The Gaza Peace Council and the United Nations Charter: Legal Validity, Methodological Foundations, and Implications for the Authority of the Security Council
Mohannad Al-Khamiseh
The Gaza Peace Council and the United Nations Charter: Legal Validity, Methodological Foundations, and Implications for the Authority of the Security Council
مجلس سلام غزة وميثاق الأمم المتحدة: المشروعية القانونية، الأسس المنهجية، والآثار المترتبة على سلطة مجلس الأمن
Mohannad Al-Khamiseh
Assistant professor in Public International Law
Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
The Hashemite University
Abstract
This article examines the Gaza Peace Council through a constitutional and institutional analysis grounded in the United Nations Charter and established Security Council practice. Rather than approaching the mechanism solely as a policy response to post-conflict governance needs, the study situates it within the broader legal architecture of collective security and evaluates its compatibility with the Charter’s structural principles of centralized authority, legal attribution, and institutional accountability. By combining doctrinal interpretation with comparative examination of prior transitional administrations — most notably Kosovo and East Timor — the article demonstrates that the decisive issue is not the desirability of international involvement in Gaza, but the juridical form through which such involvement is constituted. The analysis reveals that the Gaza Peace Council, as presently conceived, occupies an ambiguous position within the United Nations framework, raising concerns regarding delegation of authority, responsibility gaps, and the gradual diffusion of Security Council primacy. The article concludes that the mechanism is not inherently incompatible with the Charter; however, its legality and legitimacy remain contingent upon institutional design choices that preserve continuous oversight, clear attribution, and revocability within the UN system. In this respect, the Gaza Peace Council functions as both a test case and a cautionary example for the future evolution of international governance under Chapter VII.
Keywords United Nations Security Council; Gaza Peace Council; Chapter VII; collective security; delegation of authority; transitional administration; institutional accountability; international governance; constitutional structure of the UN; post-conflict administration.