Propuesta de desayunos para las escuelas

Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter defines the broad area of "security problems". There provisions, contained in two articles, relate particularly to military security. Article 47 provides for the setting up of a Military Staff Committee, to be composed of the chiefs of staff of the five permanent members of the Security Council (the Big Five) or their representatives, "to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council's military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its' disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament' ; and Article 26 places upon the Security Council final responsibility on cumulating plans "for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments." for the regulation or armaments." We shall discuss the attempts to implement these provisions and to deal with the problems raised by the development of weapons of mass destruction under three heads:

armed forces for the United Nations; the regulation and reduction of armaments;

and the control of atomic energy.

3.2.1 Armed Forces for the United Nations

The Military Staff Committee was established by the Security Council on January 25, 1946, in accordance with the provisions of the Charter. It was then specifically directed to undertake an examination of the military aspects and implications of Article 43, paragraph 1 of which reads as follows.

All members of -the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the' Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including the rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security."

This was certainly a large order: it was designed to give "teeth" to the UN. While Article 43 did not call for a real international police force it did provide that strong national contingents should be made available to the Security Council.

Most of the twenty-five meetings held in 1946 were devoted to consideration of the basic principles which should govern the organization of the national contingents and to work on a standard form of agreement to be used in negotiations between the Security Council and member states of the UN for the provision of “armed forces, assistance, and facilities”. On April 30, 1947, the committee submitted a lengthy report to the Security Council. It revealed that little progress had been made by the military experts of the Big Five and that serious differences of opinion had arisen between the representatives Soviet Union and the other members of the committee. The Soviet member insisted that under Article

43 each of the Big Five should make available to the Council armed forces of exactly the same strength and type. While the Western powers also favored a balanced force, with a comparable overall contribution by each of the Big Five, they favored different contributions in land, sea, and air components. Later various estimates showed the major powers to be far apart in their views of the strength and approximate composition of the armed forces which in their opinion should be made available by their nations to the Security Council Committee, rather than Security Council's Military Staff Committee, would prepare for the application of sanctions.

The military units to be at its disposal, however, would not be true United Nations forces but "national armed forces elements" made available by previous agreement -- in effect, a return to the League of Nations system of voluntary contributions. A few states, mostly small ones, have earmarked units of their armed forces for possible UN use, but the response of most UN members to the proposal was

"characterized in the main by vague approval but polite refusal to undertake any specific commitments" The Collective Measures Committee produced three reports-in 1951, 1952, and 1954-but it has been largely inactive since these years.

Beginning with the Korean action in 1950, military operations have been carried on under the UN flag on several dramatic occasions. The Korean case represented a departure, unlikely to be repeated, from the conception that the UN would not attempt to apply the principle of collective security to (crises involving great powers. In the Gaza Strip and in the Congo, the UN undertook its first peacekeeping operations - under Chapter VI and not Chapter VII of the Charter. In these instance it mobilized military units from several of its member states - with the great powers excluded from a major role - with results which were generally regarded as helpful in dealing with critical situation, hut which imposed such strains on the UN itself that the desirability or capacity of operating further peacekeeping operations was very much in question. In Cyprus the UN was also able to establish a peace keeping force at a critical stage of affairs on that troubled island; but this operation was limited, and most of the expenses. were met by the United States, the states which Provided troops, and voluntary contributions.

3.2.2 Disarmament and Arms Control

Article 11 of the United Nations Charter authorizes the General Assembly to consider "the principles governing disarmament and the regulation of armaments";

Article 26 makes the Security Council, with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee, responsible for the formulation of "plans ... for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments"; and Article 47 provides for the creation of the Military Staff Committee, “to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to,” inter alia, “the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament.” In general, however, the Charter did not emphasize the functions or

responsibilities of the UN in the vital areas of disarmament and arms control. "The Charter's provisions may be interpreted as a sober recognition of the facts that disarmament is peculiarly dependent upon agreement among the major powers, and that the potential role of international agencies in bringing about such accord is sharply limited". But the UN could hardly ignore what has, been termed "the most urgent and vital issue confronting the world," and it has been almost continuously involved, either directly or peripherally, in disarmament negotiations. At its first session, in 1946, the General Assembly established, first, an Atomic Energy Commission, and then a Commission on Conventional Armaments, both directly responsible to the Security Council. In 1952 these two commissions were merged into a single Disarmament Commission, which has sometimes been the main theater of disarmament and arms control negotiations, and which at other times has been largely ignored.

3.2.3 The Control of Atomic Energy

We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business. Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of Fear. Let us not deceive ourselves: We must elect World Peace or World Destruction.

With these vigorous words Bernard M. Baruch, United States representative on the Atomic Energy Commission of the United Nations, opened his address at the first session of the commission on June 14, 1946. A year before, when the final touches were being put on the United Nations Charter, the statesmen at San Francisco had been unaware that a new era was soon to be born. Less than two months later, however, the terrifying secret was disclosed when atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9), with devastating effect.

Realizing that atomic control could not be accomplished on the national level, the President of the United States and the Prime Ministers' of Great Britain and Canada, representing the governments which had collaborated during the war in the development of the atomic bomb, met in November, 1945, and issued an Agreed Declaration urging that international action for the control of atomic energy be taken under the auspices of the United Nations. The Soviet Union endorsed the declaration. In January, 1946, the General Assembly established the Atomic Energy Commission, composed of one representative of each of the stales on the Security Council and one from Canada. The Council was to issue directives to the AEC, approve its reports, recommendations, and rules of procedure, and transmit such of these as it chose to other UN agencies. In the same resolution the Council instructed the commission to proceed.

expanded quickly. Secretary-General Boutros Ghali, outlines the ambitious role of the UN in his seminal report: An agenda for peace. The report described interconnected roles for the UN to maintain peace and security in the post-cold war context race include:

• Preventive diplomacy: involving confidence-building measures, fact fording and preventive development of UN authorized forces.

• Peacemaking: designed to bring hostile parties to agreement, especially through peaceful means. However when all peaceful means have failed, peace enforcement authorized under chapter VII of the charter may be necessary. Peace enforcement may occur without the consent of the parties.

• Peace-keeping: the development of a UN presence in the field with the consent of all parties, this refers to classical peace-keeping.

• Post-conflict peace building: to develop the social political and economic infrastructure to prevent further violence and to consolidate peace.