- Submitted by: ocii - Views: 952 - Category: History - Date
Submitted: 07/27/2010 09:27 AM - Pages: 11 Discuss the Role of
the United Nations Under what conditions is the use of force
“legitimate”? This is a question that has had many answers
through the centuries. Force was once legitimate when used in a
just cause according to Catholic doctrine, when used to expand
an empire, or when used to unite a nation. The drama of the 20th
century, from an international legal point of view, is the
effort for the first time actually to outlaw the use of force
except when used in self-defense, and to transfer the legitimate
use of force to a multilateral institution. That is the signal
legal achievement of the UN Charter, the structure created by
the combination of Article 2(4), Article 51, and Chapter VII.
Today these rules need to be rewritten, or at least amended. The
Charter rules were written for the last war – for a classic
inter-state conflict waged by standing armies of identifiable
soldiers. As horrific as the