United Nations Charter, Chapter VII, Article 43: Now or Never

Abstract

For more than 75 years, the United Nations Charter has functioned without the benefit of Chapter VII, Article 43, which commits all United Nations member states "to make available to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces, assistance, facilities, including rights of passage necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security." The consequences imposed by this 1945 decision have had a dramatic negative impact on the United Nation's functional capacity as a global body for peace and security. This article summarizes the struggle to implement Article 43 over the decades from the onset of the Cold War, through diplomatic attempts during the post-Cold War era, to current and often controversial attempts to provide some semblance of conflict containment through peace enforcement missions. The rapid growth of globalization and the capability of many nations to provide democratic protections to their populations are again threatened by superpower hegemony and the development of novel unconventional global threats. The survival of the United Nations requires many long overdue organizational structure and governance power reforms, including implementation of a robust United Nations Standing Task Force under Article 43. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;page 1 of 8).

Estimating the Number of Civilian Casualties in Modern Armed Conflicts–A Systematic Review

“…The undeniable failure of international bodies to commit to humanitarian principles and the global disarray of the humanitarian system indicates the need for extensive reform in the current structure or a new global humanitarian body. Such afresh organization needs to employ a decentralized model to manage aid funds, assume coordination of international responses, resolve civil-military coordination, cater for people affected by both conflict and disasters, and professionalize the humanitarian career (101)(102)(103). Meanwhile, using the data presented in this study, even the lowest number of casualties inflicted by the modern armed conflicts may be enough to paralyze any healthcare system and indicates a need for new measures beyond a simple casualty estimation tool.…”

Civilian Population Victimization: A Systematic Review Comparing Humanitarian and Health Outcomes in Conventional and Hybrid Warfare

“…14,15,20 Of significance in both the current Ukrainian war and similar HWs is the emergence of Lawfare, which according to Dunlap, is 'the strategy of using (or misusing) law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective.' [24][25][26] An immediate outcome of Lawfare is its impact on the international law and judicial processes, weakening the International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law, which may become entirely inapplicable. 17,27,28 From an HW perspective, there is an increase in war crimes, social chaos, and internal criminality in the invaded nation by unconventional actors who can operate beyond the control of states by bypassing interstate and international borders' norms and agreements.…”

“…15,20,71 It is not a secret that qualified healthcare in harmony with equality and safety can only be offered when the society allows critical evaluation and follows democratic values. 25 There are clear signs of how scientific and technological progress, political, social, economic, environmental, and military factors, may influence the transformation of liberal-democratic regimes and the global order. 72 In order to guarantee social liberty, human rights, and the right to enjoy proper healthcare in peace and war, there is a need to preserve a liberal-democratic state-legal regime as the most successful of all administrations offered to the public and future generations.…”

The United Nations and Its Duty to Implement International Protection: Studying Different Situations in Three Different Continents

“…According to Gisslen, such these questions and like others are still debated, especially with the Syrian civil war. According to human rights agencies, Assad-led regime practiced stressful human rights violations against the civilians, and based on intense discussions, this disaster entails legality of humanitarian interventions (Burckle, 2018). But the consensus by the international law community was that the humanitarian intervention is considered as illegal.…”

“…Following the end of the Cold War, the UN Security Council issued numerous resolutions, based on Chapter VII of the Charter, concerning the settlement of issues that were not traditional among the sources of the threat to international peace and security (Burckle, 2018). Since the end of the cold war, humanitarian intervention, and sometimes, military intervention were necessarily emerged to save victims by preventing or stopping violence (Bertschinger, 2016).…”