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United Nations Charter, Chapter VII, Article 43: Now or Never

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2018

Frederick M. Burkle Jr
Frederick M. Burkle Jr*
Affiliation:
Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University and Harvard T.C. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, District of Columbia; Medical Corps, United States Naval Reserve (retired)
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to Frederick M. Burkle Jr, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, c/o 452 Iana Street, Kailua, HI 96734 (e-mail: fburkle@hsph.harvard.edu).
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Abstract

For more than 75 years, the United Nations Charter has functioned without the benefit of Chapter VII, Article 43, which commits all United Nations member states “to make available to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces, assistance, facilities, including rights of passage necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.” The consequences imposed by this 1945 decision have had a dramatic negative impact on the United Nation’s functional capacity as a global body for peace and security. This article summarizes the struggle to implement Article 43 over the decades from the onset of the Cold War, through diplomatic attempts during the post–Cold War era, to current and often controversial attempts to provide some semblance of conflict containment through peace enforcement missions. The rapid growth of globalization and the capability of many nations to provide democratic protections to their populations are again threatened by superpower hegemony and the development of novel unconventional global threats. The survival of the United Nations requires many long overdue organizational structure and governance power reforms, including implementation of a robust United Nations Standing Task Force under Article 43. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2018;13:655–662)

Keywords

United Nations CharterSecurity CouncilArticle 43humanitarian criseswarcomplex humanitarian emergencies
Type
Commentary
Information
Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , August 2019 , pp. 655 - 662
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health, Inc. 

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