Limits to Security Council Powers under the UN Charter and Issues of Charter Interpretation

The article deals with the interpretation of Security Council powers under the UN Charter, and analyses available interpretive options. The various approaches, inspired by the textual, teleological, “subsequent practice”, and “systemic” methods of interpretation, as well as the complementary means of interpretation supplied by the preparatory works of San Francisco Conference, are successively considered and their relative advantages and shortcomings comparatively assessed. The article argues that recourse to one or the other from among the available interpretive methods can be influenced in individual cases by political and judicial contingencies, and that as a whole the interpretation of Security Council powers under the Charter is an evolving process, the variations of which may depend on the changing needs of collective security and of the international legal order at large