Abstract
This Article has three parts. Part I will discuss the existing legal framework established by the UN Charter governing the use of force. It questions whether this structure has succeeded in regulating state practice, and describes both the proposed reforms and the new international environment that prompted them. Part II criticizes the reforms' response to the rise of rogue nations and international terrorism by emphasizing the legal doctrine of imminence and a recentralization of power in the UN Security Council. It argues that the concept of imminence does not make sense, and should be replaced by a cost-benefit analysis of expected harm. Part III addresses whether the reforms successfully grapple with contemporary international problems from the perspective of global welfare analysis. It argues that enforcing peace and security by eliminating rogue nations, pursuing terrorists, or ending human rights disasters supplies an international public good, and that UN reforms will suppress, rather than increase, the amount of needed intervention. Perversely, the UN reforms will have the effect of retarding international cooperation to solve the very problems they seek to prevent.
Recommended Citation
Yoo, John C.
(2006)
"Force Rules: UN Reform and Intervention,"
Chicago Journal of International Law:
Vol. 6:
No.
2, Article 9.
Available at:
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cjil/vol6/iss2/9