Humanitarian military intervention can be justified without UN Security Council approval

A comprehensive overview of ongoing and historical armed conflicts, military engagements and geopolitical tensions shaping the world today.

Body of rules, treaties, and customary norms governing relations between sovereign states and other international actors. Provides the legal framework for diplomacy, armed conflict, trade, human rights, and the functioning of international institutions — enforced through courts, arbitration, and state compliance.

The Security Council has fifteen members. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are permanent members; the General Assembly elects ten other members for two-year terms. Substantive decisions require nine votes and the concurrence of the permanent members, which is the legal basis of the veto. Article 27 already requires a party to a dispute to abstain on certain decisions under Chapter VI and Article 52, but that limitation does not cover all Council action.