Elections still a weak spot in Central Africa - Interview: François Loucény Fall, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) and his team briefing the Security Council

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-29
Author(s):  
François Louncény Fall

The United Nations Secretary-General and the United Nations Security Council spend significant amounts of time on their relationship with each other. They rely on each other for such important activities as peacekeeping, international mediation, and the formulation and application of normative standards in defense of international peace and security—in other words, the executive aspects of the UN’s work. The edited book The UN Secretary-General and the Security Council: A Dynamic Relationship aims to fill an important lacuna in the scholarship on the UN system. Although there exists an impressive body of literature on the development and significance of the Secretariat and the Security Council as separate organs, an important gap remains in our understanding of the interactions between them. Bringing together some of the most prominent authorities on the subject, this volume is the first book-length treatment of this topic. It studies the UN from an innovative angle, creating new insights on the (autonomous) policy-making of international organizations and adding to our understanding of the dynamics of intra-organizational relationships. Within the book, the contributors examine how each Secretary-General interacted with the Security Council, touching upon such issues as the role of personality, the formal and informal infrastructure of the relationship, the selection and appointment processes, as well as the Secretary-General’s threefold role as a crisis manager, administrative manager, and manager of ideas.


1950 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 356-360

The primary difficulty in the current question of the representation of Member States in die United Nations is that this question of representation has been linked up with the question of recognition by Member Governments.It will be shown here that this linkage is unfortunate from the practical standpoint, and wrong from the standpoint of legal theory.


1969 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jitendra Mohan

The recurrent crisis in the (ex-Belgian) Congo, which first exploded soon after the country's independence on 30 June 1960, was the main event in the history both of the United Nations (U.N.) and of Africa during the 1960s. Its first phase (with which this paper largely deals) opened with the mutiny of the Force publique on 5 July, the intervention of Belgian troops on 10 July, and the proclamation of Katanga's independence on 11 July; it came to an end with the suppression of Katanga's secession, tentatively in December 1961 and conclusively in January 1963. The Opération des Nations Unies au Congo (O.N.U.C.) was authorised by the Security Council on 14 July, on the independent initiative of the U.N. Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold, and in response to the Congo Government's appeals to the U.N. for technical and military assistance. The operation was the biggest and costliest by far in the life of the U.N.; 1 and its course was marked by political as well as financial ruin, from which the U.N. has never quite recovered. Evidence for this was furnished early. By the time the operation formally came to an end on 30 June 1964, the Congo was already in the thick of the second phase of the crisis; this phase, which began with the outbreak of rebellion in Kwilu in January 1964, was brought to an end of sorts by the Belgian-American military intervention in Stanleyville in November 1964, which produced few signs of activity by the U.N.


1961 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-617 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. West

Its operation in the Congo has developed into a crucial test of the United Nationsframework for international collaboration. Under the authority of a Security Council mandate the United Nations has assumed an unprecedented range of military and civil responsibilities. To discharge these responsibilities, an executive agent (United Nations Organization in the Congo, ONUC) has been created under the direct supervision of the Secretary General. Within a month of its initiation, the Congo operation became the focus of a virulent stream of criticism from the Soviet bloc and other Member governments; it was soon evident that not only ONUC was under attack, but also the concept of a United Nations executive agent, the independence of the Secretariat, and die institution of die Secretary-General.


1947 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 410-410

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY THEREFORE DETERMINES, in pursuance of Article 93 paragraph 2 of the Charter, and upon the recommendation of the Security Council, the conditions on which Switzerland may become a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice, as follows:Switzerland will become a party to the Statute of the Court on the date of the deposit with the Secretary-General of the United Nations of an instrument, signed on behalf of the Government of Switzerland and ratified as may be required by Swiss constitutional law, containing:(a) Acceptance of the provisions of the Statute of the Court;(b) Acceptance of all the obligations of a Member of the United Nations under Article 94 of the Charter;


