| bibo:abstract |
Research Professor, Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
- Introduction
For the third time in this century the notion of collective security has become the subject of interests among scholars and policy-makers. An important impetus for this interest has been the transformation of super-power relations and a resulting widespread sense that conditions for international cooperation in peace and security matters have become more favorable now than anytime in the past. Most dramatically, the success of the United Nations in the Gulf conflict has brought about the unprecedented confidence that its collective security could indeed be effectively implemented. Thus, much has been made of, and high expectation placed upon, the idea of an enhanced role for the United Nations and, in particular its system of collective security as a central instrument of the new world order created in the aftermath of the cold war. Sweeping proposals have been advanced by Secretary-General of the United Nations to translate such expectation into a reality.
With all the promise that the end of the Cold War held for the United Nations and the hope that the UN now stood for a better world, however, the world after the Gulf war is still racked by conflicts, and the UN seems hardly more effective and competent in deterring and dealing with threats to peace and security than in the past. Much criticism has been made against the inability of the UN to put things right in Somalia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The euphoria generated by the prompt and decisive performance of the UN has quickly been replaced by familiar skepticism. This sudden turn of events, inter alia, led to seriously questioning the validity of the widely held yet rather simple assumption that the past failure of the UN to function as it was envisaged by its founders was due to the Cold War confrontation, and that its termination, therefore, would resurrect and reinvigorate the United Nations long frustrated by bipolar politics. Although it is undisputed that the Cold War had a damaging influence on the functioning of the United Nations, it is no less true that the successful operation of its enforcement capabilities are conditioned by much more complex factors. As a matter of fact, however simple the collective security approach may seem upon cursory look, the truth is that it assumes the satisfaction of an extraordinary complex network of requirements. In addition to the issue of feasibility, the more fundamental question of the desirability of collective security in the post-Cold War world also remains to be answered.
Thus it is the purpose of this paper to analyze and evaluate such elements as may be required for the effective functioning of a collective security system envisaged in the United Nations Charter, and to reflect on the feasibility and desirability of a full-fledged collective security or enforcement mechanism in the post-Cold War world. The paper will first discuss a collective security system of the UN as was envisaged in the UN Charter and subsequently practiced. In this respect, it will also briefly discuss the current trend related to the UN's enforcement action (so-called peace-enforcement) and the implications it has for the UN ability to develop into an effective system of collective security. Then the paper will analyze the feasibility and desirability of the implementation of collective security in the changed world as a result of the end of the Cold War. Based on this analysis, finally, it will explore what should be the desirable approach and ways to make the role of the United Nations in maintaining international peace and security more effective and relevant in today's world.
Theory and Practice of the United Nations Collective Security
- Concept of Collective Security
Collective security was the name given by the planners of a new world order after World War I to the system for maintenance of international peace that they intended as a replacement for the system commonly known as the balance of power. While this name was not employed in the United Nations Charter as it was perceived to carry too many gloomy overtones of the failures of the 1930s, there was a clear invocation of collective security as a principal goal of the organization in the call "to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security." In fact, collective security guarantees were at the heart of the UN's role in the maintenance and restoration of peace.
Collective security is "a system designed to prevent or suppress aggression by any state against any other state, by presenting to potential aggressors the credible threat and to potential victims of aggression the reliable promise of effective collective measures, ranging from diplomatic boycott through economic pressure to military sanctions, to enforce peace." As such it was conceived as "a systematic arrangement that should serve to confront would-be aggressors, whoever they might be and wherever they might venture to strike, with an overwhelming collection of restraining power assembled by mass of states in accordance with clear and firm obligations accepted and proclaimed in advance." Thus the concept of collective security is replete with the requirement of certainty, anonymity, and impartiality combined with the well established normative principles.
- Concept of the UN Enforcement Action
Such concept of collective security was translated into the UN Charter as follows. The Charter first lists at the very beginning among the purposes of the United Nations "to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace." Then the legal and institutional framework for such collective measures is provided mainly in Chapter VII. To grasp its meaning and effect fully, Chapter 7 must be read together, or in conjunction with Article 2 (4). In fact, the system of collective security envisaged in Chapter 7 was conceived as an instrument to uphold the normative order envisioned in Article 2 (4).
Article 2 (4) prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a state, and thus enshrines the norms of behaviour around which a collective security regime can coalesce. This strict limitation on the use of force in the Charter presupposes, or is dependent upon, the provision of collective action by the United Nations itself. On the one hand, such united action of the UN would compel states to accept that aggression simply could not pay. In other words, collective security assumes that aggression can be prevented by the deterrent effect of overwhelming power upon states. On the other hand, states should accept such an unprecedented restraint on their use of force, since the peace would be kept, and their legitimate interests protected, by the United Nations itself. Collective security thus requires that states be ultimately willing to entrust their destinies to it.
