Disobeying the Security Council Countermeasures against Wrongful Sanctions

by Tzanakopoulos, Antonios

• ISBN13: 9780199600762
• ISBN10: 0199600767
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-04-08
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Disobeying the Security Council examines how the United Nations Security Council, in exercising its power to impose binding non-forcible measures ('sanctions') under Article 41 of the UN Charter, may violate international law, in the sense of limits on its power imposed by the UN Charter itself and by general international law, including human rights guarantees. Such acts may engage the international responsibility of the United Nations, the organization of which the Security Council is an organ. It then proceeds to assess how and by whom the engagement of this responsibility can be determined. Most importantly, the book discusses how and by whom the responsibility of the UN for unlawful Security Council sanctions can be implemented. In other words, how the UN can be held to account for Security Council excesses. The central thesis of this work is that States can respond to unlawful sanctions imposed by the Security Council, in a decentralized manner, by disobeying the Security Council's command. In international law, this disobedience can be justified as constituting a countermeasure to the Security Council's unlawful act. Recent practice of States, both in the form of executive acts and court decisions, demonstrates an increasing tendency to disobey sanctions that are perceived as unlawful. After discussing other possible qualifications of disobedience under international law, the book concludes that this practice can (and should) be qualified as a countermeasure.

Author Biography

Antonios Tzanakopoulos is Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Glasgow. Prior to that, he taught at the University of Oxford in Public International Law. He studied law in Athens, New York and Oxford. Antonios is a qualified lawyer with the Athens Bar in Greece, Associate Editor for the Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts, and collaborateur scientifique of the Hellenic Institute for International and Foreign Law.

Table of Contents

Table of Cases	p. xiii
Table of Other Primary Authorities	p. xxiii
List of Abbreviations	p. xxvii
Responsibility as a Form of Accountability and the UN Legal Order	p. 1
Forms of Accountability and the Significance of (Legal) Responsibility	p. 2
Accountability for the Exercise of Non-Forcible Powers by the Security Council	p. 7
The Engagement of Responsibility
Attribution of Conduct to the United Nations	p. 17
Attribution of Security Council Conduct to the United Nations	p. 19
Attribution of Member State Conduct to the United Nations	p. 33
Derivative Responsibility of the UN for Internationally Wrongful Acts of Member States-Attribution of Responsibility rather than Conduct	p. 45
Interim Conclusion	p. 52
The Element of Breach: Sources of Obligations Incumbent upon the United Nations	p. 54
Charter Law: The Lex Specialis	p. 57
General International Law: The Lex Generalis	p. 69
Interim Conclusion	p. 83
The Determination of Responsibility
Judicial Determination	p. 87
The Question of Qualification of Judicial Involvement	p. 88
Judicial Determination of Responsibility	p. 90
'Judicial Review' of Council Action	p. 94
Interim Conclusion	p. 110
Determination by States	p. 112
States as Judices in Causae Suae	p. 113
The Exercise of the Power of Auto-Determination	p. 123
Interim Conclusion	p. 136
The Consequences of Responsibility
The Content of International Responsibility	p. 141
Cessation: Between Performance and Restitution	p. 141
Reparation	p. 144
Interim Conclusion	p. 152
Implementation through Self-Enforcement	p. 154
Availability of Countermeasures	p. 155
Disobedience	p. 157
Other Countermeasures	p. 191
'Lawful' Measures by States 'Other than the Injured State'	p. 198
General Conclusion	p. 201
Bibliography	p. 205
Index	p. 235
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