CONFLICT RESOLUTION THROUGH UNITED NATIONS (UN)
At the end of
World War II, the victorious Allies created a system of international
organizations roughly combined under the support of a central structure, the
United Nations. Some of the organizations, like the International Labour
Organization (ILO) and the International Court of Justice, were continuations
of earlier bodies that had been part of the League of Nations. The United
Nations itself was viewed as the successor to the League of Nations, and its
primary political bodies were the General Assembly, in which all members
participated, and the Security Council, on which the major powers served as
permanent members with veto power along with rotating participation by other
member states. The primary organization for conflict resolution was the
Security Council. Economic, Health, Social and Cultural matters were handled by
separate agencies that had varying degrees of autonomy. In the second half of
the twentieth century, the United Nations was an active global political force
with an important role in a number of areas, including conflict resolution,
negotiations, creating multilateral military responses to aggression and
organizing peacekeeping forces to help stabilize conflict situations. In addition,
the International Court of Justice provided an effective forum for resolving
disputes involving international law. In these activi.
Conflict
resolution performs a healing function in societies. It provides opportunity
for the examinations of alternative pay-offs in a situation of positioned
disagreements, and restores normalcy in societies by facilitating discussions
and placing parties in conflicts, institution, in which they can choose
alternative positive decision to resolve differences.
Due to the complexities
of modern societies, conflicts tend to become internationalized that
supranational and regional bodies and organizations have to walk in, which gave
rise to other “neutral tools of conflict resolution techniques or modes:
peace-making, good offices, mediation, negotiation and conciliation and
peace-keeping”.
Efforts to bring
about socio-political change in the early 1990s employed several Track One
conflict resolution approaches – the use of military force, diplomatic and
economic coercion and negotiation. For example, in the Rwandan conflict, the
negotiation process was conducted under the auspices of the Arusha Peace Talks
which was the predominant official conflict resolution strategy used between
1992 and 1994. Although the negotiations culminated in a comprehensive power
sharing agreement, known as the Arusha Peace Accords, the ink was hardly dry
before a full scale genocide erupted in Rwanda before the United Nations
intervened to quell the conflict.
United Nations' Conflict
Resolution:
UN Conflict
resolution Concepts, Terminologies, Processes and Procedures Conflict
resolution between parties can be attained in various ways – they could be
concluded, regulated consciously or voluntarily imposed by one party or
another. If in a conflict situation, one party uses force to submit
another, it may be termed as “crime against humanity, genocide or war crime”,
depending on the type of force used. On the other hand, conflict resolution
could be attained through non-violent and voluntary means. This is usually as a
result of compromise between the conflicting parties. This involves a
negotiated settlement which could benefit all parities involved. Mediation is
also a way to resolve international disputes peacefully. The mediator presides
over or participates in joint negotiations with the States in dispute or
discusses the problem with them separately. In the course of such discussions,
he may make proposals or suggestions covering questions of procedure or the
whole or part of the subject matter of the dispute. His suggestions may be of
an interim or final character. If the mediation is successful, a proposal
emerges which is acceptable to all the parties to the dispute. Some time UN
also Provide the services of a mediator in a conflict. The primary objective
and function of the UN is the mainatance of peace in the whole world.
Article 1 of the United Nations Charter provides the following purposes
and principles of the United Nations:
·
To maintain international
peace and security, and to that end to take effective collective measures for
the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of
acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by
peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and
international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or
situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.
·
To develop friendly
relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal right and
self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to
strengthen universal peace.
·
To achieve international
cooperation (economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character), and in
promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental
freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; and
·
To be a center for
harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.
Article 2 of
the United Nations, provides that
the organization and its members, in pursuit of the purposes stated in Article
1, shall act in accordance with the following principles:
·
The organization is based on
the principles of sovereign equality of all its members.
·
All members in order to
ensure all of them the right and benefit resulting from membership, shall
fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the
present Charter.
·
All members shall settle
their international disputes by peaceful means and in such a manner that
international peace, security and justice are not endangered.
·
All members shall refrain in
their international relations from the threat or use of force against the
territorial integrity or political independence of any state or in any other
manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
·
All members shall give the
United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the
present Charter and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against
which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
·
The organization shall
ensure that states which are not members of the United Nations act in
accordance with these principles so far as may be necessary for the
maintenance of international peace and security.
In spite the
above objectives, it is worthy to mention that there are five of its principal
organs which the United Nations has involved in settling international
conflicts by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and
security are not endangered. These five principal organs are:
·
The General Assembly
·
Security Council
·
International Court of
Justice
·
The Secretariat which is
usually through the Secretary-General and
·
Such subsidiary organs as
may be found necessary may be established in accordance with the Charter.
Consequently, as
a means of maintaining international peace and security, the United Nations
usually adopts the juridical or non-juridical techniques. The non-juridical
mode includes the use of any of the following techniques: to call upon the
parties; discussion, good offices mediation and conciliation, Commission of
inquiry; Resolution and Recommendation; Preventive Diplomacy; and Arbitration.
While the juridical modes involves the settlement of dispute through legal
process.
The U.N. Charter
did not supplant the individual states' obligation to settle their disputes
through the means of their choice. Article 33 of the United Nation Charter
specifically provides that the parties to a dispute shall first of all seek a
solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration,
judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements or other
peaceful means of their own choice. If the parties fail to observe their
obligation or are not successful in settling their disputes through any of
these traditional methods of peaceful settlement, they can have recourse to the
United Nations.
Security Council to settle
conflicts
·
To call upon parties to
settle conflicts through pacific means of their choice.
·
To investigate conflicts
which may lead to international friction or a situation
which may give rise to a conflict.
