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This article examines the UN Security Council’s response to the escalating COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which has been criticised as hesitant and half-hearted. It argues that the Council’s inability to respond more assertively to the COVID threat was more predictable than surprising. Indeed, the Council’s approach to the COVID threat tended to follow, rather than diverge from, its past practice, exhibiting three increasingly entrenched features of Council decision-making in a crisis. First, the Council is hesitant and ill-equipped to respond to non-traditional or unorthodox threats to international peace and security, even where relevant precedents exist to support such a response. Second, the Council struggles to act when there is friction between permanent members. Third, when all else fails, the Council can still do reliably well on process.

This article considers the recent ‘Backlash’ against global norms and institutions fuelled by various contemporary political developments within and between states. Understanding the shape, significance and drivers of this phenomenon better is a pre-requisite to developing and analysing possible responses by Australia and other states. The recent rise of populism and ‘illiberal democracy’ especially within major Western democracies has challenged the longstanding and widespread commitment of those states to the rules-based order. These phenomena have also eroded the traditional global leadership, in multilateral forums, of key powers including UN permanent members the United States and the United Kingdom. The populations of these and other states have responded to perceptions of economic and political disempowerment by pressuring political representatives to focus their energies domestically. In order both to appeal and respond to domestic political forces, leaders in these states have sought to target or sometimes scapegoat the international institutions that have hitherto been so useful to their foreign policy agenda. This article examines the consequences of understanding the current populist moment as part of a Backlash against global law and institutions and the ramifications of the Backlash frame for international peace and security. It also considers the implications of the Backlash frame for the international human rights system, the impact of the turn inward for global trade and finance and the Backlash against environmental norms.

This Essay examines a series of paradoxes that have rendered the international legal order's mechanisms for collective action powerless precisely when they are needed most to fight COVID-19. The “patriotism paradox” is that disengagement from the international legal order weakens rather than strengthens state sovereignty. The “border paradox” is that securing domestic populations by excluding noncitizens, in the absence of accompanying regulatory mechanisms to secure adherence to internal health measures, accelerates viral spread among citizens. The “equality paradox” is that while pandemics pose an equal threat to all people, their impacts compound existing inequalities.

This article reassesses how members of the UN Security Council exercise influence over the Council’s decision-making process, with particular focus on the ten elected members (the E10). A common understanding of Security Council dynamics accords predominance to the five permanent members (the P5), suggesting bleak prospects for the Council as a forum that promotes the voices and representation of the 188 non-permanent members. The assumption is that real power rests with the P5, while the E10 are there to make up the numbers. By articulating a richer account of Council dynamics, this article contests the conventional wisdom that P5 centrality crowds out space for the E10 to influence Council decision-making. It also shows that opportunities for influencing Council decision-making go beyond stints of elected membership. It argues that the assumed centrality of the P5 on the Council thus needs to be qualified and re-evaluated.

There is scepticism about whether a state like Australia can secure its interests and exercise influence on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). A case study of Australia’s experience as a UNSC member in 2013–2014 shows that it directly influenced UNSC decision-making in a number of ways: first, in the response to the MH17 incident; second, pushing forward UNSC practice through the first-ever resolutions on both ‘small arms and light weapons’ and police in peacekeeping; and third, as chair of three sanctions committees, influencing the decision-making environment towards greater transparency. While Australia did not achieve all its objectives, it made its views well-known. A second case study demonstrates that Australia’s opportunities to influence UNSC decision-making are not limited to stints of membership. Australia was able to achieve many of its foreign policy objectives in East Timor in 1999 through strategically engaging with key UNSC players through an informal diplomatic grouping: ...

This chapter examines the most prominent forms of international organization sanctions, namely United Nations (UN) and European Union (EU) sanctions. It first examines the constitutional basis, scope, and administration of UN and EU sanctions. It then compares and contrasts these two models, discussing how the interests of peace and security, on the one hand, and human rights and the rule of law, on the other, can sometimes come into conflict in the application of international organization sanctions. It shows that the UN sanctions decision-making system tends to prioritize peace and security, whereas the EU sanctions decision-making system tends to prioritize the rule of law. The chapter argues that neither tradition of international organization sanctions has found the right balance, and that the ongoing contest between peace and security and the rule of law will continue to shape and constrain international organization sanctions decision-making for the foreseeable future.

