TAMIL NADU NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY, TIRUCHIRAPALLI

2nd YEAR 3rd SEMESTER B.A., LL.B. (HONS) DEGREE COURSE

ROLE OF UN IN MAINTENANCE OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND

SECURITY.

DATE OF SUBMISSION:

12-10-2018

SUBMITTED TO:

Dr. Subba Rao,

Assistant Professor,

Tamil Nadu National Law University,

SUBMITTED BY,

Aman Deep Sharan,

2nd year B.A., LL.B (HONS),

Tamil Nadu National Law University,

BA0170006.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At the outset, I take this oppurtunity to thank my professor Dr. Subba Rao from the
bottom of my heart who has been of immense help during the moments of anxiety and torpidity
while the project was taking its crucial shape.

Secondly, I convey my deepest regards to the Vice Chancellor Prof.Dr.Kamala

Sankaran and the administrative staff of Tamil Nadu National Law University who held the
project in high esteem by providing reliable information in the form of library infrastructure
and database connections in the times of need.

Thirdly, the contribution made by my parents and friends by foregoing their precious
time is unforgettable and highly solicited. Their valuable advice and timely suprevision paved
the way for the successful completion of the project.

Finally, I thank the Almighty who gave me the courage and stamina to confront all
the hurdles during the making of this project. Words aren’t sufficient to acknowledge the
tremendous contributions of various people involved in this project. I once again
wholeheartedly and earnestly thank all the people who were involved directly or indirectly
during this project making which helped me to come out with flying colours.

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 DECLARATION

I, Aman Deep Sharan do hereby declare that the project titled “Role Of UN In Maintenance
Of International Peace And Security” submitted to Tamil Nadu National Law University is
partial fulfilment of requirement of award of degree in undergraduate in law is a record of
original work done by me under the supervision and guidance of Professor Dr. Subba Rao,
department of Political Science, Tamil Nadu National Law University and has not formed basis
for award of any degree or diploma or fellowship or any other title to any other candidate of
any university.

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 INDEX

S.NO TOPIC PAGE NO.

1 INTRODUCTION 5

2 HISTORICAL ROOTS OF UNITED NATIONS 6-7

3 PEACE KEEPING MISSIONS 7

4 THE SECURITY COUNCIL 8

5 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 9

6 INSTRUMENTS FOR MAINTAINING 9-10

INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY

7 EVOLUTION IN ROLE OF UN IN 11-2

MAINTENANCE OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE
AND SECURITY

8 CONCLUSION 13

9 BIBLIOGRAPHY 14

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 INTRODUCTION
The United Nations which is a group of several international organizations that collectively
carry out its missions, aims in facilitating international peace and security. It was found in
1945 after the Second World War to stop wars between the countries and to provide a
platform for dialogue. It is a group of 193 member states which includes every internationally
recognized sovereign state in the world.

The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly which is the main deliberative
assembly; the Security Council for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security; the
Economic and Social Council for assisting in promoting international economic and social
cooperation and development; the Secretariat which provides studies, information, and
facilities needed by the UN; the International Court of Justice, the primary judicial organ; and
the United Nations Trusteeship Council which is currently inactive. Some other important
UN System agencies include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food
Programme (WFP) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).1

Since its formation, the UN has regularly been called upon to keep question from growing
into war, to influence opposing parties to utilize the conference table as opposed to the power
of arms, or to help re-establish peace when equipped war breaks out. Throughout the decades,
the UN has finished various clashes, frequently through activities of the Security Council —
the essential organ for managing issues of global peace and security. The Security Council,
the General Assembly and the Secretary-General all play significant, corresponding roles in
cultivating peace and security. United Nations activities involve the main territories of
conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, authorization and peace building.

1
Role of UN in Maintenance of International Peace & Security by Jikun Huang, Ruifa Hu, Scott Rozelle,
Fangbin Qiao, Carl E. Pray :: SSRN, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1948054 (last visited
Sep 30, 2018)

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 HISTORICAL ROOTS OF UNITED NATIONS

The United Nations was set up on 24 October 1945 by 51 nations, because of activities taken
by the legislatures of the states that had driven the war against Germany and Japan. By 2006,
192 nations were individuals from the United Nations, almost every state on the planet. When
joining, member states consented to acknowledge the commitments of the United Nations
Charter, a worldwide arrangement that set out fundamental standards of global relations. As
indicated by the Charter, the UN had four purposes:

 to keep up global peace and security;

 to grow neighborly relations among countries;
 to participate in tackling global issues and
 In advancing appreciation for human rights; and to be an inside for fitting the
activities of countries.

