UNSC - United Nations Security Council

The United Nations Security Council, which was created in 1945 by the permanent members’ ratification of the United Nations Charter, has the primary responsibility of maintaining peace and security in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN. The Chapter V of the UN Charter is dedicated to the Security Council’s basic structure.

The UNSC has the power to take all kinds of measures needed for the fulfillment of its mission. Among these, the Council should examine the existing controversial situations acting in order to avoid any possible international hostility, to regulate production and trade of armaments in the world, to impose sanctions on aggressor countries and require nations to implement peaceful sanctions, such as in economic order, and to prevent or dissuade possible aggressions.

As measures of administrative nature, the board is responsible to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the UN General-Secretary; jointly with the Assembly, elect judges for the International Court of Justice and finally, make annual and special reports to the Assembly.

The Security Council is composed of fifteen member states. Among them, five are permanent (United States, France, United Kingdom, Russian Federation and China) and the other ten have a two-year term mandate. These are chosen in a geographic logic, which balances the representation from all the continents. Nine of fifteen votes, including all the permanent members, are needed for the approval of any measure.

Unlike regular UN bodies, which can only make recommendations to governments, the Security Council makes decisions that, following the UN Charter, must be accepted and observed by all UN members.

TOPIC A – Implementation of the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire.

In 1948 Lebanon has supported Arab countries against Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Although this support was not significant, and it was not proven that Lebanese troops have invaded Israel, almost a hundred thousand Palestinians fled to Lebanon as refugees. Israel did not allow them to come back, therefore they continued living in Lebanon, and until nowadays even their descendents have their citizenships denied. Israel, among other actions, expanded its territory about 8 kilometers into Lebanon, and that was the beginning of many problems involving these two countries.

At this matter, it’s notable that, after State of Israel’s foundation, the Lebanon-Israel conflict increased the instability of Middle East. The clear Arabic opposition face to this act of the United Nations generated, and still generates, a great number of political, ideological, religious and military conflicts. As the territorial division agreement between the old Palestine and Israel failed, the shackle among them rose.

In the 1970s context, a civil war broke out in Lebanon and the border between this country and Israel was under constant tension, mainly due to the relocation of armed Palestinians from Jordan to Lebanon. From this nation were launched several attacks directed to Israel, meanwhile this State has counter-attacked the Palestinian bases located in Lebanese lands. On March 11th, 1978, a great Palestinian offensive killed hundreds of Israeli people and left many injured. The PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), founded in 1964 to represent the Palestinian people and enjoyed the observer status by UN in 1974, claimed the responsibility for the attacks. Israel, in turn, invaded the Lebanese territory and dominated almost the entire southern part of this country.

Right after the invasion, the Lebanese Government submitted the matter to the United Nations Security Council, stating that had no connection with PLO and demanding immediate action from this organism. The Council acted quickly and approved the 425 and 426 (1978) resolutions, requiring from Israel the immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of troops from Lebanon. It also created, in the way to accomplish these matters, the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) with three broadly defined purposes: confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces; restoring international peace and security; and assisting the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area. The first UNIFIL troops arrived in the area on 23 March 1978. [1]

Breaking the cease-fire agreement, Israel invaded southern Lebanon causing an intense exchange of fire. In 1982, after an Israeli Diplomat was assassinated, Israel blamed PLO and invaded Lebanon reaching and surrounding Beirut. This started a war in which thousands of civilians were killed and wounded, and the territories were ruined. In 1985, Israel carried out a partial withdrawal, but it retained control of an area in southern Lebanon manned by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and by Lebanese de facto forces (DFF), the so-called "South Lebanon Army" (SLA). In 2000 Israel officially notified UN their withdrawal of the area. UNIFIL was still monitoring the area and making sure all remained in peace and controlled.

However, the peace ended in 2006, when the Hezbollah - a Islamic political and paramilitary organization based in Lebanon, many condemn its actions, while others raise it as a party - militants fired rockets at Israel, after attacking two jeeps that were patrolling the Israeli side of the border. This resulted in a massive attack from Israel, destroying civilian infrastructure, including Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport, in an air and naval blockade, and in a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah launched more rockets, and so on, until the UN Security Council approved UN Resolution 1701 calling for a full cessation of hostilities in the month-long war based upon, in particular, “the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations” in Lebanon, and called on both Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and comprehensive solution to the crisis. By resolution 1701, the Council has significantly enhanced UNIFIL (from about 2,000 troops just before the war to the authorized level of 15,000 military personnel) and expanded its original mandate. [2]

Over the years, the conflict between the territories has not stopped and the Council demanded the cessation of hostilities several times, especially in 1982 and 2006. The action of groups like Hezbollah and the PLO, and the constant Israeli interventions in Lebanon, contribute to the attacks continuation. There are found, therefore, frequent violations of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.      

