ABSTRACT
The world of the early twenty-first century CE1 would be scarcely recognisable to the framers of the United Nations (UN) Charter. Emerging from the ashes of a devastating global conflict that trumped even the concentrated carnage of its predecessor only a quarter of a century before, the world leaders of the day redrew a universal institutional framework designed to avert any third recrudescence. The concept of collective security to guard against inter-state aggression remains the underpinning of the international community to this day, based on the cardinal principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity and the non-use of force save in the common interest.
