Saving Succeeding Generations from the Scourge of War: The United Nations Security Council at 75

In its famous first words, the UN Charter expresses the determination of ＂the peoples of the United Nations [...] to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind＂. In order to achieve this, a new world organization was established, with a key responsibility for the Security Council.

The aim of this book is to evaluate the functioning of the Security Council during its first 75 years, from an institutional legal perspective. It analyzes three issues that were not only hotly debated when the United Nations was founded, but have also been highly relevant for the Council’s functioning in practice and are likely to remain so in the future: the right of veto for the permanent members, the rule of law, and the size of the Council (the need for enlargement).

Niels Blokker is Professor of International Institutional Law at Leiden University and was previously Deputy Legal Adviser at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Together with the late Henry Schermers, he has published International Institutional Law (Brill/Nijhoff, 6th ed. 2018). Together with Nico Schrijver, he has edited The Security Council and the Use of Force (Brill/Nijhoff, 2005) and Immunities of International Organizations (Brill/Nijhoff, 2015). He is co-founder and co-editor in chief of the journal International Organizations Law Review (Brill/Nijhoff).