Reforming the Security Council: The International Negotiation Process Within the Context of Calls to Amend the UN Charter to the New Realities of the Post-Cold War Era

1995 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erkki Kourula ◽  
Tapio Kanninen
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Community ◽  
Negotiation Process ◽  
International Negotiation ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Cold War Era

The expansion of the Security Council's membership is presently being seriously debated by the international community. The UN Charter is most likely to be amended if agreement is reached in negotiations now underway.At the same time, a number of other possible fundamental reforms, also requiring Charter amendments, are being discussed in various UN fora. The question arises whether the Charter could or should be amended only once during our generation or many times over a period of a few years.

Part 2 The Post-Cold War Era (1990–2000), 47 The Kosovo Crisis—1999

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Franchini Daniel ◽  
Tzanakopoulos Antonios
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Intervention ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
International Community ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Nato Intervention

This contribution discusses the forcible intervention by NATO against Serbia in 1999 in response to the situation in Kosovo. It sets out the facts and background of the crisis, along with the legal positions of the main protagonists and the reactions of the international community. It then proceeds to survey the debates surrounding the legality of the intervention and to assess the soundness of the legal justifications put forward by states and authors. Finally, it discusses the precedential value of the intervention, especially in view of claims of the existence or emergence of a rule or principle of international law permitting the unilateral use of force in response to humanitarian crises. The contribution concludes that the NATO intervention has significant precedential value in that it confirms the unlawfulness of forcible unilateral humanitarian intervention.

‘Realism as an Unsentimental Intellectual Temper’

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Berdal
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Theoretical Construction

The post-Cold War era witnessed a growing tendency to justify the use and the threat of use of military force in international relations on humanitarian grounds. Freedman’s writing on the use of armed force in pursuit of humanitarian goals and his contribution to the field are explored in this chapter. He rejects the traditional dichotomies in International Relations scholarship between Realism and Idealism. Freedman’s work on ‘New Interventionism’, with the Chicago Speech contribution at its core, suggests that it is unhelpful to delineate sharply different existing schools of thought, or paradigms. Freedman draws a distinction between ‘realism as an unsentimental temper’ and realism as a ‘theoretical construction.’ Liberal values are important for Freedman and their universality is to be asserted, but that does not mean being naively oblivious to dangers and difficulties inherent in seeking to promote them as standards against which Western governments should be judged.

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