The Legitimacy of the Collective Authority of the Security Council

Abstract

The ideal, once it is embodied in an institution, ceases to be an ideal and becomes the expression of a selfish interest, which must be destroyed in the name of a new ideal. This constant interaction of irreconcilable forces is the stuff of politics. Every political situation contains mutually incompatible elements of utopia and reality, of morality and power.E. H. Carr[T]he crucial question is not what principle is acknowledged but who is accepted as the authoritative interpreter of the principle or, to put it in institutional terms, how the process of legitimization works.Inis Claude, Jr.At this pivotal point in history, a fundamental and oft-raised issue is “international governance.” Means of effective governance are seen as necessary to more complex arrangements of world order. But achieving effective governance ultimately will mean the existence of institutions that legislate, that is, institutions that make decisions binding on the whole. As a general matter, states have been skeptical of, if not hostile toward and consequently unwilling to accept, such governance. The United Nations Security Council is a notable exception; in the sometimes broad, sometimes narrow, area of international peace and security, the Security Council has taken decisions in the name of, and binding upon, the entire international community.