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though Security Resolution 678 (1990) provided him with a broad enough legal
mandate to allow him to match on to Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
70
Following Hussein’s brutal response to Shiite and Kurdish simultaneous uprisings,
Bush secured a resolution in the Security Council condemning the humanitarian crisis
in northern Iraq as a threat to regional peace and security.
71
Although the resolution
was not adopted under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, hence
it was not legally binding, the United States, the United Kingdom and France
later invoked Resolution 688 (1991) to justify the establishment of no-fly zones in
northern and southern Iraq.
72
The resolution also called on the Secretary General to
deploy a United Nations peacekeeping mission in northern Iraq, but the Secretary
General questioned the legality of that request, and the United Nations Legal Counsel
affirmed that it was indeed a violation of Article 2 (7) of the Charter.
73
The Secretary
General later negotiated an agreement with Saddam Hussein that allowed for the
United Nations to deploy a group of unarmed monitors to assist in the distribution
of humanitarian assistance.
74
President Bush presided over the demise of the Soviet Union, the unification of
Germany, democratization in Eastern and Central Europe, and the dissolution of the
former Yugoslavia. With the exception of the former Yugoslavia, the transition in the
Soviet Union and Central Europe was orderly. Together with President Gorbachev,
President Bush supported the United Nations in its efforts to settle several long standing
regional conflicts in southern Africa, Cambodia, Afghanistan and Central America.
75
Following the failure of the United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNOSOM) to restore
security in the capital, Mogadishu, and safely distribute humanitarian relief to the
civilian population in light of a deteriorating security situation, the Bush administration
offered to have the United States lead an international force to Somalia. The U.S.-led
operation, code named “Operation Restore Hope”, was authorized by the Security
Council and placed under a unified command.
76
The Unified Task Force (UNITAF)
was to provide security for humanitarian assistance to the civilian populations and to
protect aid workers and convoys.
77
Operation Restore Hope was partially successful,
70
S.C. Res. 678 (1990), para. 2.
71
See
Simon Chesterman, Just War or Just Peace? Humanitarian Intervention and International Law
(2001), p. 132.
72
Michael Byers, WAR LAW (2005); Anthony Aust,
Statement before HC Foreign Affairs Committee,
Dec. 2, 1992,
in ‘United Kingdom Material on International Law 1992’ in LXIII British Yearbook
International Law, 827.
73
James Cockayne & David Malone,
The Security Council and the 1991 and 2003 Wars in Iraq,
p. 389,
in Lowe,
et al
., eds. The United Nations Security Council and War, (2010).
74
ibid.
, p. 390;
See
Michael Ignatieff,
State-failure and nation-building,
in J.L. Holzgrefe& Robert
Keohane, eds. Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal and Political Dilemmas, (2003), p. 308.
75
Thomas G. Weiss, David P. Forsythe & Roger A. Coate, The United Nations and Changing World
Politics (1994), p. 61.
76
S.C. Res. 794 of Dec. 3, 1992.
77
ibid.
, p. 81.