Conclusions and Suggestions

Abstract

The general pattern of the Council’s handling of legal questions involved in international disputes and situations convincingly indicates that the Council has shown a definite preference for the handling of these questions on its own responsibility, thereby performing a quasijudicial function by and large irrespective of the legal opinions presented by the Secretary-Gefleral or the probable advantage of utilizing the advisory procedure of the International Court of Justice. However, this is not to mean that the Council has not recognized the import of various legal questions presented before it. Indeed, the opposite is true. The relationship between the general pattern of the Council’s independent handling of legal questions and its recognition of the import of legal questions is partly underscored by the variation in what the Council appears to have viewed as its freedom of action under the Charter with respect to those questions. Thus the range of the freedom of action that the Council has assigned to itself in the handling of legal questions in relation to the employment of judicial procedure has varied in four different areas.