TY - JOUR
T1 - The UN Security Council’s response to COVID-19: from the centre to the periphery?
AU - Farrall, Jeremy M.
AU - Michaelsen, Christopher
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - This article examines the UN Security Council’s response to the escalating COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which has been criticised as hesitant and half-hearted. It argues that the Council’s inability to respond more assertively to the COVID threat was more predictable than surprising. Indeed, the Council’s approach to the COVID threat tended to follow, rather than diverge from, its past practice, exhibiting three increasingly entrenched features of Council decision-making in a crisis. First, the Council is hesitant and ill-equipped to respond to non-traditional or unorthodox threats to international peace and security, even where relevant precedents exist to support such a response. Second, the Council struggles to act when there is friction between permanent members. Third, when all else fails, the Council can still do reliably well on process.
AB - This article examines the UN Security Council’s response to the escalating COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which has been criticised as hesitant and half-hearted. It argues that the Council’s inability to respond more assertively to the COVID threat was more predictable than surprising. Indeed, the Council’s approach to the COVID threat tended to follow, rather than diverge from, its past practice, exhibiting three increasingly entrenched features of Council decision-making in a crisis. First, the Council is hesitant and ill-equipped to respond to non-traditional or unorthodox threats to international peace and security, even where relevant precedents exist to support such a response. Second, the Council struggles to act when there is friction between permanent members. Third, when all else fails, the Council can still do reliably well on process.
UR - https://ezproxy.uws.edu.au/login?url=https://doi.org/10.1163/26660229-03901015
U2 - 10.1163/26660229-03901015
DO - 10.1163/26660229-03901015
M3 - Article
SN - 0084-7658
VL - 39
SP - 214
EP - 230
JO - Australian Year Book of International Law
JF - Australian Year Book of International Law
IS - 1
ER -