Turning to the UN Security Council: terming crisis a threat to international peace
When do states turn to the United Nations Security Council? Today the term threat to peace is interpreted more widely than ever before ranging from inter-state conflict over internal wars to humanitarian crisis. Alarming the Security Council to international crisis is an exceptional foreign policy choice. By far more conflicts are not brought to the attention of the Security Council than are put before that body. The paper explores when states actually turn to the Security Council and term a crisis a threat to international peace. One the one hand, the Security the Council has assumed a much more visible and active role in international dispute settlement since the end of the Cold War. On the other hand, the unilateral decision of the United States to invade Iraq raised serious doubts about the legitimacy and effectiveness of the UN’s collective security system. A much repeated truism reminds UN scholars that any system of collective security can be only as good as its members want it to be. But so far we do not have a clear understanding of what its members do want it to be. While the option to involve the UN Security Council in any situation endangering peace is equally open to all states, only some states address the UN in some conflict situations. From this starting point, this paper contributes to the understanding of the role of the UN in fostering conflict resolution as well as shedding light on foreign policy choices by states. In what situations do states turn to the Security Council? Which states take the decision to alert the Council? And what do states want from the Council once they did? Addressing these questions, the paper presents instances in which states decided to turn to the Security Council. The systematic assessment builds on a set of case studies that includes different types of conflict situations in the 1990s as well as different states. States bring crisis situations before the Council which they either perceive as an immediate threat to themselves or as a threat to norms shared by the international community. The paper concludes with some generalizations about reasons for states to turn to the UN Security Council.
Libya in US foreign policy: From rogue state to good fellow?
Since the mid 1970s relations between the USA and Libya have been antagonistic. The radical policies the regime of Muammar Qadaaffi has pursued have made Libya one of the USA's bêtes noires . The reasons for US antagonism derive from Libya's repression at home, its alleged support for terrorism and for radical movements opposed to US interests, its staunch opposition to Israel, and its anti-Western rhetoric. Libya's hostility towards the USA rests on a perception of the USA as a global power intent on maintaining its hegemony and control over the Arab and Islamic world. Libyans have been resentful of US support of Israel to the detriment of Arabs and Muslims. Libya's resolute opposition to the USA especially in the 1980s, resulted in a series of military confrontations. The USA has maintained sanctions despite the suspension of UN sanctions on Libya in 1999. The USA has retained Libya on its short list of 'rogue states' despite recognition that Libya has stopped sponsoring terrorism. The contention here is that Libya, like the other 'rogue states', provides justification for US domestic policies (eg National Missile Defense). Given the events of 11 September 2001 in the US, it is quite conceivable that Libya could become a target of the US antiterrorism campaign. The USA could at last find valid justification for the removal of the Qadaffi regime.
Weapons of Mass Reaction
Rogue States and Weapons of Mass Destruction The idea of "rogue states" was briefly in vogue at the beginning of the Clinton administration. By the end of the administration, however, the term had ceased to be either stylish or fitting. Like so many tacky fashions of the past, it has been relegated to the closet--and rightly so, for it is applied to a group of states that have in common only their general opposition to US presence and interests in their regions. States that fall into this category include Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Cuba, and recently, Serbia. Though each state presents specific and complex challenges to US goals and policies, the term "rogue state" complicates rather than clarifies analysis of these problems by suggesting an unwarranted identity. Several of these states, however, share one thing in common that gives the problem they present to US policy a special character: weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Unlike the term "rogue states," the American concern with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will never become unfashionable. Weapons of mass destruction are a technology, not a mere slogan, and are therefore a permanent feature of the international environment. For the past half-century; the various threats posed by WMD-principally nuclear weapons, though increasingly biological and chemical weapons-have occupied the highest positions on the American national security agenda. Indeed, the seriousness of the WMD threat is one of the few post-Cold War foreign policy issues on which virtually all US officials and defense intellectuals agree. This consensus breaks down, however, when the discussion turns to questions of policy prescription, as the Senate's October 1999 rejection of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty made clear. Catastrophic Categories There are three types of WMD: nuclear, biological, and chemical. Nuclear weapons, the most familiar of the group, were first developed during World War II in the United States. The most basic of these weapons release vast amounts of energy by splitting the atoms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium. The HEU bomb used against the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 caused an explosion equivalent to more than 10,000 tons of TNT and killed over 100,000 people. More advanced thermonuclear weapons, in which a primary fission nuclear explosion triggers a secondary fusion explosion, can cause explosions a hundred times larger than the simple Hiroshima bomb. Eight states are known to possess nuclear weapons capabilities-the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan, and Israel-and several more are believed to be seeking to acquire such a capability-most importantly, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq (whose substantial nuclear-weapons program was set back by at least a decade by the Gulf War an d subsequent UN inspections). The killing mechanism of a biological weapon is disease. Humankind has yet to experience the full destructive power of these uniquely odious weapons, for there have been only a few instances of biological weapons attacks, and these have involved only the most rudimentary types of weapons. However, the potential of biological weapons to sicken and kill humans (or livestock or crops) is awesome. A few grams of efficiently aerosolized anthrax, for example, could kill tens if not hundreds of thousands of people in a densely populated urban area. The deliberate release of the contagious smallpox virus, which has been eradicated in nature, could kill millions. Biological-weapons aerosols are invisible, odorless, and tasteless, and the onset of visible symptoms in the infected population is delayed by the disease's incubation period. These features make biological weapons especially well suited for covert or terrorist attacks resulting in mass casualties. Biological weapons are banned by the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. US intelligence agencies believe, however, that about a dozen states harbor some form of biological warfare program, including Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia, and China. …