I’m curious if U.N. has rights to call an emergency meeting and vote to send everything necessary to help to fight natural disaster, given that causes of rainforest extinction might be felt globally ? This is considering situation when Brazil government doesn’t ask for international help ?
7
-
Does the UN have these type of resources?– user9790Commented Aug 24, 2019 at 15:54
-
So, this would be analogous to sending UN peacekeepers, except instead of sending soldiers, participating nations would send wildland firefighters?– divibisanCommented Aug 24, 2019 at 17:34
-
Yes, that was the idea - instead of peacekeepers sending personnel that is fit for the occasion.– MikeCommented Aug 24, 2019 at 21:25
-
As @KDog mentioned, question implicitly asks if U.N. has these types of resources or if doing so would’ve mean to organize gathering such resources (which I’m guessing is not an easy/fast thing to do).– MikeCommented Aug 24, 2019 at 21:27
-
It's probably not such a great idea anyway; the Amazon has been raped quite enough already.– MeirCommented Aug 25, 2019 at 15:16
|
Show 2 more comments
2 Answers
The closest would probably be that the UN security council would make such a decision (=send help without being requested).
While I guess "technically" a security council meeting would be arranged by "UN", for a non-scheduled one to be called, it would require some country to bring up the urgent matter (fire) to the council. Also, I think that to consider the fire to be in their scope, would be stretching quite a bit their intended domain.
As far as I know, no other UN body could simply make a decision to send help "by force".
Let's assume that Brazil is actively hostile to such an intervention and would consider it a violation of its sovereignty (because otherwise no problem would exist, and the question didn't need to be asked).
In that case, a firefighting mission is essentially a military mission which would not be covered under the charter of the U.N.
Chapter VII details the procedures and conditions for armed intervention. The conditions are "the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" (Article 39). Other chapters discuss "softer" issues like "international peace and security"; a burning rain forest dumping 120 Gt CO2 into the atmosphere could conceivably be considered a threat to security, for example to the citizens of Tuvalu, the 189th member of the United Nations. But such threats only authorize mediation and other actions by the U.N., not a military intervention.
answered May 5, 2023 at 17:37
