Today, a book dealing with the issue of human rights and the UN Security Council
does not come as a big surprise. Readers familiar with developments in international
law and international relations have become accustomed to a Security Council
that tries to promote and protect fundamental human rights in situations of war
and internal conflict, as well as to prevent and punish (by means of ad hoc criminal
tribunals) grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law,
such as acts of genocide and war crimes.1 By the same token, it has become a matter
of general knowledge that in certain circumstances action taken by the Security
Council has given rise to human rights concerns. In particular, the comprehensive
economic sanctions against Iraq and the so-called targeted sanctions imposed on
individuals in the fight against international terrorism have been sharply criticized
as detrimental to the internationally recognized human rights of the affected
persons. The ensuing academic discussion resulted in widespread agreement that
the Security Council is bound by international human rights, even though authors
have used different reasoning to reach this conclusion.