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Political Aspects of UN Peace-Keeping Operations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2009

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Extract

The Charter of the United Nations deals with the maintenance of international peace and security in Chapters VI (‘peaceful settlement of disputes’) and VII (‘actions with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression’). These provisions are based on the principle of collective security: in the case of aggression the international community will come to the aid of the attacked and terminate the aggression. With the exception perhaps of the Korean war, this system has never worked: the stand-by agreements between the United Nations and Member States, which are mentioned in Article 43 of the Charter, never came into being.

Type
Asser Institute Lectures on International Law: Political and Legal Aspects of UN Peace-Keeping Operations
Copyright
Copyright © T.M.C. Asser Press 1988

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References

1. Baehr, P.R. and Gordenker, L., The United Nations: Reality and Ideal (1984) p. 79Google Scholar.

2. Siekmann, R.C.R., Juridische Aspecten van de Deelname met Nationale Contingenten aan VN-Vredesmachten (Nederland en UNIFIL) [Legal Aspects of Participation with National Contingents in UN Peace-Keeping Forces (The Netherlands and UNIFIL)] (1988) p. 7Google Scholar.

3. United Nations Emergency Force (Suez and Sinai), United Nations Peace-Keeping Force in Cyprus, United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (Golan heights), Opération des Nations Unies au Congo, United Nations Security Force (West Irian) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.

4. 24 UN Chronicle, no. 4 (11 1987) p. 53Google Scholar.

5. Leurdijk, D.A. and Siekmann, R.C.R., ‘Een Maritieme Vredesmacht Verdient in de Golf de Voorkeur’ [‘A Naval Peace-Keeping Force is Preferable in the Gulf’], NRC Handelsblad (10 08 1987)Google Scholar.

6. Siekmann, , op.cit. n. 2, p. 232Google Scholar.

7. Answers by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Defence: Proceedings, Second Chamber of Parliament, Appendix 15441 no. 3, 25 January 1979, paragraph 19.

8. Dutch Constitution, Art. 90.

9. Proceedings, Second Chamber of Parliament, 1986–1987, 19 971, nos. 1–2, p. 4.

10. Proceedings, Second Chamber, 1 February 1979, p. 2959.

11. ‘The EC countries might make a common stand-by offer to the UN to participate in peacekeeping operations, to give concrete expression of their aim of achieving a common European foreign policy, as expressed in Article 30, paragraph 1 of the Single European Act’. (Thesis VIII accompanying Siekmann's doctorate dissertation, op.cit. n. 2).