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The United States or the United Nations - Who will keep the peace?

By Geoffrey Pearson

During the Cold War years, it was not the UN, but rather the U.S.-Soviet standoff -- the "balance of terror" -- that maintained an uneasy peace in Europe. Indeed, it was to prevent a UN-led war among the great powers that the UN Charter determined that any of the five permanent members of the Security Council could veto decisions to act on collective security issues (veto, for example, the decision to condemn a country, or to deploy troops).

The UN did help to moderate Cold War rivalry in Africa and the Middle East by standing on guard between potential combatants. More recently, in the case of Iraq's aggression against Kuwait, it authorized the use of force. In general, however, the Charter provision for collective security lay dormant in the face of superpower antagonism.

But the Cold War is over. Although the U.S. and Russia retain the capacity to wage nuclear war, the threat is diminished. Threats to the peace have reverted to those the statesmen of 1945 who set up the UN anticipated: local acts of aggression to be countered by collective action.

Those who drafted the UN Charter assumed these conflicts would be acts of war between states, not internal conflicts or acts of violence against civilians by groups intent on revenge or intimidation. In fact, however, UN interventions to keep the peace since 1990 have been almost entirely concerned with civil conflicts.

Where the Security Council has authorized the use of force, it has usually used as its instruments regional organizations or coalitions, such as NATO peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia.

Afghanistan is different: It was not a conflict between states, nor was it a conflict to gain control within a state. Rather, there was an "act of aggression" (to use Charter language to describe the Sept. 11 attacks) by a group of individuals from several states, against civilians of one state.

Under these circumstances, the Security Council recognized the U.S. right to self-defence inscribed by the Charter. The U.S. and its coalition allies have exercised this right against the state of Afghanistan, because it harboured those who planned the terrorist attacks. (The Council did not deliberate on whether or not the means employed to defend the U.S. were, and are, appropriate.)

But how does the right of self-defence extend to Iraq? It has not been linked directly to Sept. 11, nor has it attacked the United States.

In recent days, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has spoken of the need for UN authorization of any expansion of the war on terrorism. The issue confronting the UN is the American right to claim self-defence as justification for a global campaign against terrorism, including the use of force. There is little or no legal support for this broader claim, and most coalition partners would insist on Security Council authorization to consider an attack on Iraq legitimate. Moreover, there is as yet no agreed-upon definition of terrorist actions.

Such definitions, and such authorizations, are necessary if the rule of international law is to prevail over the mere rule of might. Otherwise, we face the prospect of a lengthy dispute between the U.S. and other UN members, including Canada, about who is to keep the peace around the globe, and how, and under whose authorization and control.

Geoffrey Pearson is National President of the United Nations Association in Canada. This commentary was published in The Globe and Mail on Friday, February 22, 2002.