Understanding security council authority

INTERNATIONAL LAW ASSOCIATION
(British Branch) Lecture: 
 

Understanding Security Council Authority

by Dr Devika Hovell
London School of Economics 

Chaired by Professor George Letsas (UCL)

This lecture is accredited with 1 CPD hour by the SRA and BSB.

About the lecture

In the period between H.G. Wells’ writing of The New World Order and the drafting of Security Council resolutions 827, 1267, 1373, and 1540, global governance has evolved from an idea of dystopian fiction into a suboptimal reality. From due process deficiencies in targeted sanctions to the Haiti cholera controversy to sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers, there is a crisis of accountability in UN decision-making. The crisis is political in origin and nature. However, it also exposes that there is much normative work still to be done in tracing out the full implications of the assumption of ‘governmental’ power by international bodies such as the Security Council. Law has a distinct role to play in identifying and maintaining political authority. Yet both the standard account of the authority of international law – based on state consent – and the standard account of the authority of international organizations – based on functionalism – are under sustained attack. The lecture will examine the concept of authority in the Security Council setting, with the aim of developing a durable legal framework for global governance institutions that aspires to work at one remove from power-wielders and embraces the precepts of right conduct.

About the speaker

Dr Devika Hovell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law at the London School of Economics.