COLLECTIVE SECURITY

Collective Security can be understood as a

security arrangement where a group of
countries pledge co-operative joint action in
the eyes of threat to their economic or
territorial sovereignty.
This threat may be thwarted in the form of
sanctions or use of armed force.
The concept of Collective Security is seen as
the basis of many international peace
agreements in the face modern international
relations.
 Philosopher John Lockes theory of civil society
metaphorically contains important insights for attempts
to form civil society among nations.
As per Locke's well known "state of nature," individuals
prior to civil society stood in a position of equality to
each other, in the sense that they had no superior force
to govern relations between them.
Drawing parallels from this analogy it may be safe to
say that subjects of international law, i.e. the nations
were equally poised to be at conflict if there was no
superior body to govern their relations.
Thus, international bodies such as the League of
Nationsand the U.N. were formed.
 Inter alia other concepts, Collective Security has formed
the foundation of international bodies such as the U.N.
and the League of Nations.
The member states of accepted certain limitations on
self-defence which are the reciprocal of its promise of
collective security.
They placed reliance on the belief that the Charters
scheme of Collective Security would afford them at least
as much protection for their national security as they
had agreed to relinquish.
Collective Security as a concept contrasts with
retaliatory strategies of engaging in war for immediate
national interest.
 The U.N. Charter though, also recognizes the
inherent" right of individual and collective self-
defence.
This has been often used by the member states as
a way to circumvent the binding obligations In the
modern day the way this inherent right has been
put to use especially in the War against Terror has
led to some strict scrutiny of the concept of
Collective Security.
Conflicting opinions exist in the modern day qua
the interpretation of the aim of Collective Security.
 The United States stands for a broadened
understanding of the article 51 right so that it can be
construed to permit Collective Self-Defence" in a range
of circumstances.
Contrarily, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has an
increasingly restrictive view of Article 51. By construing
it to prohibit the said Collective Self-Defence against
attacks that do not reach a certain level of gravity or
whose source is not identified by convincing evidence.
The debate that needs to be resolved is whether
Collective Security is being relegated to the background
by Collective Self-Defence
 Collective Security And The League Of
Nations
A method of achieving Collective Security would
be through the collective renunciation of force
and the undertaking to resolve disputes
peaceably as a matter of moral and legal
obligation.
That vision appeared most forcefully after World
War I in the collective security arrangement of
the League of Nationsand particularly the 1928
Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war.
 The League of Nations though, hit hurdles from the word
GO! Two primary reasons were Firstly, the nations could not
agree on the formation of a supranational "police" force.
Collective Security depended upon the collective moral
and legal renunciation of the use of force.
However, rather than an aim at building international
consensus, the Covenant of the League granted veto
powers to all members.
As a result the idea was scrapped because even one vote
against it meant the dialogue would resume again.
Secondly, WW-I ensured that most of the stronger nations
faced military, infrastructural and economic exhaustion to
actually rebuild world peace.
 The League however, could be termed as a body with its
heart in the right place but not its mind. With its failure to
impose binding obligations upon the members it only
required attempts at peaceful legal settlement first and
didnt allow the collective use of force.
The system of collective security envisaged in the Covenant
rested, essentially, on the notions of disarmament,a
collective guarantee of the independence of each member,
and sanctions et al.
But the lack of consensus and co-operation ensured that
none of these notions were actually materialized.
The League lacked the power to function as an enforcer, and
because it rested in substantial part on the belief that
collective force would not be necessary.
 Despite having an aim for achieving collective security
the League failed time and again; for e.g. its failure
during theManchurian Crisis.
After the invasion, the League passed a resolution
reprimanding Japan to withdraw or face dire
consequences. Japan promptly vetoed the resolution in
pursuance of its rights under Article 5, thereby limiting
the League's ability to respond.
After 2 years, the League passed another resolution
condemning the invasion though without any armed
action or any imposition of sanctions. The Japanese
subsequently, simply walked out of theLeague of
Nations.
 Collective Security And The United
Nations
The term "collective security" has
also been cited as a principle of
theUnited Nations, and theLeague
of Nationsbefore that.