For collective security to be credible, Chapter 7 of the Charter brings all enforcement activities under the aegis of the Security Council, and calls for the member states to supply military contingents to function as coercive instruments of the United Nations. Under Article 39 of the Chapter, primary responsibility was placed on the Security Council to determine the existence of a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. The Security Council then make recommendations for, or decide upon, economic or military sanctions under Articles 41 and 42 respectively. In particular, Article 42 allows "action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security." For this purpose all members would enter into agreements with the Security Council to make armed forces and facilities available (Article 43). Article 47 established a Military Staff Committee consisting of the Chiefs of Staff of the Permanent Members, to advise and assist the Security Council on questions relating to military requirements for the maintenance of international peace. Thus the Charter embodied the idea of international "police" force to deter and suppress aggressors that had long been advocated by idealists.
However, it should be mentioned that while the concept of collective security was at the core of the enforcement action envisaged in Chapter VII, Chapter VII comprises actions wider than those invoked by the conventional notion of collective security. Under the Chapter, not only act of aggression but also the ambiguous notion of "breach of the peace or a threat to the peace," which is nothing but a description of certain situations, are referred to as circumstances in which the Security Council is allowed to evoke actions. There is no settled definition of what constitutes a breach of the peace or a threat to the peace. Its meaning is completely left with the discretion of the Security Council. In other words, peace is breached or threatened when the Security Council determines so. Thus the situations where the Security Council can take actions are not necessarily confined to, and can be more varied than, those where acts of aggression take place. In this sense, enforcement action envisaged in Chapter VII is a much wider concept than collective security stricto sensu. More importantly, the absence of a clear definition of what triggers such action costs the UN enforcement action the required certainty, which is essential in effective collective security.
- UN Practice Related to Enforcement Action
The experience over the past 45 years has amply revealed the gap between the plan of Chapter VII and realities. Plainly many acts of aggression and breaches of peace have occurred since 1945 without any recourse to the enforcement measures of Chapter VII. For one thing, the Charter itself fell substantially short of providing an ideal institutional system for the realization of enforcement mechanism. It postponed to the future the agreed allocation by member states of military contingents to function as enforcement instrument. More importantly, the veto power of the five permanent members meant that a system of collective security would not be applicable to those states which in fact possessed the greatest capacity to threaten international peace and security.
Given such institutional shortcomings, the United Nations has in practice not been able to follow the pattern laid down in the Charter. Instead it has improvised or adapted policies related to international peace and security rather than attempting to patch up the legal and structural system to make it conform more closely to the requirements of a full-fledged enforcement system.
One relevant example in this regard is related to the forces required for collective action. It is well known that the agreements envisaged in Article 43 was never able to be concluded because of disagreements between the West and the former Soviet Union. The failure to conclude Article 43 agreements sparked an intense controversy concerning the relationship between Articles 42 and 43, that is whether agreements under Article 43 were a condition precedent to collective military measures undertaken by the Security. While the Soviet Union and its allies were of such view, the rest of the UN took the different view that no explicit language in Article 42 or 43 precluded member states from voluntarily making armed forces available to carry out the Security Council resolutions. Now the use of military sanctions as envisaged under the Charter is interpreted more flexibly. As a result, such sanctions could take place in one of the following two ways: either agreements under Article 43 could be concluded, allowing the UN to make compulsory calls upon states for the use of their forces in the maintenance or restoration of peace; or enforcement action could take place within Article 42, without any prearranged forces, under a unified UN command or mere authorization from the UN, with UN members volunteering forces. So far, only the latter way was ever employed while the former still remains a theoretical possibility. The notable example is the Korean action where sixteen states provided armed forces and military facilities in response to the recommendation of the Security Council. It was also the premise of the Security Council's resolutions in the Gulf crisis which authorized member states to use all "necessary means" to implement the earlier decision of the Council.
The other example of the improvisation and adaptation which deserves mentioning is a concept called peace-enforcement. In "An Agenda for Peace", Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali proposed the establishment of the peace enforcement units consisting of volunteer troops more heavily armed than ordinary peace-keeping forces. Such units would be sent to restore and maintain the cease-fires previously agreed, and their tasks can on occasion exceed the mission of peace-keeping forces. However, it was particularly noted that the peace-enforcement units should not be confused with the forces that might eventually be constituted under Article 43 to deal with acts of aggression. In fact, the current tendency in the Security Council is to give peace-keeping operations more muscle, thus creating a new area called peace-enforcement, located between peace-keeping and full-scale collective security. Such actions are presently authorized to enforce either ceasefire or secure conditions for humanitarian operations. Peace enforcement is a type of enforcement action, and as such is fundamentally different from peace-keeping in that it is deployed without the consent of the parties concerned and with powers to use force to compel them to accept the decisions of the Security Council.