It’s important to notice that the deadlock between these two countries does not represent an isolated fact. An analysis of the Middle East geopolitics reveals the link between conflicts, groups and countries, and, therefore, this issue cannot be restricted to the interaction of these two nations.

TOPIC B - Threats concerning the occupation, exploitation and militarization of the Arctic.

The region where the Arctic is located is inserted in the Arctic Circle, which includes the North Pole and the Arctic Ocean. According to recent studies, about 25% of the world’s oil reserves are located in the depths of that pole’s sea. The major difficulty for its extraction is to perforate the permafrost, a solid and permanent deposit of ice that composes the Arctic.

Unlike Antarctica, the North Pole is not a piece of ice-covered land. The Arctic is mainly constituted of large blocks of ice kept at extremely cold climate. Therefore, global warming threatens to turn the region into a vast ocean.

The first signs of human presence in the region near the North Pole lead us back to the Vikings. After many years of inactivity, in the sixteenth century, the Arcticattracted interest from European countries, such as England and Netherlands in order to find new routes to the East. During decades, several expeditions from countries like Russia, England, United States of America, Denmark and Canada were sent to the Arctic Circle, discovering routes to the West and East. The Americans Robert Peary and Frederick Cook compete for the honor of having first reached the North Pole in the early twentieth century.

During the Cold War, the arms and science race sharpened the dispute for the conquest of the Arctic. Large ice-breaking ships made the trip to the polar region more efficient. The military presence in the region appeared as a strategic advantage to both USA and USSR. More recently, the discovery of a large oil and gas deposit at the North Pole region has attracted attention to the Arctic.

Nowadays, what threatens the international peace in the region can be understood in three ways: occupation, exploitation and militarization. The first relates to the instability that strong countries like the United States, Canada, Russia and Denmark impose to the local indigenous people, who have no effective voice in decisions about the area, since they are not a recognized nation. Moreover, the customs of these people and their territory are threatened by the expansion of trade and global warming.

In 1996 was created the Arctic Council, in Ottawa, with the purpose of promoting dialogue between the bordering nations, including Finland, Iceland and Sweden, and other non-governmental bodies interested in the preservation of the Arctic. The indigenous people are present as permanent participants and not as Member States, as previously mentioned.

The exploitation of the Arctic raises even more concerns. As global supplies of oil and gas are concentrated mostly in the Middle East, the major consuming nations see a less unstable and more accessible option for extraction in the Arctic. In absence of a specific treaty in the region, different from what occurs in Antarctica, a legal institution that is commonly used is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was celebrated at 1982. The nations bordering the Arctic, however, wage legal battles to determine the exact extent of their submerged land pieces and, despite its results, establish local laws of occupation and exploitation of the pole. The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) has received several claims for the expansion of the continental shelf’s maritime borders. Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark plead large portions of land in the region. The United States have not ratified the convention, but many government agencies noted that the ratification may bring several advantages to the country's territory and economy.

The melting ice gives rise to the trade and the traffic of oil tankers, and increases the arms race to dominate the region. The statistics indicatethat traffic in the Arctic will increase from about 3 million tons, nowadays, to 14 million tons in 2015.The navigability in the Northwest Passage, along the coasts of Canada, that is increasing with the melting ice, reduces in 7 thousand kilometers the route between Europe and Japan and in 8 thousand kilometers the path between the United States and China. The European Union and the United States don’t accept the Canadian sovereignty over the passage, they claim that those are international waters.Several bordering countries have plans to establish military bases on the edges of the Arctic and fleets of these nations are circulating the region.

These problems are affecting the international security, therefore the UNSC must discuss this matter in a deep way, in order to guarantee the most effective result by following the United Nations Charter.

External links and useful sources:

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unifil/index.shtml- UNIFIL - ONU

http://unifil.unmissions.org/- UNIFIL

http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/- UNSC

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/middle_east/- US Humanitarian Assistance to Lebanon

http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_Lebanon.pdf- United Nations Environment Program Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/82501.pdf- U.S. Foreign Aid to Lebanon: Issues for Congress. By the Congressional Research Service.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php> NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY

http://diplo.uol.com.br/2007-09,a1897> Le Monde Diplomatique (portuguese)

http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/clcs_home.htm> Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)

http://www.arctic.gov/> US Arctic Research Commission

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html> European Space Agency

www.un.org/Depts/los/  > United Nations Oceans and Law of the Sea

http://www.itlos.org/ > International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea

[1] http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unifil/background.shtml

[2] http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unifil/background.shtml