At the UN, all the member states- - vast and little, rich and poor, with contrasting political
perspectives and social frameworks - had a voice and a vote in this procedure. Strikingly,
while the United Nations was plainly made as a gathering of states, the Charter alluded to the
requirements also, interests of people groups and in addition those of states. From multiple
points of view, the United Nations was set up to remedy the issues of its predecessor, the
League of Nations. The League of Nations had been built up after the First World War, and
was expected to make future wars inconceivable, however a noteworthy issue was the
League's absence of effective power. There was no unmistakable division of duty between
the main executive committee (the League Council) and the League Assembly, which
incorporated all member states. Both the League Assembly and the Class Council could just
make proposals, not restricting goals, and these suggestions must be consistent. Any
administration was allowed to dismiss any proposal. Besides, in the League, there was no
system for planning military or financial activities against miscreant states, which
additionally added to the League's shortcoming. Key states, for example, the United States,
were not individuals from the League. By the Second World War, the League had as of now
neglected to address various demonstrations of animosity. The structure of United Nations

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was then discovered to avoid the problems which were faced during the time of League of
Nations.2

PEACE KEEPING MISSIONS

United Nations peacekeeping was at first created amid the Cold War as a method for settling
clashes between states by sending unarmed or lightly armed military forces from various
nations, under UN direction, to zones where warring countries needed an unbiased
organization to watch the peace procedure. Peacekeepers could be brought in when the real
worldwide forces (the five perpetual individuals from the Security Council) entrusted the UN
with conveying conclusion to clashes debilitating territorial strength and global peace and
security. As of October 2004, there have been 59 UN peacekeeping tasks since 1948, with
sixteen activities continuous. Recommendations for new missions emerge each year.

The first peacekeeping mission was launched in 1948. Since 1991, the end of the Cold War
precipitated a dramatic shift in UN and multilateral peacekeeping. In a new spirit of
cooperation, the Security Council established larger and more complex UN peacekeeping
missions, often to help implement comprehensive peace agreements between protagonists in
intra-State conflicts and civil wars. Furthermore, peacekeeping came to involve more and
more non-military elements that ensured the proper functioning of civic functions, such as
elections. The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations was created in 1992 to support
this increased demand for such missions.

2
John Baylis et al., The globalization of world politics: an introduction to international relations (Oxford
University Press) (2017)

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 THE SECURITY COUNCIL

The Security Council, being the main responsibility holder for securing international peace
and security, comprises of five permanent members (the USA, Britain, France, Russia and
China) and ten non-permanent members. The five permanent members of the Security
Council were seen as the major powers when the UN was founded, and they were granted a
veto on the view that if the great powers were not given an honored position, the UN would
not work. The decisions taken by the Security Council are binding and it must be passed by
the major nine members out of the total fifteen which includes each of five permanent
members of the council.3

When the Security Council senses a threat to international peace, it first tries ways to settle
the dispute peacefully under the terms of Chapter VI of the UN Charter that suggests
principles for a settlement or mediation. In the event of fighting, the Security Council tries to
secure a ceasefire. It may send a peacekeeping mission to help the parties maintain the truce
and to keep opposing forces apart. The Council can also take measures to enforce its
decisions under Chapter VII of the Charter. It can, for instance, impose economic sanctions
or order an arms embargo. On rare occasions, the Security Council has authorized member
states to use all necessary means, including collective military action, to see that its decisions
are carried out.4

3
Ibid. pg. no. 472.
4
Maintain International Peace and Security United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-
do/maintain-international-peace-and-security/ (last visited Sep 30, 2018)

