ULTRA VIRES AND THE LIMITS OF LEGALITY OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL (UNSC)

Abstract

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is, in many ways, a unique institution. It exercises legislative, judicial and executive powers; operates with few legally binding checks and balances and has even been described as being "˜unbound by law'. The UNSC represents one of the organs of the United Nations. The Council has broad powers to maintain international peace and security, most notably under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and its decisions are binding on UN members. At the same time, some of the Council's actions have been labelled as ultra vires and the lack of a binding, legal oversight mechanism to reign in Council action has been decried. Accepting that there is a difficulty in imposing legally binding checks and balances on the UNSC, this article argues that approaching the Council's Chapter VII powers as a form of emergency powers may help to illuminate the role that non-legal restraints can play in curbing its power. In particular, this article uses Oren Gross' "˜extra-legal measures model' to show how the extra-legal measures model offers a descriptive account of UNSC action under Chapter VII and then builds on the gap in the application of the model to the Council to highlight areas for the development of better restraints. The first section provides a brief history of the United Nations as an International Institution; the second section sketches the United Nations Security Council and its powers under Chapters VI and VII of UN Charter; the third section looks at the Ultra Vires acts of the UNSC; the concluding section looked into various models and most especially "Oren Gross" model as an extra legal measure that would provide answer to the limits of legality of the UNSC.  To achieve this, the work explored various relevant literatures and also using data and information retrieved from both the primary sources and secondary sources as reference bank.