280 Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos Núm. 1 / 2013 a broader interpretation of the notion of “threat to peace”.3 Differences between the permanent members, nonetheless, reappeared on the occasion of serious crises such as Srebrenica, Kosovo and Rwanda, which became symbols of the failure of the Organisation. Partly as a response to these failures, the way was opened up to the principle of the “responsibility to protect” in the early years of the XXI century. The principle was invoked by the Security Council to authorise armed intervention in Libya in 2011, highly criticised by some and praised by others. The Council’s different reaction to the conflict in Syria, a reflection of its internal divisions, has again underlined the limitations stemming from the right of veto. Another subject of disagreement is the right of self-defence. The legal régime of the Charter has allowed divergent interpretations since the outset. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the so-called “global war on terror”, added new problems as regards their scope and relation to other dimensions of the prohibition of the use of force, still fuelling a heated debate. This paper will focus on the current debate about the abovementioned problems of interpretation. On the one hand, it will analize the progressive emergence of the “responsibility to protect” as a principle, and the role reserved to the Security Council. In this regard, most of the Council’s activity in the 90’s seems to have led to a greater expectation in international society about it acting as the instance for deciding to use force, in accordance with the spirit of the Charter. On the other hand, it will study the problems of interpretation of the right of-defence aroused by the 9-11 attacks and the subsequent military response. 2. The Adecuacy Of The Provisions Of The Charter To Confront The “New Threats” At the time of drawing up the Charter, the concept of security and of collective security had an essentially military scope. The preamble to the Charter, nonetheless, did anticipate the idea of indivisibility of security, development and human freedom. The later consolidation of the notion of human security raised the challenge of reaching consensus on a broader concept of collective security to include all of its elements. There is broad consensus on some issues, for example, a general understanding that the current threats do not respect national borders, they are interrelated and need to be tackled at the global, regional and national levels. As regards the meaning of threat to international security, the Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, entitled “A more secure world: our shared responsibility”, describes it as “Any event or process that leads to large-scale death or lessening of life chances and 3 Conforti, Benedetto. “Le pouvoir discrétionnaire du Conseil de Sécurité en matière de constatation d’une menace contre la paix d’une rupture de la paix ou d’un acte d’agression”, in Le développement du rôle du Conseil de Sécurité, Dordrecht/Boston/London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1993, pp. 51-60.
REVISTA IEEE 1
To see the actual publication please follow the link above