handbook provides the definitive and comprehensive analysis of the UN and will be an essential point of reference for all those working on or in the organization.

The United Nations Security Council and War
The United Nations Security Council and War

Author: Vaughan Lowe

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2010-04-15

Total Pages: 816

ISBN-13: 0191614939

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This is the first major exploration of the United Nations Security Council's part in addressing the problem of war, both civil and international, since 1945. Both during and after the Cold War the Council has acted in a limited and selective manner, and its work has sometimes resulted in failure. It has not been - and was never equipped to be - the centre of a comprehensive system of collective security. However, it remains the body charged with primary responsibility for international peace and security. It offers unique opportunities for international consultation and military collaboration, and for developing legal and normative frameworks. It has played a part in the reduction in the incidence of international war in the period since 1945. This study examines the extent to which the work of the UN Security Council, as it has evolved, has or has not replaced older systems of power politics and practices regarding the use of force. Its starting point is the failure to implement the UN Charter scheme of having combat forces under direct UN command. Instead, the Council has advanced the use of international peacekeeping forces; it has authorized coalitions of states to take military action; and it has developed some unanticipated roles such as the establishment of post-conflict transitional administrations, international criminal tribunals, and anti-terrorism committees. The book, bringing together distinguished scholars and practitioners, draws on the methods of the lawyer, the historian, the student of international relations, and the practitioner. It begins with an introductory overview of the Council's evolving roles and responsibilities. It then discusses specific thematic issues, and through a wide range of case studies examines the scope and limitations of the Council's involvement in war. It offers frank accounts of how belligerents viewed the UN, and how the Council acted and sometimes failed to act. The appendices provide comprehensive information - much of it not previously brought together in this form - of the extraordinary range of the Council's activities. This book is a project of the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War.

Five to Rule Them All
Five to Rule Them All

Author: David L. Bosco

Publisher: American Chemical Society

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0195328760

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In this lively, fast-moving, and often humorous narrative, David Bosco illuminates the role of the Security Council in the postwar world, telling the inside story of this remarkable diplomatic creation. Drawing on extensive research, including dozens of interviews with serving and former ambassadors on the Council, the book chronicles political battles and personality clashes as it opens the closed doors of its meeting room. What emerges here is a revealing portrait of the most powerful diplomatic body in the world.

United Nations Sanctions Regimes and Selective Security
United Nations Sanctions Regimes and Selective Security

Author: Thomas Kruiper

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-04-17

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1040018408

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This book investigates the selective nature of UN sanctions regimes with a specific focus on the post-Cold War era. Legally binding on all members, UN sanctions are the most effective and legitimate non-violent multilateral tools to respond to international security threats. They are also symbolically more powerful than unilateral or multilateral sanctions because they enjoy global support. However, while dozens of threats to international peace were met with UN sanctions since 1990, many others were not. How can we explain this incoherent approach? With a focus on the selectiveness, rather than effectiveness of UN sanctions the author reflects on the shifting geopolitical tensions between Security Council members and uses a variety of widely used academic datasets to provide a unique overview of what determines sanctions and sanctionable events. The primary audience will be scholars and students of international relations, international organizations, security studies, and political economy.

The Justification of Responsibility in the UN Security Council
The Justification of Responsibility in the UN Security Council

Author: Holger Niemann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-03

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1351336932

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The UN Security Council has been given the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The precise meaning of this responsibility, however, is contested. This lack of clarity is frequently criticised as a source of incoherent and selective decision-making, undermining the legitimacy of the Security Council. In case studies of the Security Council’s controversies on Iraq and Syria, this book instead reveals contestation and competing interpretations of responsibility as crucial conditions for the constitution and negotiation of normative order. The case studies also underline the importance of public Security Council meetings as dynamic sites for coping with a plurality of normative orders and how their symbolic and material manifestations shape processes of collective legitimation. This book concludes that these processes demonstrate the crucial role of justification and critique as practices of normative ordering in the Security Council. The Justification of Responsibility in the UN Security Council argues that normative orders in international organisations are constructed by multifaceted processes of questioning, reaffirming and coordinating claims of normativity and legitimacy. Connecting research on norms and legitimacy in international relations with pragmatist sociology, the book provides an account of the complexities and inconsistencies of decision-making processes and their normative foundations in international organisations. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of international organisations, international relations theory and global governance.