Comment on Larry Johnson, “Uniting for Peace”
Larry Johnson’s essay on the UN General Assembly’s Uniting for Peace resolution (UFP) is a useful general analysis of issues arising from UN Security Council Permanent Member veto-paralysis. His essay, which focuses on the text of the original Resolution, is directed at asking whether the UFP retains a current “useful purpose.” Relying on a text-centric interpretation of the presence or absence of subsequent invocations of the UFP, he concludes that no “useful purpose” remains, in part because evolved General Assembly authority has displaced the need to specifically invoke the UFP to make recommendations on certain issues of international peace and security. Johnson then asks whether, under the original UFP or subsequently, the Assembly may recommend to Member States “enforcement” uses of force, notwithstanding the prohibitions of Article 2(4) of the Charter. He finds Article 2(4) to be an absolute barrier to Assembly authority to recommend those measures, but not for “innovative and inventive non-use-of force measures.”