1961 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. M. Miller

The United Nations action in the Congo, instituted by the Security Council on July 14, 1960, has been described by the Secretary General as “the biggest single effort under United Nations colours organized and directed by the United Nations itself.” It was an emergency action, undertaken almost instantaneously and carried out in an atmosphere of crisis and political tension. This was not a setting propitious to juridical deliberation; yet it cannot be said that legal considerations were disregarded. At the very outset, the Secretary General drew attention to the basic considerations of law and principle that should govern United Nations operations. As the situation in the Congo grew more complicated and divergent views emerged as to the propriety of the United Nations action, Member Governments as well as the Secretary General sought guidance and support in the prescriptions of the Charter and the rules of law that have evolved through United Nations practice. Faced with the responsibility of interpreting a general mandate of the Security Council in circumstances that had not been envisaged, the Secretary General considered it essential to refer to legal precepts whenever they could furnish guidance; only in this way could he maintain the requisite impartiality and yet take action under his mandate that might be opposed by one or the other contending side. Thus, in regard to each of the several controversial issues that arose, the Secretary General presented the legal basis for his actions, not merely in terms of the broad principles of the Charter, but more specifically, when necessary, in terms of the applicable rules and precepts adopted by United Nations organs, whether expressly in their resolutions or impliedly in their practice. The function of law in United Nations diplomacy has rarely been more clearly demonstrated.


1953 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-130

In a letter dated November 10, 1952, the Secretary-General (Lie) requested that the President of the General Assembly (Pearson) include on the agenda the item “Appointment of the Secretary-General of the United Nations”. Mr. Lie stated that it had been his intention to submit his resignation as Secretary-General and he had delayed until the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council were present in New York. The General Committee on November 12 recommended the inclusion of this additional item upon the agenda. The subject was not discussed prior to the adjournment of the first part of the seventh session.


1949 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-202

1. On 21 November 1947, by its resolution 117 (II), the General Assembly requested the Interim Committee to:“1. Consider the problem of voting in the Security Council, taking into account all proposals which have been or may be submitted by Members of the United Nations to the second session of die General Assembly or to the Interim Committee;“2. Consult with any committee which the Security Council may designate to co-operate with the Interim Committee in the study of the problem;“3. Report, with its conclusions, to the third session of the General Assembly, the report to be transmitted to the Secretary-General not later than 15 July 1948, and by the Secretary-General to the Member States and to the General Assembly.”


1950 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-474

Activities of the Secretary-General: On March 21, 1950, the Secretary-General (Lie), in an address delivered at the triennial dinner of B'nai B'rith in Washington, D.C., called for a twenty-year program of peace within the framework of the United Nations. After referring to the difficulties arising from the non-participation of the Soviet Union in United Nations organs because of the presence of the representative of the Nationalist government of China, Mr. Lie suggested that negotiation between the major powers was possible if the Security Council would hold the “periodic meetings” referred to in Article 28(2) of the Charter, in which the various Members would be represented by either the heads of states or the foreign ministers.


Author(s):  
María José Cervell Hortal

The concept of nuclear nonproliferation was coined in a formal way at the beginning of the 1960s, though the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed in 1968, would be the text that would consolidate it. After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, humanity was conscious of the danger of these weapons, and nuclear proliferation turned into one of the main problems of the Cold War period; their control and the implementation of strategies to limit them have become a priority since then. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons and deterrence policy were crucial elements in the peaceful coexistence of the two power blocs, and the initiatives to control them grew, as both countries were conscious of the danger that this accumulation could cause. The NPT created two categories of states: the “officially” nuclear ones, which could maintain their weapons (China, France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States) and the nonnuclear ones, which were not allowed to acquire or develop them. Two more concepts emerged: vertical proliferation (that of the five official nuclear states) and horizontal proliferation (that of the states that had nuclear weapons but rejected to be a NPT party). Other treaties—multilateral, regional, and bilateral—which also sought to control the nuclear proliferation (see Treaties and Agreements Preventing Nuclear Weapons Proliferation) were subsequently added. The end of the Cold War did not eliminate the danger. In fact, the Security Council considered in 1992 (Document S/23500, 31 January) that the proliferation of nuclear weapons “constitutes a threat for the international peace and security” (p. 4) that permitted it to activate, if necessary, chapter VII of the United Nations (UN) Charter and all the consequences derived from it. With the new millennium, the United Nations Secretary-General described mass destruction arms (nuclear included) as one of the threats to peace and security in the 21st century (see United Nations General Assembly 2005, cited under Security Council, General Assembly, and Secretary-General, para. 78). Nowadays, the nuclear question is still of great relevance. The nuclear problems in the 21st century’s international society are wide and varied and include states that withdrew the NPT (North Korea), states that fail to comply with it (Iran), states that have not yet ratified it (Israel, India, Pakistan), and non-state actors (such as terrorist groups), which are more and more interested in the wide destructive power of nuclear weapons. The adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons of 7 July 2017 was a significant step, but the low number of state accessions shows that nuclear weapons are still a relevant threat.


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