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The Threat Of The Security Council ( Ips ) Is Of Paramount Importance For The Un Collective Security System

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The concept of “threat to international peace and security” (IPS) is of paramount importance for the UN collective security system. Article 39 determines the identification and removal of threats to peace as one of the most fundamental tasks of the UN Security Council (UNSC). Still, there is no clear and exhaustive definition of “threat to IPS”. In the first part of the essay, I will explain how the notion of threat to IPS has evolved after the end of the Cold War. Secondly, I will focus on the UNSC practice, on its unsolvable relation with the definition of threat to peace and on the possible challenges posed to the UNSC by the expansion of the notion. Finally, I will briefly take under examination the Gulf War case as a cornerstone in the concept expansion trend.

Article 1(1) of the UN Charter sets the maintenance of international peace and security as one of the main purposes of the United Nations. With this objective in mind Article 24(1), “in order to ensure prompt and effective action” appoints the UNSC as the organ primarily responsible for the “maintenance of international peace and security”.
However, the legal pivotal basis of the collective security system is represented by Article 39. As rightly noted by Dinstein, Article 39 prescribes the UNSC 's mandatory duty - emphasised by the use of the verb “shall” - of determining “the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and of making recommendations or binding decisions in

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