안전보장이사회 확산방지 대북 결의의 의의와 효과성

Implication and Effectiveness of the Security Council Resolutions against North Korea

The Security Council (hereinafter SC) has adopted a series of resolutions responding to nuclear tests by North Korea. These resolutions are the consequences of the Security Council’s responsibility and authority to maintain international peace and security not the exercise of the international executive’ power enforcing the compliance of international laws. The resolutions do not decide whether North Korea violates rules of international laws. Rather they affirm that proliferation of mass destruction weapons by North Korea constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and impose the obligation to refrain from any threat with sanctions for the violation of the obligation upon North Korea. In this regard, the SC’s resolutions against North Korea can be seen as both of enforcing Chapter VII of the Charter and imposing sanctions, and here the UN Security Council is exercising a form of international policing authority “to maintain or restore international peace and security” against any threat to the peace or breach of the peace. It remains questions despite the Security Council’s active engagement in preventing proliferation of mass destruction weapons as its effectiveness is in general vulnerable to challenges caused by both internal and external factors of norms, given that the implementation of the Security Council resolutions can be achieved only when its member States implement them. As a result, economic sanctions against North Korea are only partially successful while having not fully achieved the prevention of mass destruction weapons’ proliferation, and today they serve as political and diplomatic pressures upon North Korea at the international level.