Abstract
The Security Council is the most important organ of the United Nations and, in the words of the Charter (see Appendix 1), is charged with ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’. It has fifteen members: five permanent and veto wielding ones (the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and the People’s Republic of China); and ten elected for two-year terms in the light of the need for ‘equitable geographical distribution’ (see Appendix 3). The presidency of the Council rotates on a monthly basis among both permanent and non-permanent members. In contrast to the first two decades of its existence, when it was dominated by the Western powers, no group of states now holds sway over the Security Council — lest it be ‘the Big Five’ themselves.
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Notes
Sydney D. Bailey, The Procedure of the UN Security Council, 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 157–61
Evan Luard, The United Nations: How It Works and What It does (London: Macmillan, 1979), pp. 78–9.
Ibid., p. 42. See also F. Y. Chai, Consultation and consensus in the Security Council (New York: UNITAR, 1971), pp. 7–9.
Hugh Caradon, ‘The Security Council as an Instrument for Peace’, in Arthur S. Lall (ed.), Multilateral Negotiation and Mediation: Instruments and Methods (New York: Pergamon, 1985), p. 5.
Davidson Nicol, The United Nations Security Council: Towards Greater Effectiveness (New York: UNITAR, 1982), p. 74 and pp. 79–80.
Ibid. See also Davidson Nicol, ‘The Security Council’, in Nicol (ed.), Paths to Peace: The UN Security Council and Its Presidency (New York: Pergamon, 1981), pp. 14–15.
Andrew Boyd, Fifteen Men on a Powder Keg: A History of the UN Security Council (London: Methuen, 1971), pp. 4, 42–3.
William F Buckley Jr., United Nations Journal (New York: Putnam, 1974, and London: Joseph, 1975), chap. 14.
Bailey, The Procedure of the UN Security Council (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), p. 123.
Brian Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War (New York: Harper & Row; and London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987), p. 228.
For example
Kurt Waldheim, Building the Future Order: The Search for Peace in an Interdependent World, ed. by Robert L. Schiffer (New York: Free Press, and London: Collier-Macmillan, 1980), pp. 232–3 Address at the University of Denver, 25 Jan. 1976), and Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, Sept. 1979, Yearbook of the United Nations 1979.
Brian Urquhart, ‘International Peace and Security: Thoughts on the Twentieth Anniversary of Dag Hammarskjold’s Death’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no. 1, Fall 1981, pp. 14–15.
Max Jakobson (Permanent Representative of Finland), in UN Monthly Chronicle, vol. 7, no. 7, July 1970, p. 57.
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© 1991 G. R. Berridge
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Berridge, G.R. (1991). The Security Council and ‘Secret Diplomacy’. In: Return to the UN. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376052_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376052_1
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