Article 99 of the UN Charter states that if a hostile situation arises which threatens the safety of Members of the United Nations or the peace of the world, the Security Council may determine that there is cause for action and make recommendations or decisions to Member States of the United Nations as may be necessary to maintain international peace and security and remove the source of the threat.
This gives the Secretary-General the authority to draw the attention of the Security Council to any issue that he deems may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. This means that by using this article, the Secretary-General has placed the events in Gaza at the top of the world's agenda as events that threaten "world peace." He emphasized this in his letter to the Security Council when he said that the conflict there could endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.
It is expected that the Secretary-General's primary and urgent use of this article is to persuade the Security Council of the necessity of issuing a resolution for a ceasefire, at least for humanitarian reasons. What distinguishes this article is that it strongly encourages discussion in the Security Council regarding the issue raised by the Secretary-General, and pressures for decisive and binding decisions and measures for the parties concerned with the aim of maintaining international peace and security. This is achieved by holding Council members accountable for their responsibilities to prevent or stop conflicts and by using the legal tools available for this purpose, as stipulated in the United Nations Charter.
It also seeks to revitalize the role of the United Nations and its organizations in the conflict, after most of their humanitarian operations in the Gaza Strip were halted, a large number of their personnel were killed, and the humanitarian crisis worsened, constituting a catastrophe that cannot be ignored. This is in light of the international community's silence, the occupation's disdain for UN institutions, its continued criticism, and the occupation's decision to revoke the residency of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the Palestinian territories.
However, it is important to note that this article empowers the Secretary-General to notify the Security Council of any threat to international peace and security. However, it does not guarantee the imposition of specific solutions to cease hostilities or ceasefires. In the case of Israel specifically, and as a result of numerous previous experiences, the use of this article may amount to little more than a warning to the Security Council, placing the members of the Security Council before their moral and ethical responsibilities regarding the massacres taking place.
The success of this step depends on the Security Council's conviction of the imperative importance of taking immediate action to impose a ceasefire, in order to preserve its reputation, standing, and responsibilities. The primary challenge to this is the occupying state of Israel's habitual rejection of various Security Council resolutions and its failure to comply with them over the past decades.
Although the Charter allows for mandatory military measures to stop a war, including issuing a resolution for an immediate ceasefire to be adhered to by the occupying power, and taking punitive measures against states in the event of their failure to comply, including the suspension of their membership and privileges, or even their cancellation, this is unlikely to happen in the case of the occupying power, which has habitually ignored UN resolutions, in light of unconditional US support and the repeated use of the veto against any draft resolution condemning it. In this regard, we can only imagine how such rules could realistically be appli
