ABSTRACT
As Chapter 3 related, during the deliberations at San Francisco the founders were determined to preserve for the Security Council as much flexibility as possible to determine what might constitute a threat to international peace and security under Article 39. Moreover, Article 34 gives the Council wide latitude to investigate any dispute or situation that could “endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.” They understood that any attempt to list the proximate causes of conflict would be a fruitless and controversial exercise, subject to misinterpretation, debate, and delay when collective action was most urgently needed. With due modesty, they realized, as well, that geopolitical and technological conditions were likely to change in unpredictable ways in the years ahead. Most of all, the founders were determined to fashion a Charter and a Council for the ages. So they would not be the least bit surprised, or chagrined, to learn that two of the most worrisome threats six decades later – the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and global terrorism – had not been mentioned in the Charter.
