Six senses of the UN Security Council’s interactions with the concept of international responsibility: complicating to contextualise

This article brings into focus the relationship between United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decision-making under Chapter VII of the UN Charter and the concept of international responsibility. Beginning with the very treaty provision that establishes the UNSC’s position at the apex of the UN Charter collective security regime, Article 24(1), which confers on the UNSC ‘primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security’, but also in many other senses, this fundamental concept of international law is central to almost every aspect of the law and practice of the primary political organ of the United Nations. The senses of the UNSC’s responsibility are varied. Each sense of responsibility carries a subtly different meaning and is context-dependent. The author argues that, in traditional accounts, this variety is often overlooked. Either explicitly or more often implicitly, the international legal psyche draws us to a narrower, paradigmatic account of international legal responsibility, one that associates responsibility only with the consequences of a breach of an international obligation. This article aims to complicate and unsettle this approach, to open space for a more context-sensitive perspective on the UNSC’s interactions with the concept of international responsibility.