The post-Cold War trend of the enforcement action is that the United Nations is obviously reluctant to reactivate fully what was envisaged in Chapter VII. Rather, the United Nations appears to take a more pragmatic, flexible and incremental approach to this matter. The introduction of the notion of peace enforcement unit, or the evolution of the concept of peace-keeping, is a good example to this trend.
- Feasibility and Desirability of Collective Security in the Post-Cold War World
It has been mentioned that although the Cold War bore a substantial responsibility for the failure of the United Nations to function as it was intended, it was not the sole reason for that. Indeed, it would hardly explain the difficulties the United Nations is currently experiencing in maintaining and restoring peace and security. In fact, the concept of collective security, and thus the enforcement action of the UN, is predicated on the extremely complex network of requirements and conditions. The followings are the issues related to the operation of collective security particularly in the post-Cold War era, and thus deserve a searching analysis.
- Nature of Conflicts
The first issue is concerned with the nature of conflict. For the drafters of the Charter, the kind of conflict to be proscribed, deterred and, if necessary, collectively opposed was naturally a reflection of the past experiences such as unambiguous act of aggression by a powerful state against a defenseless neighbor as was seen in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, or Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia in 1935. While this pattern might fit the pre-World War II experiences, the post-war period has been different. In fact, the great majority of conflicts which have broken out since 1945 have derived from a phenomenon unforeseen in 1945, namely the decolonization, and these types of conflicts were not susceptible to the enforcement measures set out in Chapter VII. With a growing newly decolonized majority in the UN membership it has never been easy, veto or no veto, Cold War or no Cold War, to determine even who is the aggressor, who the victim. Moreover, most of the conflicts have been civil wars of one kind or another, and the United Nations is precluded under Article 2 (7) of the Charter from intervening in domestic affairs.
Given that the crisis of future are likely to arise from more ambiguous situation in which it will usually be impossible to agree on defining, let alone denouncing the aggressor, it would not be warranted that the enforcement provisions in the Charter, which apparently assumes the moral clarity of a situation and the assignability of guilt for a threat to or breach of the peace, will necessarily prove much more effective in the future. In this regard, Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait was a rare exception in that its action involved total extinction of a state whose existence had been universally recognized. No widely recognized state has ever been annexed in such a brutal way in the post-war period, and it is the brutality of aggression and the failure of Iraq to offer any plausible justification that explains the scale and solidarity of international community. Therefore, there is little, if any, in the experience of the war against Iraq to suggest that full-blown collective security is likely to play a central part of new international order. The conditions that allowed the success of enforcement action are extremely unlikely to be repeated in future cases.
- Collective Interests vs. National Interests
Second, one of the most perennial dilemmas relating to collective security is that it is easily corrupted by balance of power politics and domestic political considerations. The ideal of collective security assumes that states be prepared to stick to norms and principles, even when that conflicts with their perceived national interests. For instance, Chapter 7 of the Charter presupposes that member states of the UN are prepared to see an aggression anywhere as a threat to the peace and to view an attack on one as an attack on all, as is expressed in the catchphrase "all for one, and one for all". Moreover, it assumes that states are prepared to act decisively on this recognition even if such action is costly and goes against their more immediate and short-term interests. Thus it was said that collective security obliges states to put their troops where their rhetoric is. In other words, collective security calls for nothing other than the sacrifice of sovereignty in the most crucial area of policy, and requires a particular type of loyalty to the world community.
Much criticisms have been made against the soundness of such assumptions. According to them, the logic of collective security rests on a naive and unrealistic understanding of the nature of international order. For effective enforcement action, therefore, there must be, among other things, coincidence between law, power and interests. This may occur in particular circumstances, but is unlikely to be more than accidental. An extreme view in this respect is that in most cases the fine language of norms and principles is merely a rationalization and a cloak for the particular interests of a particular group of states which has a vested interests in upholding the status quo. Thus it was argued that in the Gulf crisis the United Nations was used simply as camouflage for policies based on the national interests of the United States. Furthermore, it has been said that the normative and moral universe underpinning idealist versions of collective security hardly bears out in reality.
