Hastings International and Comparative Law Review Volume 30 Article 3 Number 3 Spring 2007 1-1-2007 The seU of Offensive Force in U.N. Peacekeeping: A Cycle of Boom and Bust James Sloan Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/ hastings_international_comparative_law_review Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation James Sloan, The Use of Offensive Force in U.N. Peacekeeping: A Cycle of Boom and Bust, 30 Hastings Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 385 (2007). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_international_comparative_law_review/vol30/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. The Use of Offensive Force in U.N. Peacekeeping: A Cycle of Boom and Bust? By JAMES SLOAN* The nonviolent nature of United Nations peacekeeping operations is at the same time their most important and their least understood characteristic. - Sir Brian Urquhart, former U.N. Under Secretary-General' I. Introduction Fifty years ago, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold famously observed that the legal basis for U.N. peacekeeping may be found at "Chapter V1 " of the U.N. Charter.2 Today, however, his message - that peacekeeping, though more than a Chapter VI peaceful measure, ought to be something less than a forceful measure under Chapter VII - is being ignored by the United Nations.