·
To recommend appropriate
procedures or methods of adjustment at any stage of the conflict or
situation, if it is likely to endanger international peace and security.
·
To recommend to the parties
to refer legal disputes to International Court of Justice (ICJ).
·
To recommend such terms of
settlement as it may consider appropriate.
·
To make recommendations with
a view to pacific settlement if so requested.
·
To create peacekeeping force
if the dispute or situation results in the breach of peace in so doing,
Security Council acts under Art.36(2) and Art. 37(2) of the Charter.
·
To act under Chapter VII if
the dispute or situation develops into breach of peace or acts of aggression or
to enforce its recommendations under Chapter VI if parties fail to observe and
the dispute or situation becomest hreat to peace.
When a conflict
or matter is brought before the Security Council, it may first investigate it
under Article 34 of the United Nations' Charter in order to determine whether
the continuation of such a conflict or matter is likely to endanger
international peace and security. In the process of investigation or enquiry,
it may gather relevant facts and information and procure documents and
evidence. In order to determine the nature of conflict, it can examine all such
materials. For this purpose, it can appoint a sub-committee or an investigation
commission.
When good offices
efforts fail to bring about fruitful results, the United Nations has invoked
the method of mediation. In this procedure, the mediator actively participates
with the parties in the negotiation of settlement. He may offer concrete
proposals on substantive questions of the dispute. This method was adopted in
the Palestine case where the U.N. General Assembly had appointed Bernnadottee
and later Dr. Ralph Bunche as mediator; and in the Kashmir case, Sir Owen Dixin
of Australia and later Dr. Frank Graham of U.S. were appointed as mediator by
the Security Council.
International Court of Justice to settle
conflicts
According to
Chapter One of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the Court
consists of 15 judges elected by the General Assembly of the United Nations and
its Security Council for nine years.
Chapter Two of
Statute of the International Court of Justice had defined the Competence of the
Court as following:
·
The jurisdiction of the
Court comprises all cases which the parties refer to it and all matters
specially provided for in the Charter of the United Nations or in treaties and
conventions in force.
·
The states parties to the
present Statute may at any time declare that they recognize as compulsory ipso
facto and without special agreement, in relation to any other state accepting
the same obligation, the jurisdiction of the Court in all legal disputes
concerning:
i.
the interpretation of a
treaty;
ii.
any question of
international law;
iii.
the existence of any fact
which, if established, would constitute a breach of an international
obligation;
iv.
the nature or extent of the
reparation to be made for the breach of an international obligation.
And Article 38,
which Stated that
·
The Court, whose function is
to decide in accordance with international law such disputes as are submitted
to it, shall apply:
i.
international conventions,
whether general or particular, establishing rules expressly recognized by the
contesting states;
ii.
international custom, as
evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
iii.
the general principles of
law recognized by civilized nations;
The above two
Articles represented the foundation for the Court in dealing with international
disputes.
In general and
through the review of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, we can
defined the jurisdiction of the Court in two parts:
First:
Jurisdiction (Judgment):
Court will hear
disputes between States submitted to each other, and does not consider any
issues raised from individuals or any public or private bodies, and the Court
shall consider any issue or dispute whatever the significance or gravity of its
own, but must be presented by the two opposing sides together; in addition the
court's jurisdiction is optional.
Second: The
advisory opinion:
Bodies that have
the right to request an advisory opinion or legal advice is the General
Assembly of the United Nations and the Security Council only. As stated in
Article 96 of the Charter of the United Nations, branches of the United Nations
or its specialized agencies can request advisory opinions from the
International Court of Justice with respect to any matter of its competence, if
permitted by the Assembly.
Consequently, the Court has
a double role:
·
To settle international disputes in accordance with international law the
legal disputes submitted to it by States, and
·
To give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by duly
authorized international organs and agencies.
The ICJ and the International Disputes
The ICJ is often thought of
as the primary means for the resolution of disputes between States, and in fact
the Court is well-recognized for its significant contribution to the
development of international law.
Only States
(States Members of the United Nations and other States which have become
parties to the Statute of the Court or which have accepted its jurisdiction
under certain conditions) may be parties to contentious cases.
The Court is
competent to entertain a dispute only if the States concerned have accepted its
jurisdiction in one or more of the following ways:
- by entering into a special agreement to submit the dispute to the
Court;
- by virtue of a jurisdictional clause, i.e., typically, when they are
parties to a treaty containing a provision whereby, in the event of a
dispute of a given type or disagreement over the interpretation or
application of the treaty, one of them may refer the dispute to the Court;
- through the reciprocal effect of declarations made by them under the
Statute whereby each has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court as
compulsory in the event of a dispute with another State having made a
similar declaration. A number of these declarations, which must be
deposited with the United Nations Secretary-General, contain reservations
excluding certain categories of dispute.
So far as the
parties to the case are concerned, a judgment of the Court is binding, final
and without appeal," and "by signing the Charter, a State Member of
the United Nations undertakes to comply with any decision of the International
Court of Justice in a case to which it is a party".
Moreover if
either party fail "to perform the obligations incumbent upon it under a
judgment rendered by the Court", the Security Council may be called upon
to "make recommendations or decide upon measures" if the security
council deems such actions necessary
For example,
in Nicaragua v. United States the United States of
America had previously accepted the Court's compulsory
jurisdiction upon its creation in 1946 but withdrew its acceptance following
the Court's judgment in 1984 that called on the United States to "cease
and to refrain" from the "unlawful use of force" against the
government of Nicaragua. In a split decision, the majority of
the Court ruled the United States was "in breach of its obligation under
customary international law not to use force against another state" and
ordered the US pay reparations.
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