Article 2 4 of the UN Charter and Global War

How the Transfer of Arms Violates Article 2(4) and Leads to the Risk of Global War

Legal Issue

The legal issue identified in this paper is how the transfer of arms could be a violation of UN Charter Article 2(4). The examples of the transfer of arms from UK to Saudi Arabia to be used in an attack on Yemen as well as the transfer of arms from the US and other states to Ukraine to attack Russia are used in the paper. The escalation of conflict from sanctions to hot war and the threat of nuclear war is discussed. The idea being pursued is that legal parameters have largely been eschewed in the West from Article 2(4) to the use of economic sanctions or the breaking of contracts (such as Germany’s breaking of its contract with Russia regarding Nord Stream 2, in violation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in the WTO.

Draft Structure

The draft structure consists of these sections:

I. Introduction

II. Article 2(4)

III. The Arms Trade

a. Violation of Article 2(4)

b. Retaliation of States to the Transfer of Arms

IV. Escalation

a. Germany’s Reaction to Russian Retaliation

b. Economic Sanctions

V. Conclusion

Preliminary Bibliography

Bolvin, Alexandra.  ‘Complicity and beyond: International law and the transfer of small

arms and light weapons’ (2005) 87 International Review of the Red Cross 467.

 

Chercheneff, Lena. ‘Challenging unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions under

international economic law: exploring leads at the WTO and the OECD’ (2021) Research Handbook on Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions, 2021, University of Lille, France.

 

Hofer, Alexandra. ‘Unilateral and Extraterritorial Sanctions Symposium: Here We

Go Again, Russian Aggression and Western Sanctions’ (2022) Accessed March 21, 2022: http://opiniojuris.org/2022/02/28/unilateral-and-extraterritorial-sanctions-symposium-here-we-go-again-russian-aggression-and-western-sanctions/

 

Hofer, Alexandra. ‘Unilateral sanctions as a challenge to the law of state