Abstract:

In this article, David Malone reviews key cross-cutting issues in Security Council decision-making throughout the 1990s. These include the growing focus on internal conflicts, a related increase in recourse to coercive measures (sanctions, navalblockades, authorization of the use of force) and often difficult partnership with regional organizations in addressing challenges to the peace. He examines humanitarian concerns, human right violations and democratization as an instrument for stabilization of war-torn sociaties as factors driving many Council decisions. The article also addresses institutional issues, including the Council’s creation of international criminal tribunals, its relationship with the international criminal court (the Statute of which was agreed in Rome in 1998) and the slow-moving debate over Security Council reform. The author argues that Council decisions in the 1990s undermined fundamentally absolute conceptions of State sovereignty, but identifies several major challenges facing the Council (relations between the UN and the USA; Russia’s role within the Council; and the UN’s poor record at grappling effectively with African conflicts) at the turn of the millenium.


To read the full text in french