By employing a system of collective
security, the UN hopes to dissuade
any member state from acting in a
manner likely to threaten peace,
 The U.N. though it seems has learned from the mistakes made by the
League. The system post WW-II was to protect a wronged state by all
the members and the wrongdoer was to be punished by all.
The Collective Security system of the Charter is based on two
elements. Firstly, there is the prohibition against inter-state threat or
use of force under Article 2(4). The primary organ of the United
Nations for the maintenance of international peace is the Security
Council.
It propounds the sovereignty-centred approach to Collective Security.
Secondly, the Council's "primary responsibility for the maintenance of
international peace and security, that in carrying out its duties under
this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf"and in
those Charter provisions which establish a legal obligation on member
states to carry out the Council's decisions.
 The decisions of the Security Council intend to fulfil a dynamic
executive function and are by virtue of Article 25 binding upon all
member states.
The framers of the U.N. Charter give a binding role to the breach
of international peace by imposing obligations under Chapter VII.
In addition to this, Article 103 of the Charter allows the
obligations to the U.N. to hold a higher pedestal than other
treaties.
It is this binding obligation upon all the members that the League
Covenant lacked. Also, there existed no machinery on the part of
the League to actually initiate an armed campaign against an
offender. However, one aspect that has not been dealt with by
the U.N. is the fact that by virtue of the inherent collective self-
defence" mechanism
 several smaller collective defence mechanisms
have come up.
In addition to this, the U.N. Charter doesnt let
the veto power vest in all the members, thereby
leaving some scope of consensus to develop
between the members.
The U.N. has to at first determine what
constitutes aggression, breach or threat to
peace before taking any constructive action.
Though it is a hotly debated topic whether, its
determination is adequate or not?
 Collective Security: Legally Speaking
A distinction has been drawn into the nature
of Collective Security as a legal principle,
while terming the balance of power that has
shifted to an international body as a
principle of political convenience.
Collective Security has been seen as a
Utopian legalistic experiment that has
yielded nothing but failure despite mandates
under the U.N. and the League of Nations.
 Most lawyers accept that if there is a legal role in matters of
security, it has to be handmaid to state power and interest, a
facilitator for politics to take its natural course "by
rationalizing and stabilizing the existing and improvised
means of collaboration between Powers."
As has already been stated, the U.N. Charter envisages that
the obligations to the Charter in maintaining global peace
and security are binding upon all members.
The present part of the essay deals with what are the legal
implications under the U.N. Charter qua Collective Security
and how is it that legally the mandate of Collective Security
has failed.
For a purposeful setup under the U.N. the most pertinent
legal aspect would be the definition of aggression.
 This definition allows, the U.N. to differentiate between situations where
there is a threat to peace or a breach of peace. This though, is highly
subjective.
As questions would always arise as to which situations are threats to
peace and which are not. But, with the loopholes in the charter, there
arises greater chances of circumventing the rules.
It needs to be noted that the mandate of collective security are failing.
Firstly, due to ambiguous determination of situations of what constitutes
threat or not allows the members to indulge in self-defence wars.
Secondly, despite the fact that there are binding obligations upon all
members to maintain peace and aid the U.N. in its endeavours, the U.N.
simply backs out of situations where smaller collective self-defence
groups act.
Lastly, the failure of a legal mechanism may be seen in the scenario
where the rate of wars, inter-state and intra-state conflicts have grown
higher than that of the League of Nations.
 Collective Security & Collective Self-Defence
The evolution of the concept of Collective Security has seen 4
distinctive periods.
First, the Post WW-I scenario, with the inception of the League of
Nations;
Second, Post the signing of the U.N. Charter;
Third, during the Cold War and
Lastly, Post 9-11 attacks in New York. All the four periods bring about
a particular threat that the world had never been seen before.
Be it, the proliferation of the Axis Powers and the failure of the
League to check it in the first period; or the conflict between the 5
permanent members of the U.N. and their rise as nuclear powers
during the Cold War in the second and the third periods. The world
also saw the rise of non-state actors (read terrorists) as a threat to
global peace in the fourth era.