In this article, we examine how the tension between justice and force informs the efforts of the United Nations (un) to promote the rule of law through its peace operations. We begin by showing how the un’s discourse of ‘securing peace’ has three antagonistic propositions holding it together in a combustible way. The propositions are: first, peace contains the force of war; second, law contains the force of peace; and third, justice contains the force of law. With the antagonistic arrangement of these propositions in mind, we then show how the un has developed two contrasting approaches to promoting the rule of law through its peace operations, which we describe as its ‘aspirational’ and ‘operational’ visions of the rule of law. The aspirational vision combines the need for an effective and accountable security sector with a focus on the substantive requirements of justice, thus aspiring to bring all three propositions together in the rule of law. By contrast, the un’s operational vision prioritizes security, stability and order, thus losing sight of the importance of justice. We demonstrate this divergence between the un’s aspirational and operational visions through a study of the un’s peace operations in Liberia between 1993 and 2014, with a focus on the rule of law promotion activities of the un Mission in Liberia (unmil). We argue that the un’s efforts to promote the rule of law through its peace operations risk establishing the conditions for a state of tyranny if they lose sight of the antagonistic but co-dependent relationship between justice and force. The challenge is to prioritize the requirements of force and justice at the same time. While this will not resolve their antagonistic relationship, it has the virtue of acknowledging their co-dependency as an uncomfortable yet unavoidable condition of a state based on the rule of law.

The chapter demonstrates that the UN Security Council (UNSC) is increasingly applying sanctions with the aim of pursuing the individuals who have committed serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The chapter argues that, while the use of UN sanctions to respond to a mass atrocity crisis does send an important signal of global condemnation, sanctions are likely to be most influential as one element in a long-term conflict resolution strategy. Because sanctions require time to take effect, their potential impact is strongest as part of an upstream, preventive attempt to avert a budding crisis, or as part of a post-crisis effort to hold perpetrators accountable. The ability of UN sanctions to make a meaningful contribution to the promotion of the responsibility to protect will depend upon the extent to which broader sanctions reform efforts achieve their goal of making sanctions more effective and more legitimate.

Introduction On 24 September 2003 the United Nations (UN) Security Council (UNSC) inaugurated a new agenda item entitled ‘Justice and the Rule of Law’, acknowledging the UNSC’s ‘heavy responsibility to promote justice and the rule of law in its efforts to maintain international peace and security’.1 This book examines how the UNSC has responded to this mandate, particularly in the areas of peacekeeping, sanctions and the use of force. The contributors to this volume discuss both how the concept of the rule of law (ROL) regulates, or influences, UNSC activity and how the UNSC has in turn shaped the notion of the ROL. The UNSC’s designation of the ROL as an important theme offers principled law as the solution to the problem of unprincipled politics, and stable peace as the alternative to destabilising war. The idea is that threats to peace and security should be managed in accordance with the norms and values enshrined in the UN Charter. However, as many contributors to this collection note, the concept of the ROL is famously opaque and contested. Some commentators question the ability of the ROL to guide actions to maintain international peace and security on the basis that it is insufficiently coherent.2 Others criticise attempts to transplant a notion with western origins and an associated suite of western rule-oflaw institutions into other contexts.3 The veto power accorded to the UNSC’s five permanent members by the UN Charter is also regarded as undermining the capacity of the ROL to temper the exercise of raw power in and through the UNSC.4 The relationship between the UNSC and the ROL provides a fascinating case study of how powerful actors both shape and are shaped by powerful ideas. Terence Halliday has pointed to the tension between two different modes of UNSC interaction with the ROL – the external and the internal. Halliday describes the UNSC’s external invocations of the concept as ROL ‘on the offense’ and claims of internal disregard of the ROL placing the UNSC ‘on the defence’.5 It is difficult for the UNSC to claim to act in the name of the ROL externally, without at the same time accepting the concept’s applicability to the internal workings of the UNSC. Given these tensions and weaknesses in the ROL, how does it regulate behaviour in the international arena?