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 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The general assembly represents all the member states of UN which is also recognized as
“parliament of nations”. All the member states are given one veto. For the important
decisions such as international peace and security, the admission of new members, and the
UN budget, two-third majority is required. On the other hand, simple majority is required for
other decisions. However, the decision of general assembly is not binding on members unlike
that of the Security Council except the decision regarding UN budget which is binding on the
members. Through regular meetings, the General Assembly provides a forum for Member
States to express their views to the entire membership and find consensus on difficult issues.
It makes recommendations in the form of General Assembly Resolutions.5

INSTRUMENTS TO MAINTAIN INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY

The United Nations has developed a series of instruments for controlling and resolving
conflicts between and within States. The most important of them are preventive diplomacy
and peacemaking; peace-keeping; peace-building; disarmament; sanctions; and peace
enforcement. The first three can be employed only with the consent of the parties to the
conflict. Sanctions and enforcement, on the other hand, are forcible measures and thus, do not
require the consent of the party concerned. Disarmament can take place on an agreed basis or
in the context of forcible action under Chapter VII.

 Preventive Diplomacy And Peacemaking

This instrument prevent conflicts through early warning, quiet diplomacy and, in some cases,
preventive deployment which is better than undertaking major politico-military efforts to
resolve them after they have already broken out.6

 Peace-Keeping

The last few years have confirmed that respect for certain basic principles of peace-keeping
are essential to its success. Three particularly important principles are the consent of the
parties, impartiality and the non-use of force except in self-defense. Analysis of recent

5
Ibid.
6
Supra note 1 pg.no.9

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successes and failures shows that in all the successes those principles were respected and in
most of the less successful operations one or other of them was not.

 Post-Conflict Peace-Building

Demilitarization, the control of small arms, institutional reform, improved police and judicial
systems, the monitoring of human rights, electoral reform and social and economic
development can be as valuable in preventing conflict as in healing the wounds after conflict
has occurred.7

 Disarmament

The General Assembly and other bodies of the United Nations, supported by the Office for
Disarmament Affairs, work to advance international peace and security through the pursuit of
the elimination of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and the regulation
of conventional arms.8

 Sanctions

Under Article 41 of the Charter, the Security Council may call upon Member States to apply
measures not involving the use of armed force in order to maintain or restore international
peace and security. Such measures are commonly referred to as sanctions. This legal basis is
recalled in order to underline that the purpose of sanctions is to modify the behaviour of a
party that is threatening international peace and security and not to punish or otherwise exact
retribution.9

7
Maintain International Peace and Security United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-
do/maintain-international-peace-and-security/ (last visited Sep 30, 2018)
8
Ibid.
9
Supra note 1.

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 EVOLUTION IN ROLE OF UNITED NATIONS IN MAINTENANCE OF
INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY

Since its inception in 1945, there has been a lot of changes in the international peace and
security as it has been shaped by the global political context over the years. The end result
was that the UN Security Council could not function in the way which the UN founders had
expected it to do.

The organization followed a series of improvisations since the members were not in
consensus with the provisions of Chapter VII of UN charter. Firstly, a procedure was
established under which the Security Council agreed to a mandate for an agent to act on its
behalf. Thereafter, there have been many instances of classical peacekeeping which involves
the establishment of a UN force under UN command to be placed between the parties to a
dispute after a ceasefire. Such a force only uses its weapons in self-defense and is established
with the consent of the host state, and does not include force from the major powers. Lastly,
there has been a new kind of peacekeeping, sometimes called multidimensional peacekeeping
or peace enforcement, which emerged after the end of the cold war. These missions are more
likely to use force to achieve humanitarian ends. The new peacekeeping have been used when
order has collapsed within states, and therefore address civil wars as well as international
conflict. A key problem has been that the peacekeepers have found it increasingly difficult to
maintain a neutral position and have been targeted by belligerents.

Later, the new peacekeeping seemed to intervene within states. This challenged the
customary belief that diplomats should ignore the internal affairs of states in order to preserve
international stability. An increasing number of people believed that the international
community, working through the UN, should address individual political and civil rights, as
well as the right to basic provisions like food, water, health care, and accommodation. Under
this view, violations of individuals' rights were a major cause of disturbances in relations
between states: a lack of internal justice risked international disorder. The UN reinforced this
new insight that hunting justice for individuals, or ensuring human security, was an aspect of
national interest. In some states, contributions to activities such as peacekeeping were
defended in terms of national interest. For example, states like Canada could justify their
contributions to peacekeeping as a 'moral' course of action, but it was also in their national
interest since Canada gained status in the international community through such
contributions. These actions reflected an increasing concern with questions of justice for

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individuals and conditions within states. Yet in the past, the United Nations had helped
promote the traditional view of the primacy of international order between states over justice
for individuals, so the new focus on individual rights was a significant change.

