ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some aspects of the measures taken by the United Nations to preserve the peace in its most immediate sense, that is to extinguish the local fires that threaten to ignite the rest of the globe. The task of keeping the peace was viewed by the drafters of the United Nations Charter mainly in terms of deliberative, measured, and even protracted procedures. The task of peace-keeping, in its most common aspect, has focused on troubled frontier regions where hostility between neighboring countries has given rise to acts of violence and depredation which have threatened to spread or escalate into outright warfare. In most of the United Nations peace-keeping operations the presence of a legal foundation for the necessary activities has been found to be essential to effective performance. Constitutional controversy did arise in connection with the next peace-keeping action—the establishment in 1956 of United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) on the Egyptian side of the armistice demarcation line.
