Questions Relating to the Competence of the Security Council
It has been said that international law is “more than any other law, a regulation of competencies.” 1 As such the question of competence has been a prominent one in any international organization. For example, more than one hundred questions were raised as to the competence of particular organs of the League of Nations during its life time,2 and it is not surprising that the United Nations has had to consider the same question on many occasions, especially in its early stage of existence, as it appears that it “is natural for institutions in their infancy to be faced with disputes in regard to their jurisdiction.”3 Indeed, the question of competence has been and is not only a major legal question,4 but also the most important question in the operations of the United Nations, in that all its actions emanate from either explicit or implicit recognition of its own competence. As early as 1950, a special committee of the American Society of International Law pointed out that “in many cases the Members concerned almost automatically challenged the competence of the United Nations in order to delay action or to channel the discussion away from the merits of the case. There are in consequence several hundreds of cases in which the competence of the Organization has been challenged.” 5 The prominence of questions relating to competence of the various organs of the United Nations and related agencies is also reflected in the advisory opinions given by the International Court of Justice. All but one 1 of the questions submitted to the Court for advisory opinion have touched upon the question of competence in one way or another.2
The United Nations and Spain
Few issues to come before the United Nations have illuminated more aspects of international affairs than the Spanish question. The extent of drift of the Cold War can be measured with some precision by the changing attitudes toward Spain since 1945, changes which exhibit rather dramatically what might be called the impact of politics on morals. In the field of international organization, the voting behavior of the various blocs in the General Assembly on this issue is enlightening as to the balance of force operating therein, while on the juridical side that hardy and fundamental perennial, the problem of domestic jurisdiction and intervention, has come in for close scrutiny. Well before the establishment of the United Nations, the Spanish question had intensely engaged the emotions of the western world as had few other international issues, and that intensity persisted for the most part throughout the United Nations consideration of the problem. The fact that the question still has considerable relevance with respect to the defense of the West may make an investigation of recent United Nations policy toward Spain of some contemporary significance.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.