 Collective Security Vis--Vis Collective Self
Defence
As has been illustrated in the preceding chapters the
concept of "collective security" forwarded by scholars
and political scientists, are deemed to apply global
security interests in a broad manner, to "avoid
grouping powers into opposing camps, and refusing
to draw dividing lines that would leave anyone out.
However, keeping the John Locke analogyin mind,
there should have been only one global sovereign
which should have governed the security of its
subjects.
 Posts the signing of the U.N. Charter, tenets of
Collective Security, continue to form the basis
colourably of famous military alliances/blocks, most
notablyNATO.
During the Cold-War various treaties were formalized as
a part of bloc formations in case the U.N. too failed.
Under these arrangements participant states committed
support in defence of a member state the latter was
attacked by another state outside the organization.
Such treaties formed the base of a newer concept
which seemed similar to Collective Security but it was
termed as Collective Self-Defence.
 On an comparative analysis Collective Security is differentiated from
Collective Self-Defence by the pledge that the defence would be
against a threat from an external country.
It in some ways vitiates the principle behind the existence of
something such as the U.N. as in John Lockes analogy; the citizens
would adhere to another pseudo-sovereign being dissatisfied with the
existing setup.
The most relevant example of Collective Self-Defence is Article V of
the NATO treaty.
This article was invoked after the9-11 attacksin theU.S. after which
other NATO members provided assistance to the USWar on
TerrorinAfghanistan.
The only advantage that may be seen in favour of Collective Self-
Defence in the modern day is the fact that it also takes the presence
of non-state actors into account. Thus, the countries can take action
against terrorists even in the backdrop of failing U.N. action.
 Collective Self-Defence As An Alternative To Collective
Security
Collective Self-Defence finds its foundation in
multilateralalliances such as NATO, the presence of which
entails benefits as well as risks.
In the modern day with terrorism rising as a challenge in the
face of Collective Security principles, the persistent inability
of the U.N. to provide and maintain a functioning system can
reasonably be viewed as a massive, radical multilateral
failure of consideration.
To add to the wounds of the U.N. the affected members
choose to suspend or even terminate their performance of
the restrictions encapsulated in Article 51, the U.N. would be
reduced to a mere vegetable like presence.
 Collective Self-Defence also allows countries in smaller
groups to, at their own initiative perform complementary
functions of the U.N. On one side, collective pooling of
resources reduces a single state's cost of providing fully for
its security.
Smaller groups such as NATO ensure that funding
collectively allows them to build infrastructure, education or
health, since they can count on other members to come to
their defence, if needed.
In addition to this, since they have already taken
aggressive action they also can have peacekeeping
missions at lower costs in those countries something which
the U.N. finds difficult when it enters to rebuild conflict hit
areas.
 On the other hand, it may be too premature to call
Collective Defence as an alternative to the concept
of Collective Security as it also involves risky
commitments.
Member states can become embroiled in costly
wars in which neither the, direct victim nor the
aggressor benefit.
The policy of non-interference of the U.N. and it
sticking to just peacekeeping missions for security
on the other hand has ensured a better result with
budgets almost a 10th of what the NATO spent in
Iraq alone.
 Conclusion
Collective Security can be understood as a security
arrangement where a group of countries pledge co-operative
joint action in the eyes of threat to their economic or
territorial sovereignty.
With shrinking global boundaries and the concept of a global
village, the states have become subjects of one global body.
This global body is to act as a superior force to govern
relations between the individual units.
t is this idea that led to the formation of international bodies
such as the League of Nations and the U.N. were formed.
Inter alia other concepts, Collective Security has formed the
foundation of international bodies of these bodies.
 The member states of accepted certain limitations
on self-defence which are the reciprocal of its
promise of collective security.
Collective Security as a concept contrasts with
retaliatory strategies of engaging in war for
immediate national interest.
However, in both the cases of the League and the
U.N. the most important thing that has lacked is the
fact that member states have not co-operated with
each other.
It was this lack of co-operation that replaced the
League in the first place.
 The fact that the U.N. Charter
recognizes the inherent right of
individual and collective self-defence
is now being used by member
nations to circumvent the binding
obligations.
This has garnered legitimacy in the
light of the U.N.s inability in the
modern day to apply Collective
Security against non-state actors