Law, politics, and the Security Council

One respect in which the United Nations has departed most widely from the League of Nations in its practice has been the method adopted by the Security Coundl for handling legal questions that arise in connection with its work. While the League Coundl followed the practice of re- ferring to the Permanent Court of International J ustice many questions of a legal nature arising in connection with its activities, including many that arose in connection with the handling of actual disputes, the Se- curity Council of the United Nations has on no occasion requested an advisory opinion from the Court. All questions that have been sub- mitted to the Court by organs of the United Nations have been sub- mitted by the General Assembly. Nor has the Security Council, in the course of its activities, seen fit to rely on any other external body or even on a sub-committee of legal experts for the clarification of the issues of a legal nature that have arisen in the course of its deliberations. This attitude on the part of the Security Council was no doubt to some extent antidpated in the discussions that took place in con- nection with the drafting of the Charter where great emphasis was placed upon the political nature of the responsibility of the Security Council and of its members for the maintenance of international peace and security.