With a focus on the African Union, this chapter examines the Security Council’s practices when interacting with regional organisations in collaborative peace operations. The Security Council plays a critical role in two ways: (i) it identifies security threats and the required responses, and it authorises UN missions to deal with them; and (ii) it determines the role, if any, to be played by regional organisations and authorises the action they can take to address threats to peace in their regions. Africa is both the site of conflicts that have necessitated UN peace operations or the Council’s authorisation of enforcement actions, as in Libya in 2011, and home to that regional organisation which has engaged the most with the United Nations in maintaining international peace and security. The overarching argument of this chapter is that – notwithstanding changes in the post-Cold-War international political landscape and the rise of other voices from the periphery – the status of the Security Council as custodian of the collective security system remains undiminished. Its centrality and primacy have not been challenged or usurped by the African Union or other regional organisations.

UN Charter Art. 2:4 aims to protect states from forcible encroachments by other states, but it does not stand in the way of the Security Council taking or authorizing states to take enforcement actions under Art. 42 and did so in the case of Korea 1950 and Iraq in 1991.It may take or authorize enforcement actions – even inside states – under Art.2:7 and 42. It may also under Art. 53 authorize the use of force by regional organizations – and has done so. The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine envisages the use of force to remedy extreme internal situations, such as genocide or massacres, but only within the rules cited requiring approval by the Security Council. The veto is often criticized as hindering action by the Council. It may, indeed, be excessively used but may sometimes be only a signal from one of the permanent members that it may be ready to use its power to resist an action proposed. Post WWII, force has been used by states – but only rarely – to acquire territory while ignoring the Security Council, notably by North Korea in 1950, Iraq against Iran in 1980 and against Kuwait in 1990, Russia against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022.

How can force be used to pursue human security? Treatments of this issue are surprisingly rare.  This chapter addresses the potentially positive uses of force to address basic human needs under the new doctrine of human security in international law.   International laws, cases, and regimes addressing the constituent elements of human security are addressed in turn: personal and political security, economic, food, health, community and environmental security. The evolving structure and function of UN Peacekeeping Operations is demonstrated through cases of specific missions. Finally, the possibilities of 2001’s "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine are debated.

This chapter surveys the rapid growth of globe-spanning organizations and institutions over the past 120 years – from the League of Nations to the UN to today’s International Criminal Court and European Union. Spurred by the world wars, economic crises, and environmental disasters of the twentieth century, humanity has already come much farther than most people realize in building innovative instruments of global concertation and crisis management. Therefore, the pathways of constructive change that lie ahead of us can best be understood as continuations and extensions of the remarkable gains already achieved. Four institutions – OECD, UN, NATO, and EU – exemplify distinct levels of rising integration across national boundaries. Institutions such as International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) have offered powerful new pathways for citizens’ concerted action beyond borders. The recently-adopted UN doctrine of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) reflects a newfound legitimacy of cross-border ethical obligations and proactive interventions to halt large-scale humanitarian disasters.

In 2011, the Arab Spring led to numerous uprisings against authoritarian leaders across the Middle East. While the reactions of governments varied, Libya sparked the most interest given its notoriety as a pariah state and Colonel Qaddafi’s provocations against the regime’s domestic enemies. This chapter examines how the anti-Qaddafi coalition formed under the guise of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and how the imposition of a no-fly zone to protect civilians slowly transitioned into a mission to destroy pro-Qaddafi forces while defending rebel positions. Momentum shifted as anti-regime forces developed innovative ways of communicating with NATO air forces, which provided more precise targeting. However, the downfall of Qaddafi – aided by air power – was a short-lived victory as the country fragmented along numerous political and tribal lines, with a full-blown civil war reigniting in 2014. To this day, numerous countries are backing different rebels that claim to represent the Libyan government.

Finally, the book’s epilogue turns its attention to the further developments undergone by the concept of humanitarian intervention in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. What is striking is the degree to which the examples of the nineteenth century remained in people’s minds and took on the function of a discursive frame of reference in subsequent debates in international law. Their function was that of a surface onto which further developments of the idea towards current concepts and debates were projected and in which they could be reflected. All the while, however, there was a tendency to ignore their colonial and imperial aspects.

Proposals for the creation of an international security force were actively discussed at the time of the establishment of the League of Nations and were returned to in the period leading to the creation of the UN. The UN Charter contains explicit undertakings in the area of peaceful settlement of international disputes, and various instruments emerged over time as the UN sought to give operational meaning to the peace and security principles in the Charter. We analyze the experience with peacekeeping operations and the lessons that can be drawn from their mixed success. We then analyze the extent to which there has been dramatic erosion in the effectiveness of the uses of warfare to achieve particular national strategic objectives and argue that the current system of global security is absurdly costly in relation to the meager security benefits it confers. We present a proposal for the creation of an International Peace Force, to be established in parallel to a process of comprehensive international arms control. A number of operational issues that emerge when considering the establishment of such a Force, many of them based on an assessment of several decades of experience with peacekeeping, are discussed.