ABSTRACT
The architects of the United Nations had the considerable advantage of being able to learn from the miscues of their predecessors, the founders of the League of Nations. Nowhere is this as evident as in the edifice and machinery of the Security Council. In part, as related in previous chapters, this learning process can be seen in the unique enforcement powers and tools provided in the Charter, along with the limited circle of permanent members possessing veto power over Council actions. They also understood, somewhat paradoxically, that a Security Council with unprecedented powers should be embedded – much more than the League’s Council had been – in a web of cooperative relationships with other UN principal organs and with regional organizations and arrangements. Over time, as the Council’s attention turned increasingly to intra-state and transnational conflict, it became clear that it would need to learn to deal with non-state actors as well.