After the cold war, it was felt that threats to international peace and security did not only
emanate from aggression between states. Rather, global peace was also threatened by civil
conflict (including refugee flows and regional instability), humanitarian emergencies,
violations of global standards of human rights, and other conditions such as poverty and
inequality. In 1992, then Secretary-General outlined a new ambitious UN agenda for peace
and security in a report called An Agenda for Peace. Partly due to the terrorist attacks in the
USA in 2001 as well as the impasse reached in the UN Security Council over Iraq in 2003,
then Secretary-General Kofi Annan named a high-level panel to examine the major threats
and challenges to global peace. The 2004 final report emphasized the interconnected nature
of security threats, and presented development, security, and human rights as mutually
reinforcing. Many of the report's recommendations were not implemented, but some were,
notably the establishment of a new UN Peacebuilding Commission.

There have been some signs of drive in this direction, but principles of state sovereignty and
non-intervention remain important. There is no clear consensus on these points. There is still
some support for the view that Article 2(7) of the UN Charter should be interpreted strictly:
that there can be no intervention within a state without the express consent of the government
of that state. Others believe that intervention within a country to promote human rights is
only justifiable on the basis of a threat to international peace and security. Evidence of a
threat to international peace and security could be the appearance of significant numbers of
refugees, or the judgement that other states might intervene militarily. Some Liberals argue
that this condition is flexible enough to justify intervention to defend human rights whenever
possible.10

10
John Baylis et al., The globalization of world politics: an introduction to international relations (Oxford
University Press) (2017)

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 CONCLUSION

It can be observed that the UN has played a very important role in securing international
peace and security. Until today, the UN has conducted 66 peace keeping mission since its
inception. Presently, 16 operations are still in progress.

The evolution in the role of the UN reflect the changes in opinions of international society
and the nature of sovereign states. Over the past sixty years, the rules governing the
international system have also evolved by becoming increasingly abundant and specific,
covering a large range of the activities of relations between states. It includes not only the
protection of the rights of states, but also the rights of individuals now. Yet obtaining the
agreement of governments to principles of individual rights is only a first step in building a
more organized and just world. There is a lot more to be done in order to achieve the desired
results. It is also necessary to have constant and dependable instruments to trigger action
when standards are breached. There are many criticisms against the UN but still we can
observe that UN is working for the general welfare of the masses. If not just peacekeeping,
the efforts made by the various agencies like UNICEF, UNESCO, WHO, UNDP, ILO,
UNHRC should be looked upon as they help in ensuring general welfare.

The dimensions of the UN in its economic and social work, its development work, and its
management of peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction has expanded since the 1990s.
Nevertheless, the predominance of United States military power, the possibility that the USA
will act again without clear UN authorization, the heightened concern over terrorism and
weapons of mass destruction, the inability to respond effectively to the crisis in Darfur, and
the inescapabilty of inequality and injustice across the world, indicates that further changes
and adaptations within the UN system will be necessary to reach the desired goals.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Ian Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law, 7th ed., Oxford University Press,
2008.
• J.G.Starke, Introduction to International Law, 10th ed., Aditya Books Private Limited.,
Delhi, 1994.
• Malcolm N. Shaw, International Law, 6th ed., Cambridge University Press, Allahabad,
2008.
• S K Kapoor, International Law and Human Rights, 17th ed., Central Law Agency,
Allahabad, 2009.
• http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/factsheet.shtml

• http://www.un.org/aboutun/untoday/peacesec.htm,
• http://www.unac.org/peacecp/factsheet/role.html,.
• http:// www.unicef.org.html, last accessed on 18th October’2011.
• http:// www.unfpa.org.html, last accessed on 18th October’2011.
• http:// www.wfp.org.html,
• http:// www.fao.org.html

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