UNSC as Global Enforcement Agency

No world government can arrest a state, but one body can order every UN member to freeze a regime's assets, ground its airline, and, in the last resort, authorise force against it. That is the Security Council acting as the closest thing international law has to a global enforcement agency, a role no other UN organ, not the General Assembly, not the ICJ, was built to hold.

In two minutes

The Security Council is the UN organ vested with primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, and its Chapter VII powers, binding on every member state, make it the only body in the UN system capable of genuine global enforcement.

The rest of this chapter

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