Law, power, and argumentation: The United Nations Charter and uses of armed force by major powers since 1945

Although the UN Charter prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state," there have been numerous incidents in which the major powers (at least arguably) violated this prohibition. Given the frequency of such incidents, how (if at all) does the Charter's prohibition of force function as a restraint upon the actions of the major powers?; This dissertation argues that the prohibition is, in effect, a contractual agreement between the major powers and less powerful states not to use armed force to alter or to overturn the existing, post-World War II international order. As a legal instrument, it creates an expectation of compliance. Thus, when using armed force, major powers offer legal arguments to account for the discrepancy between this expectation and their actions and thereby reduce the likelihood of resistance from states that might otherwise perceive the actions as threatening to the existing order and to their relative power positions within that order. Such accounts are persuasive if states conclude that the arguments containing them represent the major powers' actual understandings of law and their actions and if the claims comprising those arguments are sufficiently restrictive to provide a basis for inferring future restraint.; Persuasive accounts provide credible signals of commitment to the existing order because of the indirect costs accrued by the major powers that offer them. They reduce the range actions that the major powers may take without contradicting their previous claims and thereby undermining the basis from which other states infer future restraint. To maintain the persuasiveness of these accounts, major powers must alter the manner and timing of their military actions or else engage in strategies of denial or rhetorical evasion.; The prohibition of force thus operates through interplay among power, interests, and ideas and among institutions, discourse, and state behavior. This dissertation explores relationships among these important concepts, shedding light on the mechanism by which the prohibition of force functions and providing a basis from which to assess the continued salience of the UN Charter system.