Last Friday, ASIL Insights published an article that I authored,
"Legality of Intervention in Syria in Response to Chemical Weapon Attacks." I followed it up yesterday was an expanded commentary at Lawfare,
"Five Fundamental International Law Approaches to the Legality of a Syria Intervention." A number of readers of the expanded Lawfare post queried me about remarks made near the end of that (lengthy) post concerning the role of the Security Council.
Insofar as the disagreements about Syria are serious ones among the great powers, and among permanent five members of the Security Council (I said in that post), the architecture of the Charter is deliberately designed to impose a standstill on action insofar as permanent, P-5 great powers see their interests as being seriously threatened. American officials have said, in effect, that it’s a
flaw of the international order that the Security Council can become deadlocked on a vital issue such as Syria’s chemical weapons use. From the standpoint of the institutional and historical design of the Security Council, that’s a
feature, however, not a bug. It’s a deliberate design feature because it aims at bringing matters to a deadlocked standstill where the risk is great power conflict that might conceivably lead to war among them. No doubt that is not an issue here and now, but if the preservation of the norm against chemical weapon use is a pragmatic concern, it is also a pragmatic concern that the role of the Security Council not be undermined. The Security Council "bypassed,” as the Russian foreign ministry spokesman said, in ways that might, over time, lead to serious conflicts among the great powers – including those great powers that are not today permanent members of the Security Council.