While the extreme instrumental view of law and principle does not entirely reflects the reality of contemporary world where there do exist common rules and values, in particular a general recognition that aggression and annexation is simply no longer acceptable, the above realist critic carries a substantial truth that normative concern and interests of principle alone fall far short of what is required for the effective operation of collective security. In fact, the realist view all too accurately explains much of the hypocrisy and double standards that have characterized international responses to aggression since 1945. The choice of occasions on which aggression has been condemned has indeed nicely fitted the realist view of the interplay between norm and power. It can be pointed out that the balance between normative interests and pure power political interests does evolve over time, but that the normative approach to international affairs upon which the idea of collective security is predicated is unlikely to be ever fully realized.
- Constitutional Defects
Third, despite the end of the Cold War, the constitutional and institutional defects of the Charter remains. In particular, the rule of great power unanimity of the Security Council, which reflected a deliberate decision not to attempt to institute a system of collective security applicable to them, continues to subject the Security Council to the unilateral blocking of any permanent member. This arrangement again continues to undermine the most fundamental doctrine of collective security, namely certainty. Unless states should be entitled to rely upon the certain support of international community, and unless aggressors should be subject to certain opposition of the community, the credibility of collective security would be at danger.
- Desirability of Collective Security
The final issue is concerned with the desirability of collective security. It has been pointed out that a functioning collective security system could actually create, rather than solve, problems. It could lead to an unhealthy concentration of power in the policing instrument such as the UN Security Council and the establishment of unwelcome norms of political behaviour. In fact, the idea of an international police force mandated by the Security Council to deter and suppress aggressor received not only skepticism but a fear at the San Francisco Conference that the "great powers" could not be trusted to act justly or wisely, even if unanimously. Article 39 of the Charter permits the Security Council to act when it determines that threats to the peace, breaches of the peace or act of aggression exist. This extensive competence thus allows the Security Council to act whenever it deems this necessary to preserve peace. It was argued that the delegation of such broad competence to the Security Council, if combined with the effective mechanism to implement it, could make the Security Council "trigger happy."
In fact, the prospect of the interventionist Security Council has become a source of recent unease among many states. To them, the new enthusiasm of some of the permanent members for the UN intervention in humanitarian and human rights situations regardless of national sovereignty and of Article 2 (7) of the Charter is regarded as a new cloak for great power interventionism, and is likely to be resisted as such.
Collective security is pervaded with the concept of automatism that aggression will be responded with absolute certainty. While there is undoubted value in making absolutely clear in advance what the response to aggression will, to adopt a rigid formulation of future policy in international relations is to ignore the infinite variety of circumstances, the flux of contingency and mutability of situations, which characterize the international society. In addition, the availability of the instrument of collective security might erroneously appear to provide military solutions to possibly intractable political problems. It was suggested, therefore, that while the usual criticism of collective security is that it will not work; another criticism is that it may work with unintended and unwanted consequences.
- Conclusion
The above analysis suggests that despite the end of the Cold War the present world is still far from the satisfaction of the essential requirements for permitting the operation of a full-fledged system of collective security. It is difficult, therefore, to expect any sudden substantial qualitative improvement in the enforcement capabilities of the United Nations in the post-Cold War world. Moreover, a collective security system, even if feasible, may prove to be less ideal than it has been often been considered.
However, this is not to say that collective security should be dismissed completely. On the contrary, if the United Nations is to evolve into a serious presence in the field of international security, it must, as was recognized in the Charter, have an credible enforcement capability. In that context, the greater readiness of the international community to contemplate enforcement action by the United Nations is to be welcomed, and should be regarded to represent a decisive moment in the development of the organization. It should be pointed out, however, that a full-fledged collective security system cannot be achieved at one fell swoop. Neither should it be considered as a panacea for the world-wide conflicts. The clear understanding, and accurate evaluation, of the conceptual basis and practical limitation of collective security is indispensable to overcome the difficulties surrounding the UN's enforcement action.
The world has witnessed a dramatic improvement in the ability of the Security Council's members―both permanent and non-permanent―to work together to help control and resolve regional conflicts. Rather than leading to the doctrinal activation of the Charter provisions for the use of force by the Security Council, the new political climate has permitted greater and more effective and flexible approach to the role of the UN in maintaining international peace and security. As a result, there will be incremental improvements in the UN's enforcement capabilities cancelling out the incremental defects of the past. Indeed, the notion of collective security is something that can, and should, be approximated to in stages and on a case-by-case basis. As imperfect attempts to approximate collective security are nevertheless a substantial improvement over unbridled balance of power politics, the current trend appears to be a development in the right direction.
Source Materials
- STATEMENT BY H.E. DR. HAN SUNG-JOO, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA, AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSE...