This article applies Diehl & Druckman’s peace operation evaluation framework to the activities of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) during the Liberian transitional peace process (2003-2006). It finds that in general UNMIL performed strongly during the transitional period, particularly in relation to the core mission goals of violence abatement, conflict containment, conflict settlement and organizational effectiveness. UNMIL’s achievements were less clear and less pronounced in relation to the more complex areas of non-traditional and peacebuilding mission goals. The article also provides critical reflections on the framework for evaluating peace operations, arguing that it is difficult to escape the politics that influence the activities of peacekeeping and peacebuilding.

Introduction Between 1990 and 2003 the United Nations applied comprehensive economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime. The sanctions aimed to prevent the flow to and from Iraq of all but the most basic of food and medical supplies. They were heavily criticised for the impact they had on Iraqi civilians. Some critics went so far as to describe the Iraq sanctions as ‘the UN's weapon of mass destruction’, as ‘a genocidal tool’ and as ‘modern siege warfare’. Stung by this kind of criticism, the UN Security Council created the Oil-for-Food Programme (OFFP). The OFFP was designed to permit the closely regulated export of Iraqi oil to finance the purchase of humanitarian supplies. To a large extent the OFFP did channel essential supplies to a population in desperate need. However, as the Volcker Independent Inquiry Committee concluded, the programme was exploited by the Hussein regime. A number of foreign companies were exposed as having made illegal side payments to the Hussein regime in the course of providing humanitarian supplies to Iraq under the umbrella of the OFFP. One of the worst offenders was AWB Limited (AWB Ltd) and its subsidiary AWB International Limited (AWB(I)). The abuse of the OFFP by AWB Ltd, which came to be known in Australia as the ‘Wheat-for-Weapons scandal’, raised a number of interesting legal questions. The UN sanctions regime imposed against Iraq created a web of legal obligations for UN member states.

Introduction: The chapters in this collection use the example of United Nations sanctions as a means to explore the questions of accountability and governance that arise when legal norms are applied with cross-boundary effect. The boundaries in question are both physical, in the sense of clearly delineated national borders, as well as conceptual, as with the traditional distinctions that are drawn between the domains of public and private law, and between international and domestic law.

Introduction: filling or falling between the cracks? Law's potential Jeremy Farrall and Kim Rubenstein Part I. Setting Down the Foundations: 1. Whose public? Which law? Mapping the internal/external distinction in international law Peter G. Danchin 2. The potential for a post-Westphalian convergence of 'Public Law' and 'Public International Law' Charles Sampford Part II. Internationalising Public Law: 3. Globalisation and public law: a global administrative law? Simon Chesterman 4. The deliberative deficit: transparency, access to information and UN sanctions Devika Hovell 5. Who guards the guardian? Towards regulation of the UN security council's chapter VII powers through dialogue Hitoshi Nasu 6. Holding the United Nations security council accountable for human rights violations through domestic and regional courts: a case of 'Be Careful What You Wish For'? Erika de Wet Part III. Implementing Security Council Sanctions: 7. 'A Delicate Business': did AWB's kickbacks to Iraq under the United Nations Oil-For-Food Programme constitute a violation of Australia's international obligations? Kevin Boreham 8. Should the United Nations security council leave it to the experts? The governance and accountability of UN sanctions monitoring Jeremy Farrall Part IV. The Place of Corporations: 9. The nexus between human rights and business: defining the sphere of corporate responsibility Justine Nolan 10. At the intersection of international and municipal law: the case of Commissioner Cole and the Wheat Export Authority Linda Botterill and Anne McNaughton Part V. The Role of Lawyers: 11. International legal advisers and transnational corporations: untangling roles and responsibilities for sanctions compliance Stephen Tully 12. What is the right thing to do? Reflections on the AWB scandal and legal ethics Vivien Holmes Part VI. Public Law and Public Policy: 13. Who's responsible? Justiciability of private and political decisions Daniel Stewart 14. AWB and oil for food: some issues of accountability Richard Mulgan Part VII. Parallel Case Studies: 15. Discriminating for world peace Simon Rice 16. Removing barriers to protection at the exported border: visas, carrier sanctions, and international obligation Angus Francis Concluding remarks Thomas Pogge.

