THE THEMES

Background Theme of AIMUN 2014

The UN Charter imposes primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security upon the Security Council. Then what is left for the General Assembly is rather secondary or subsidiary in this regard. In theory, the power granted to the organs other than the Security Council in terms of the maintenance of international peace and security is narrowly interpreted, or at least they do not have the power to impose any binding obligation upon states. However, in practice, the General Assembly plays an important role, especially when the Security Council cannot reach a unanimous decision. In the Certain Expenses case, the International Court of Justice stated that the role of the Security Council in the maintenance of international peace and security is primary, but not exclusive leaving room for the General Assembly to play a significant role. Despite the restricted power given to the General Assembly by the Charter, an extension of the power is found in the resolution adopted during the early cold war period called – Uniting for Peace. Moreover, in the event of non-action or selective actions by the Security Council for  peace maintenance, the General Assembly has become the central place where world opinion is delivered.

Philosophers, political scientists and lawyers have been debating for a long time the requirements surrounding the recourse to war and their views varied greatly over the past centuries. The current debates start from the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations which prohibits acts of war unless they are necessary in self-defence or are authorised by the Security Council. 

It is generally accepted that the doctrine as the law of going to war and it distinguishes between the legal and the illegal use of force.

According to this approach, a war is considered as being just only if it is in self defence against an aggression. The self-defence can refer to the state in question or to another state. However, this theory is currently being challenged by the supporters of Responsibility to Protect (R2P), who claim that sovereignty is not a right, but an obligation and, therefore, when a state manifestly fails to protect its citizens from mass atrocities, the international community has a right to intervene, including by means of military action. As it can be noticed, R2P tends to extend the circumstances when a war is just beyond self-defence.

The opposite to Just War is the aggressive war, which interferes into the maters of another state. It is not limited to military action, but to any intervention that amounts to the denial of the independence of the state and a breach of its sovereignty. In fact, the respect for a state’s sovereignty is not owed to the state itself, but to the international community.

It was also claimed that the notion of Just Wars is a bit more extensive than the rules envisaged in the UN Charter, in the sense that an aggressive war may, indeed, be intended to defend human rights and thus be justified; at the same time, a war of self-defence may be waged in order to preserve a status-quo which subverts human rights and therefore be unjustified.

However, the traditional approach tends to erode as the nature of armed conflicts tends to change. For example, wars are no longer conducted exclusively by standing armies of sovereign states; “rogue” armed forces which are not under the control of any state increased their involvement in wars. At the same time, political scientists have begun to recognise that wars are not really fought by states, but buy individuals and, therefore, the responsibility needs to also concern the individuals and their actions.