STATEMENT BY H.E. DR. HAN SUNG-JOO, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA, AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
September 29, 1993
Mr. President,
May I congratulate you on your assumption of the presidency of the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly. Knowing you as the Ambassador of Guyana to my country, I am convinced that you will most capably lead our discussion with your outstanding insight and experience. At the same time, I wish to acknowledge the excellent work of H.E. Stoyan Ganev of Bulgaria as president of the last General Assembly session.
I would also like to pay tribute to the Secretary-General, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, for his dedication to the cause of the United Nations and to its reform at this important juncture.
Allow me to take this opportunity to express my warmest welcome to the new Member States: Andorra, the Czech Republic, Eritrea, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Monaco, and the Slovak Republic. My delegation wishes them every success and looks forward to working closely with them in all areas.
Pluralistic World Society
Mr. President,
We live in an age of historic transition. This is confirmed by the dramatic changes in the international situation since the last session. A new world order, which is fundamentally different from the old one, is taking shape. We are witnessing a trend toward peace, cooperation and interdependence, instead of conflict, confrontation and ideological bigotry. The most resounding testimony to this effect emerged in the peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed in Washington this month.
Today, we find ourselves in an international environment similar to the one envisaged by the Founding Fathers of the United Nations after the Second World War. I would like to quote from the closing remarks of Mr. Oswaldo Aranha, a distinguished diplomat from Brazil, who was the President of the second session of the General Assembly in 1947:
"All idea of force is today obsolete and negative. The old order, based on political power, is trying to survive, but there is no longer room for predominance through force. The United Nations stands for the new order, based on peaceful accord, on understanding, on free discussion, and on the common and equal responsibility of peoples."
Forty-five years after these words were spoken, we finally stand at the end of an era and on the threshold of a new one. This may be a second opportunity for us to fulfill the stated mission of the United Nations at its creation.
To be sure, the end of the Cold War does not mean the end of all problems. The world worries about the continuing, even worsening, ethnic and religious conflicts. We face the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Environmental protection is another major challenges to today's world. Development cannot be taken for granted. These are monumental issues that require the collective efforts of all members of the international community, and the United Nations in particular.
We have entered an age of diversity and uncertainty. But we should not be daunted by this new reality. We may not be accustomed to it, but we should not be afraid of living in a pluralistic world. Nations differ in what they want to achieve and in how they want to achieve it. These diverse goals, while constituting a possible source of conflict, should also form the basis for complementarity and cooperation among nations.
Some say that bipolarity is being replaced by multipolarity. Yet pluralistic, rather than multipolar, is perhaps more precise a term to describe the emerging world order. A multipolar world would postulate geopolitics based upon conflict and balance of power. Instead, a pluralistic world accepts diversity and encourages cooperation. Thus, the world has the potential to become more democratic and harmonious than it has ever been in history.
International Peace and Security
Mr. President,
One of the most noteworthy changes in the aftermath of the Cold War is the strengthening of the United Nations, particularly in the field of peace and security. The "Agenda for Peace" report that Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali gave last year provides a solid base on which to further boost the role of the United Nations in this area.
In particular, preventive diplomacy is of the utmost importance, given the enormous human and material costs of conflicts once they break out. My delegation will continue our participation in these efforts to translate into a meaningful reality initiatives such as "preventive diplomacy" and "post-conflict peace-building".
As the continuing tragedies in Bosnia and Somalia demonstrate, conflicts fueled by ethnic and religious differences, poverty and internal disorder are becoming a new and major threat to international security. In response to increasing demands, seventeen peace-keeping operations of the United Nations are now in service in different parts of the world.
However, traditional peace-keeping may no longer be a sufficient response to the current conflicts. We find that the scope of these operations is widening, ranging from the supervision of a cease-fire to nation-building. Furthermore, the timely deployment of peace-keepers is imperative to temper a conflict at an early stage.
For this reason, we believe the proposed mechanism of the UN stand-by forces is an appropriate way to enhance the UN's role in meeting new challenges to peace. The availability of stand-by forces will enable the United Nations to provide a quick and effective response to conflicts.
I take this opportunity to reaffirm my government's support of the UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II). We already dispatched an engineering battalion in June, and we urge all the factions concerned in Somalia to cooperate fully with the United Nations. With the successful precedent set by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), I am confident that UNOSOM II will also fulfill its peace-keeping mission.
Nonetheless, it is a source of grave concern that the number of UN casualties in Somalia is sharply increasing. Effective arrangements need to be worked out to enhance the safety and security of those who are involved in the UN Peace Keeping Operations there and everywhere else.
Arms Control and Disarmament
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