Building a taxonomy of UN Security Council decisions: a biased compliance with the UN Charter obligations?

Abstract

There is a tendency among scholars and practitioners to assess the role of the UN Security Council from the limited perspective of the actions taken pursuant to its resolutions, irrespective of other significant considerations contributing to the final adoption of those actions. This article seeks to reconstruct the legal mind of the Security Council from an empirical perspective. How does the Security Council deal with the issues covered by its mandate? Which decisions does it adopt in relation to specific subject-matters and what is the rationale behind such decisions? Although the inquiry is restricted to a limited time-frame (2001 - 2012), this article shows that the powers of the Security Council are characterized by an inherent tension between compliance with the terms of its mandate and a degree of discretion related to the selection of the subject-matters, which ultimately amounts to a biased compliance with its UN Charter obligations.