Security Council violations

On 3 April 1991, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 687 (and a number of subsequent resolutions) on Iraq, which placed an additional and new demand on the IAEA resources and subsumed all other safeguards activities in that country. For the first time a Member State with declared nuclear facilities (which had been regularly inspected by the IAEA under a Safeguards Agreement) had clandestinely established additional nuclear facilities and had begun to produce nuclear material in violation of the Agreement. 

If evidence is uncovered by investigations or by inspection teams of treaty violations, and if the state concerned fails to meet the requests for compliance by the Executive Council, then support for the Convention will be put to the test. Even Thomas Bernauer, a staunch supporter of the CWC, conceded that the assistance and sanction provisions of the Convention are rather weak . By leaving the Convention without any automatic and mandatory recourse to sanctions and/or assistance, and by leaving the UN Security Council with responsibility for coping with major treaty violations, the Conference on Disarmament simply reflected international realities. Yet the great powers have repeatedly failed to act decisively over outbreaks of chemical warfare (other than occasionally to assist the victim by sending protective equipment, though often in quite inadequate amounts), and their failures have frequently fuelled... 

Article IV requires that member nations create legislation or other appropriate mechanisms that would prohibit biological weapons activity within their borders, or in any other territories over which they have control. Article V states that parties to the Convention have to consult and cooperate with one another in the event of a BTWC-related dispute, within the framework of the United Nations and in accordance with its Charter. Article VI outlines the steps that must be taken if one member state wishes to accuse another of a BTWC violation—complaints are lodged with the Security Council of the United Nations. 

Article VII requires member nations to offer support or assistance if another member country, after appeal to the Security Council, is found to be exposed to danger as the result of a violation of the Convention. 

In other words, the Court determined that in other instances where the Security Council had condemned declarations of independence, the act of condemnation was based on the particular circumstances of each situation, and, in each such situation, the Unilateral Declaration of Independence was linked to some unlawful use of force in violation of general international law. The world court thus concluded that there was nothing illegal in the declarations of independence per se—the only illegality could be found in instances where declarations of independence resulted or were linked to other illegal acts. 

In May 2009, DPRK test fired another short-range missile, apparently in clear violation of Resolution 1695 and, it is reported, stated that it would take self defence action if the United Nations Security Council were to impose tougher sanctions. This missile, which was fired from the Masudan-ni site on DPRK s east coast, was the latest in the series of missiles the DPRK test fired since conducting a major nuclear test a few days before the firing. 

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