Introduction Post-conflict interveners tend to invoke big, abstract, idealistic, intertwined, self-evidently good ideas to justify their interventions in foreign societies. Democracy, justice, liberty, human rights and security are just some of these concepts. Another is the rule of law. As with each of these ideas, it is difficult to argue in the abstract that efforts to build the rule of law could be anything other than a good thing. But the devil is in the detail. Just what is meant by the rule of law and whose law does it imply? As Grenfell explores elsewhere in this volume, is it a principle of international law or domestic law, or both? Is it Western, state-based law or indigenous customary law, or both? Over the last decade, the United Nations Security Council has increasingly sought to promote the rule of law in post-conflict environments by including the task of strengthening the rule of law in the mandates of UN peacekeeping operations. The combined approach of the Council, the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations and specific UN peacekeeping operations suggests that the rule of law is something that is commonly understood and can easily be (re)produced, (re)created or (re)constructed in any post-conflict situation. The implication is that the challenge is simply to get the strategy right: to identify a good blueprint, to adapt it to the particular circumstances of each situation and then to access and allocate sufficient human and financial resources to bring success.

Introduction Brett Bowden, Hilary Charlesworth and Jeremy Farrall 1. The 'state-building enterprise': legal doctrine, progress narratives and managerial governance Outi Korhonen 2. Democratisation, state-building and politics as technology Nehal Bhuta 3. International law, human rights and the transformative occupation of Iraq Peter G. Danchin 4. Defining democracy in international institutions Brett Bowden and Hilary Charlesworth 5. Democracy and legitimation: challenges in the reconstitution of political processes in Afghanistan William Maley 6. Impossible expectations? The UN security council's promotion of the rule of law after conflict Jeremy Farrall 7. Legal pluralism and the challenge of building the rule of law in post-conflict states - a case study of Timor-Leste Laura Grenfell 8. From paper to practice: the role of treaty ratification post-conflict Helen Durham 9. Selective universality? Human rights accountability of the UN in post-conflict operations Annemarie Devereux 10. Security starts with the law: the role of international law in the protection of women's security post-conflict Amy Maguire 11. Grappling in the Great Lakes: the challenges of international justice in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda Phil Clark 12. Conclusion: hope and humility for weavers with international law John Braithwaite.

The United Nations Security Council has increasingly resorted to sanctions as part of its efforts to prevent and resolve conflict. In this 2007 book, Farrall traces the evolution of the Security Council's sanctions powers and charts the contours of the UN sanctions system. He also evaluates the extent to which the Security Council's increasing commitment to strengthening the rule of law extends to its sanctions practice. The book identifies shortcomings in respect of key rule of law principles and advances pragmatic policy-reform proposals designed to ensure that UN sanctions promote, strengthen and reinforce the rule of law. In its appendices United Nations Sanctions and the Rule of Law contains summaries of all 25 UN sanctions regimes established to date by the Security Council. It forms an invaluable source of reference for diplomats, policymakers, scholars and advocates.

Since the end of the Cold War, the UN Security Council has frequently endorsed the notion that democracy and democratic governance are desirable preconditions for domestic stability and international peace and security. However, the Security Council’s response to the 2008 Zimbabwean presidential elections called into question, perhaps for the first time since the end of the Cold War, its commitment to democracy as the preferred from of domestic governance. In this article, the author discusses the concept of the democratic deficit and explores its application to the UN Security Council. In addition, the author examines the relationship between democracy and international law, retracing the argument that there is an international norm promoting democratic governance. Finally, the author examines the relationship between the Security Council and democracy, suggesting a growing formal commitment to democracy, particularly in post-conflict environments.

The UN Charter gives the Security Council the extraordinary function of being responsible for international peace and security. Although the Permanent Five members are disproportionately powerful, there is nevertheless scope for elected members to influence the Council's decisionmaking processes during their short two-year terms. This article uses Australia's membership in 2013 and 2014 as a case study to examine why states seek election to the Council, means through which they can strengthen their influence, how they can navigate P5 power, how successful they are in achieving their objectives, and how the effectiveness of both elected members and the Council as a whole could be improved. Despite the substantial constraints facing elected members, those that are imaginative and industrious can nevertheless make influential contributions to achievement of the Council's purposes.

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