Week 18

• The Three Pillars of the United Nations are:

  • International peace & security
  • Development
  • Human rights

  These pillars are interlinked
• There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development
• Article 2(7) of the UN Charter states no UN interference with matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State
• Human rights law sometimes entails limitations to national sovereignty and non-interference, where needed to protect them, limiting the applicability of Article 2(7) to human rights
• Many UN bodies play a role in human rights protection
• The Security Council is not a human rights body according to Article 24(1) of the UN Charter, but its role in human rights protection has developed significantly due to the interplay between international peace & security and human rights
• Peace enforcement under Chapter VII of the UN Charter includes triggers like 'a threat to the peace', giving the UNSC wide discretion in determining situations threatening peace
• Issues like a humanitarian crisis, environmental degradation, and serious breaches of international law, especially human rights and humanitarian law, can be considered threats to peace
• The UNSC has established observer missions, peacekeeping operations, and peace enforcement operations for the protection of civilians, human rights, humanitarian aid, and post-conflict peacebuilding
• Since the 2000s, the UNSC has adopted thematic resolutions on the interplay of peace & security with human rights, such as the protection of civilians in armed conflict
• The UNSC recognizes the nexus between human rights and international peace and security, evident in both thematic and country/region-specific resolutions and other outputs
• Humanitarian intervention involves the use of force by states in a third state to counter gross human rights violations, but its legality depends on the interpretation of the UN Charter and the development of customary Public International Law
• 'Regime change' is considered illegal, and the application of humanitarian intervention, like in Kosovo, has been a subject of debate
• The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) aims to protect people from gross human rights violations, atrocities, and international crimes, developed by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)
• R2P involves the responsibilities to prevent, react, and rebuild in cases of gross human rights violations, with any foreign intervention ideally based on a UNSC mandate
• The UNSC has referred to R2P in over 80 resolutions, grounding its role in human rights protection
• R2P has sparked debate, with some viewing it as an emerging legal norm while others fear it as a disguised form of humanitarian intervention
• R2P has been applied in situations like Darfur and Libya, aiming to address contemporary security challenges and human suffering beyond the current UNSC-centered system of collective security