’Arab spring’-time for the un security council towards legitimacy, credibility and efficiency

Abstract EN

Objective: The paper seeks to examine the possibility of amending the UN charter, especially reforming the security council in view of its failure during the Arab spring, despite the Council's accomplishment in the Libyan case, it failed to deal with the events of the Arab spring in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Syria.

Methodology: the study mainly relied on the approach of the international system as well as the descriptive analytical approach.

Observation of Arab Spring, as an experimental case, was implemented to mainly evaluate the Libyan and Syrian cases in order to reveal the fundamental differences in the mechanisms used by the UN Security Council to protect innocent civilians in the two states, Results: the study's main findings were: (l) UNSC's role during the Arab Spring period was very limited, narrow and characterized by double standards; (2) Standards of credibility, legitimacy and efficiency need thorough examination which requires an urgent reconsideration of the role assumed by the security council to maintain international peace and security, Conclusion: the Arab Spring represented a golden opportunity to amend the UN's Charter by expanding the permanent membership to include Germany, Brazil, Japan and India, which may lead to more credibility and efficiency and create a balance that makes it difficult to dominate decision-making either individually or bilaterally.