ABSTRACT
Insofar as its central purpose-the maintenance of peace-is concerned, the UN Charter speaks in an authoritative rather than a co-operative mode. Responsibility for the achievement of this purpose is ‘primarily]’1 bestowed on the Organization’s Security Council, initially composed of five permanent and six non-permanent members. All members agree that in this matter the Council ‘acts on their behalf’,2 and, therefore, that they will ‘accept and carry out’3 its decisions. When the Security Council has ‘determine[d]’4 the existence of any threat to or breach of the peace or an act of aggression, it is empowered to ‘decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions’.5 And, in the event of such measures proving insufficient, it may ‘take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to restore international peace and security’.6 On the face of it, the international society of states has placed the key issue of the maintenance of peace under centralised control. Something which looks very like the scaffolding for a world state has apparently been erected.
