UN Secretary Council Essay Example for Free

UN Secretary Council Essay If the UN Security Council decides a situation constitutes a threat to international peace and security, are there any limits on what it can do to address that threat? In your response, please refer to relevant provisions of the UN Charter. United Security Council constitutes of a group of representatives from United States organization member countries whose primarily responsibility as stated in the United Nations Charter as peace and security maintenance internationally. The intentions of United Nations founders were mainly to play a role in peace and security maintenance internationally through application of force where necessary. The charter of United Nations forbids the United security council from carrying out peace restoration operations using military efforts because the superpowers votoed most of such United Nations activities. This should mainly be applicable to the events of cold war crisis. For instance, on two occasions during the time of those regulations, in Lebanon and Congo, the United Security council gave out resolutions that demanded the missions to apply same measures of force so as to achieve their goal. Since the termination of that cold war, the United Nation Security Council gave authority to several United Nations operations which involved application of force to help in restoration and maintenance of peace. For instance, the United Security council authorized the application of force to restore peace in the former Yugoslavia and Somali which is quoted in the United Nation’s charter (Bailey 1998). It also authorizes actions with respect to peace threats, breach of peace and aggressive actions. Now given that the United Nations security council’s performance as the leader in operations of peace which involve application of force, most of the experts like the former United Nations Secretary General have in mind that it can be an appropriate organization in leading such a mission, although its operational structures and inadequacy of resources have been the major factor which limits the United Nations to perform effectively. Ban Ki Moon has just been elected Secretary-General of the United Nations. Some commentators have stated that he should be more of a ‘secretary’ than ‘general’; others say he should be more of a ‘general’ than ‘secretary’. What is the UN Charter basis for him to play either role? How much freedom does he have to define the role himself? The role of Secretary General of United Nations acts as the chief administrative officer in the organization. Ban Ki Moon who is currently the Secretary of United Nations should be governed by the principles stipulated in the UN Charter. Since the secretary is appointed by the General Assembly through the Security Councils recommendations, he is entitled to head the entire organization. As it has been commented by some individuals that he should play a role of a secretary other than General while others say he should play a role a General than Secretary, according to the UN Charter, neither can apply. This is because United Charter clearly states the duties of Secretary General which cannot be handled by either being in a Secretary or General. Some of his responsibilities in his duty performance as the overall head include, he should not seek or be instructed by any government or be authorized by an external organization. He should also refrain from actions reflecting his position as international official responsible to the organization. According to the above duties, he is entitled to play both roles of secretary and General. This is because, like in the work of report writing and presentation to the General Assembly, it shows a secretary related role. The case of heading all general meetings implies General related duties. Due to this reason, he should identify himself as a Secretary General. (http://www. burmalibrary. org/reg. burma/archives/199905/msg00161. html). What position does the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change take on the â€Å"doctrine of preemption† as articulated in the US National Security Strategy of 2002? Is the HLP’s position sound? The high level panel entreats, challenges and change is a body of United Nations which addresses and analyses the threats to the international security and peace and also knowing their root causes. It also recommends range from social and economic challenges to utilization of force. The article also discusses the tasks and roles that the High level panel envisages for Security Council in light of challenges and threats which are clearly identified. Nevertheless, the panel does not insist or recommend on fundamental changes of the international paradigms legal which include the collective use of force in peace restoration. The panel’s focus on security reforms composition instead of the system that it operates in does not handle the problems with the latter and also impossibility of the former achievement. The panel as articulated in the US National Security Strategy of 2002 plays the same role as in the case of United Nations Charter where by although both stresses on security maintenance worldwide, in US, it is more specific. The US report states how the state can apply protection control measures before seeking assistance from the UN Security Council. It shows also how the state is advanced through carrying out investigations and detentions of terrorism weapons and destroys them before use in attacks. These places the strategies in front line as much has been achieved. The high level panel’s position is sound because most of the evil activities have been adversely been reduced except the normal regional crisis which can be handled locally. Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal summarize why states act through international organizations as follows (â€Å"Why states act through formal organizations†, p. 8): States consciously use IOs both to reduce transaction costs in the narrow sense and, more broadly, to create information, ideas, norms and expectations; to carry out and encourage specific activities; to legitimate or de-legitimate particular ideas and practices; and to enhance their capacities and powers. These functions constitute IOs as agents, which, in turn, influence the interests, inter subjective understandings, and environment of states. To what extent does that statement reflect a realist, institutionalist and/or social constructivist perspective on the role of international organizations? According to Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Suldal statement on why states act through international organizations, their main focus was to outline the benefits associated with formal organizations. The rational institutionalism is perceives international organizations as helping the state in achievement of its ends. Through distributive and power questions, the role of international organizations is perceived as in creation of norms and also understanding. Independence and centralization are outlined as the main properties in formal organizations. International organizations as a representative in community allows creation and implementation values which enforce the international commitments. In reduction of cost, international organizations has laid down principles which structure the agency relationships so as to contain institutional checks and balances which reduce opportunistic behaviors by agents. In a single organization, checks can be facilitated through empowerment of bureaus which have partially at least opposing mandates, for instance changing the production managers through maximization of outputs and changing controllers through maximizing cost of production in the firms. In creation of information, ideas, norms and expectations, the states are carefully designed as series to safeguard in the international courts of crimes. This is in relation to response of fear of runaway international courts. With rational perspective, international organizations enables achievement of states ends through creation of norms and other understandings. In carrying out encourage specific activities, international organizations have embarked on delegation principles where by a conditional authority is granted to an agent which empowers the agent to act on behalf of the former. For this case, the agents and principals mutually constitute to each other. Here, the relationship between agents and principles is governed by contracts be it the agreement is not formally acknowledged. All forms of delegations are conducted through divisions of labor which gains from specialization whereby the gains interact with all the other benefits from delegation. The essence of delegation is mainly to focus on how principles should be designed to control their agents. Some benefits attributed with delegation include; specialization which is achieved through division of labor, policy externalities which benefits through cooperation and can delegate to an international organization in case of big policy externalities. There is also an advantage of decision making collectively whereby states can also delegate to the international organizations especially when they pose a socially intransitive preference or in case of problem encounter. Another one includes dispute resolution whereby a state can delegate the authority to international agent to help in resolving differences between themselves. The statement why states act through international organizations reflects reality because in most of institutions, such benefits have been achieved and yielded positive results. This is because although the role of international organizations differs fro state to another depending on the interests of a certain state, many states have achieved their goals for instance, in economic activities, rights of residence among others. Recent years have seen a growing trend towards the use of so-called ‘hybrid’ peace operations, in which more than one organization or mission is deployed, either sequentially or side-by-side. Discuss the reasons for this trend and the pros and cons of hybrid operations. Please illustrate your response with examples. Hybrid piece operations essentially entail application of joint force in peace keeping whereby unprecedented operations which include troop’s locations challenges are used. The commanding structure in hybrid operations has been unified and agreed between United Nations and the African union so as to function effectively aiming at the single mission even if it is reporting to different organizations. Most of limitations have been associated with hybrid peace operations for instance, around 11 years ago, Francois Mitterrand who is a French president vigorously requested the Africans to apply their own means in conflict resolution and at the same time have their own organized security. Also other skeptics like Walter Dow equally place argumentations which were against practices regionalized peace operations which includes employment of sub-regional or regional organizations to conduct peace operations which reach from low intensity to high intensity peace keeping, continued presence of conflicts resulting to human tragedies, all over the world combined with UNs uncap abilities to address the issue has shown negative attitude towards the regional peace operation. This also led to respectfully disagreement with arguments Don among others regions cap tics. According to the recent intervention by sub regional and organizations in Burundi, Sudan, Liberia and Cot d’Ivore, the change of defunct OAU in to a better promising African Union (AU) and other international programs intended to develop capabilities regionally. This shows that, in Africa, the delegation of peace operation aspects to such organizations can’t be considered as effective or undesirable. Instead, the increasing capacity and willingness of regional organizations in Africa should step to modified security challenges in the continent which are coupled with United Nation’s current overstretch and notable absence of many problems which are foreseen by regiosceptics for future regional peace operations within Africa. Also, according to many regiosceptics, no existing regional organization has the required capacity and experience to place meaningful conflict resolution and prevention through use of military without assistance from outside. They apply that the continent’s sub-regional and regional organizations suffer from resource and capacity constrants in interoperability, training sustained readiness among others. This brings doubt in the potentiality of improvements in the short term. In Germany institute of international security policies, another study shows massive weaknesses in control and commanding intelligence in gathering and analyzing and also doctrinal preparation. As many regiosceptics have had that weakness into account, they concluded that, the African militaries are left with no choice other than returning to outdated models of welfare where by the combatants utilize weapons from the Korean war which were the tactics of the first world war and the form of treatments used in the 19th century. The hybrid peace operation having more disadvantages than the advantages, I prefer the cons of hybrid operations as it has not fully achieved its goals http://www. stimson. org/fopo/? SN=FP20021018422 . References: Bailey S, (1998). The Procedure of the UN Security Council. Oxford.