The European Union’s Peace Mission in the United Nations Collective Security System

Abstract

The recent and interesting practice of European Security and Defence Policy peace missions testifies to a great vitality of EU in the field of peace maintenance and international security. This is an asset, considering that the Common Foreign and Security Policy is traditionally considered the least effective of the three EU pillars. In this field of EU Law there is an aspect deserving attention, namely the international legal aspect of the EU competence in crisis management. In fact, the implementation of ESDP requires one to consider the role of EU in the United Nations collective security system, in order to identify the international legal basis of EU peace missions. This is not a simple task. The UN collective security system has the appearance of a patchwork obtained by stitching together legal and political ‘pieces’, and the presence of different sources can make more difficult to legally frame activities of international organizations for peace. Any attempt can seem like entering into a labyrinth, where the presence of many variables takes us down many paths with different exit-doors. The aim of this working paper is just to open all those exit-doors, trying to identify the most appropriate one.