Sanctions under the Charter of the United Nations

Extract

The failure of the League of Nations is due to many causes. One of them is that the Covenant of the League did not establish an adequate system of effective sanctions. Sanctions are coercive measures provided for by a legal order as reactions against violations of this order. The coercive measures consist in a forcible deprivation of certain possessions, such as life, freedom, property, or other rights. The measure we call a sanction is coercive in so far as it is to be carried out even against the will of the subject against whom it is directed, by the employment of force, if necessary. The Covenant of the League, in its Article 16, provided two kinds of sanctions: a general sanction for any violation of the Covenant, expulsion from the League, and special sanctions for the violation of the Covenant which was constituted by illegally resorting to war. The sanctions for this delict were: either economic reprisals, or action taken by armed forces against the member-state responsible for the violation of the Covenant.

The Charter of the United Nations follows the Covenant, in principle at least, in establishing the same kinds of sanctions as the Covenant. Article 6 of the Charter stipulates: “A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.” It may be doubtful whether expulsion from an organization whose purpose is the maintenance of peace is an adequate sanction at all. This is certainly not the case, if by expulsion the member gets rid of the obligations which it has violated and thus has shown that it considers these obligations as an unwelcome burden. Expulsion has the effect of a sanction, that is, to be felt as an evil, only in so far as it deprives the state of its rights as a member. This effect, however, can be realized without releasing the guilty member from its obligations.

The Charter provides for such a possibility in Article S, which runs as follows: “A Member of the United Nations against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the Security Council may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. The exercise of these rights and privileges may be restored by the Security Council.” This Article introduces, as a valuable innovation, suspension from the exercise of the rights of membership.