Questions Relating to the Competence of the Security Council

Abstract

It has been said that international law is “more than any other law, a regulation of competencies.” ¹ As such the question of competence has been a prominent one in any international organization. For example, more than one hundred questions were raised as to the competence of particular organs of the League of Nations during its life time,² and it is not surprising that the United Nations has had to consider the same question on many occasions, especially in its early stage of existence, as it appears that it “is natural for institutions in their infancy to be faced with disputes in regard to their jurisdiction.”³ Indeed, the question of competence has been and is not only a major legal question,⁴ but also the most important question in the operations of the United Nations, in that all its actions emanate from either explicit or implicit recognition of its own competence. As early as 1950, a special committee of the American Society of International Law pointed out that “in many cases the Members concerned almost automatically challenged the competence of the United Nations in order to delay action or to channel the discussion away from the merits of the case. There are in consequence several hundreds of cases in which the competence of the Organization has been challenged.” ⁵ The prominence of questions relating to competence of the various organs of the United Nations and related agencies is also reflected in the advisory opinions given by the International Court of Justice. All but one ¹ of the questions submitted to the Court for advisory opinion have touched upon the question of competence in one way or another.²