Alwaght- According to the Article 24 of the United Nations’ Charter, the Security Council is majorly responsible for protection of the global peace and security. The Council enjoys three types of mandates to fulfill its duties. The mandates are respectively given in the Chapters 6, 7, and 8. When it wants to address a dispute or a situation that poses threats and perils to the world’s peace and security, it preliminarily consults the Chapter 6.


The Chapter 6 that consists of Articles 33 to 39 considers the peace approach as way to eliminate the disputes or the peace threatening situations. The peaceful ways involve mediation, negotiation, compromises, judging, and so on. The Security Council’s mandates, according to the Chapter 6, are based on recommendation. In other words, the Council in its recommendation statements urges the opposing sides to settle the dispute or remove the threatening situation using peaceful pathways. The key feature of the recommendation is its being non-binding. This means no commitments are imposed on the opposing parties.


Once the conflicting sides fail to settle their disputes through Chapter 6, the Security Council will use the Chapter 7 to address the conflict or the threatening conditions. In Article 39 of the chapter, this case is predicted: “the Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42,  to maintain or restore international peace and security.” The UN Security Council’s decisions under Chapter 7 get legal and political guarantees after becoming resolutions. Observing the resolution's terms is binding for both member states and non-member states.


The Chapter 7 Security Council’s resolutions about Yemen’s crisis are proper barometers for checking the credibility of the Security Council and its binding resolutions. The text of the UN Chapter describes the Chapter 7 resolutions as binding, and breaching them urges a series of punishments against the violators. But the practically and effectiveness of these resolutions are questionable. For example, a provision of Resolution 2251 disallows any military or financial support for the al-Qaeda terrorist group. This comes while backing, equipping, and arming of the takfiri groups in different countries around the world, with regard to the Wahhabism's Salafist roots, have always been part of strategy and specific duty of Saudi princes and intelligence services. Al-Qaeda in Yemen is no exception. However, Al Saud regime’s backup for al-Qaeda in southern Yemen has not drawn any punitive response from the UN Security Council.


When we look at failure in implementation of the binding Resolution 2201 of the UN Security Council, we can see the inefficiency and indecisiveness of this international body. One of the provisions of the Resolution 2201 highlights the need for stopping the foreign interventions that fuel war and instability in Yemen. This UN resolution’s demand comes while after 18 months, the Al Saud regime continues its criminal– according to the UN terms– aggression, and victimizes the defenseless Yemeni children and women for its power ambitions. The Resolution 2216, which was approved in time with the Saudi Arabian anti-Yemeni offensive, because of influence of the Riyadh and Washington in the UN has failed to refer to the Saudi violations. In fact, the UN has turned a blind eye to this sizeable aggression with its open violation of international laws that ban violating countries' sovereignty, threatening the peace, and massacring the innocent.


The Resolution 2216 also proved invalidity of the Security Council. The (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council’s initiative, also dubbed (Persian) Gulf Initiative, commissioned Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi to make the preparations for the transitional government. This duty of Mansour Hadi was included in Resolution 2216 as an independent provision. However, Mansour Hadi, as the pro-Saudi resigned president of Yemen, declined to accept the UN resolution’s order. The key factor behind fruitlessness of the Yemeni peace dialogue is rejection of this provision by the pro-Saudi resigned government of Yemen. Yemen’s Ansarullah movement has agreed that the Resolution 2216 be considered as a united package; however, Mansour Hadi has accepted all of the provisions but rejected the one that urges formation of national unity government in the country.


The outcomes of these issues lay bare the low validity and power of the Security Council for settling the different crises including that of Yemen. Despite Al Saud's and Yemen’s resigned government’s large-scale violation of the UN resolutions, the Security Council has failed so far to show any determination for using punitive measures against them. In fact, it is incapable of implementing disciplinary measures foreseen in the UN Charter.


The Yemeni crisis since its beginning has been addressed by 6 Chapter 7 Security Council’s resolutions. Adopted in the beginning of the Yemeni revolution, the Resolution 2014 urged peaceful protests and stepping down of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Yemeni president, from power. 5 other resolutions were adopted with consideration of Yemen’s domestic changes and field developments. The last one is Resolution 2216. What is degrading is Security Council’s inability to implement the resolutions. The UN Charter makes clear the operational mechanisms and instruments for implementation of the resolutions. But the Security Council refrained from using these mechanisms to end the conflict in Yemen, a failure that in addition to providing evidences for invalidity of Security Council and its resolutions for ending different crises including the Yemeni crisis indicates that resistance and battlefield superiority are only options that guarantee success amid ongoing Yemeni struggle


By Alwaght