On The Political Power Of The Secretary-general Under The United Nations Charter Article 99

To study the political powers for the United Nations Secretary-General(SG) stemmed from Article 99 of the Charter of the United Nations, is very meaningful and helpful for the studies on the UN, the international organizations, the international politics and relations, and the international law. By virtue of the rules of interpretation of treaties regulated and codified by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, we should interpret Art. 99 legally, constantly and flexibly, to coordinate the different political views on this article. The fundament of it is responsibility, the starting point and the content is the powers, and the termination and the action style is discretion. The developments of new norms and values on the main terms in Art. 99, such as peace, security and any matter, have occurred in the past 60 more years. Today the initiatives of these powers, having being largely expanded in the historical political practice, may include in the following areas: fact-finding, expressing independent opinions, drafting resolutions, good offices, early warning, preventive diplomacy, peace-making, and post-conflict peace-building. The enhanced role of the SG is also evident in the norm of humanitarian intervention, the use of force or coerce, as well as the right to direct the attention of the General Assembly to any matters which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.From which, we can draw three characters about developments of the Art. 99. Firstly, the SG employed Act. 99, with rarely formally invocation, and more quite diplomacy, and pursuit to cooperation with the Security Council. Secondly, the powers have been expanded in the practices and in the Rules of Procedures of other UN Organs, and generally accepted by the international community. Thirdly, constrained by a multitude of environmental factors and personal qualities, there are limits to what the SG can do, and he gained honors as well as criticisms. More fundamentally, three structural and realistic constraints within which the office works, are given in the paper, including the conflict between the UN and the membership, the inefficacy on decision-making and action in Security Council, and the US policy to make the UN under control. And the SG is a course of the UN ideals from the realities to the future. Thus, the reform on the appointment process may help us to find a much suitable person to the office of the SG. The Rwanda Genocide was a failure of the collective security. For the role of guardian of the purposes of the Charter, the SG should initial independent actions to meet new challenges in new era, and which resting on the patter of the trust and cooperation established between him and the deliberative organs of the UN. To construct a legal estimate system for these independent actions is necessary both to elevate the activity, and to prevent the abuse of the office, of the SG. Such system may be constituted by two parts. One is the procedural conditions, including the time and space conditions, and the subjective and objective conditions. The other is the substantive principles, including the principle of promoting the purposes of the UN Charter, and the principle of generally acceptance by the international community.