Carrie Booth Walling

The UN Security Council and the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights

At the founding of the United Nations (UN), the Security Council was tasked with regulating state sovereignty and maintaining international peace and security. Although the core principles and purposes of the UN outlined in the preamble and Chapter I of the Charter also include the reaffirmation of fundamental human rights, different organs were created to achieve the UN’s diverse purposes. The encouragement and monitoring of human rights was assigned to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and its Commission on Human Rights, which was replaced by the Human Rights Council in 2006. A strict separation of responsibility between these organs was maintained until 1991, when the subject of human rights legitimately entered Security Council deliberations for the first time.