O uso da força por organizações regionais

Abstract

Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations provides for the possibility of regional organizations acting in the international system of collective security by allowing the Security Council to use such organizations for the use of coercive measures or to authorize them to do so. The growth in the work of the Security Council since the early 1990s has been accompanied by an increase in cases in which regional organizations have employed armed forces with diverse legal bases, often without the proper authorization required by the UN Charter. Such authorization could be excused if new exceptions to the prohibition of the threat or use of force by States in their international relations were recognized, what can be evidenced by the practice of States and UN bodies. Among the possible new exceptions that could have been created by the practice of regional organizations are the use of force for humanitarian purposes and the use of force by means of treaty clauses. The practice of regional organizations evidenced in episodes of use of force in the last two decades shows that both the use of force for humanitarian purposes and the use of force by means of conventional clauses were not recognized by the United Nations organs as new exceptions autonomous to the prohibition of the use of force, while the Security Council authorization is perceived as a necessary requirement for the use of armed force by regional entities.