INTRODUCTION TO PART II

As Part I made clear, any peace operation constituting a (physical) intervention in a State needs a legal basis in international law. Such legal basis can be found in the UN Charter or in rules of customary international law relating to the use of force and the maintenance and restoration of international peace and security. In addition, every peace operation requires a mission-specific mandate which can either be issued by a competent international organisation (in principle, the UN Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter) or by a host State's government inviting or consenting to a peace operation conducted on its territory. The mandate, in this context, is a source of legal authority to deploy a mission in the territory of a third State and to use force on that State's territory.

UN (mandated) peace operations covered in this book always operate based on a mandate of the UN Security Council, whether or not complemented by the consent of the host State. Since October 1999, the UN Security Council has, on almost all occasions, provided UN (mandated) peace operations with Chapter VII authorisations, which represents a significant change in UN practice. In the preamble of PoC mandates, the UN Security Council generally determines that a particular situation ‘constitutes a threat to the international peace and security’ and subsequently authorises an entire mandate (including the PoC tasks) under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.