Introduction to conflict Studies

Introduction to Conflict
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Q1. Strengths and weaknesses of the Security Council in international and intra national conflict resolution
The Security Council is mandated to solve both international and intra national conflicts under the UN Charter. Thus, one of the strengths of the group is that it is mandated to take aggressive action including sanctions, and use of force. Nonetheless, peacekeeping is the most visible action that the Security Council uses for conflict management. During the Cold War era, the Security Council was mostly mandated to using peacekeeping operations owing to the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union. Many other conflicts have seen the organization result to peacekeeping together with humanitarian help.
Nonetheless, the use of peacekeeping mission presents a problem to the Security Council because of the veto power of the five permanent members. The veto power has over time become a tool to exert geo political interest among the world’s major powers. Thus, even mandating the use of peacekeeping missions does not always happen because of the suspicions of US, Russian and China, where by America seems to have different interests than the other two countries. Politics plays a major role in using veto power, and the five permanent members can bypass the UN to either mandate or deny the mandate to use peacekeeping missions. It appears as if the Security Council merely acts on those conflicts where all the permanent members agree that there is a need to intervene.
The Security Council has had a mixed record in international and intra national conflict resolution, where decision making of major world power allows the Council to use Collective security. Nonetheless, the Council still faces challenges in the face of mounting pressure to deploy more peacekeeping forces to war torn countries. However, most intra national conflicts have a political angle, but the Security Counc...