Examining the Role of the UN Security Council in Post-Cold War Interventions:
Examining the Role of the UN Security Council in Post-Cold War Interventions:

Summary/Abstract: This article studies the branch of humanitarian interventions conducted under UN Security Council mandate. It argues that although UN-authorized humanitarian interventions remained under-exploited to address humanitarian crises throughout the Cold War years, the post-Cold War transformations in the international system created a conducive environment for the Security Council (SC) to engage in an expanding interpretation of its Chapter VII powers to accommodate humanitarian intervention within the UN system of collective security. The article undertakes detailed examination of the arguments raised against the SC’s expanding interpretation of the notion of threat to the peace and international security, which paved the way for its growing activism in humanitarian intervention. In particular, it engages three arguments: whether, the SC goes beyond its powers; whether SC actions under Chapter VII can be properly called as humanitarian intervention; and when there is a threat to the peace. By responding to these criticisms the article makes a case that the post-Cold War interventions authorized by the SC can be classified as instances of humanitarian intervention. Nonetheless, the article also underlines that the SC refrained from establishing a binding legal norm of humanitarian intervention, due largely to political obstacles before its whole-sale incorporation into the existing international order based on the Westphalian principles of sovereignty and non-intervention and non-use of force.

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