The Interplay between Security Council Action and Humanitarian Countermeasures

The interplay between humanitarian countermeasures and Security Council actions plays a considerable role for the definition and the shaping of humanitarian countermeasures in a manner most compatible with the UN Charter. It is decisive in order to define the normative gap that humanitarian countermeasures are intended to fill. This is particularly interesting in cases where the Security Council may have taken measures and/or remained seized of the matter. This chapter first sheds light on different approaches regarding the relationship of the DARS to the UN Charter and the relationship between third-party countermeasures and Security Council action respectively. It then deals with the specificity of humanitarian countermeasures. A precondition for humanitarian countermeasures is a deadlock in the Security Council,  which is defined in the final part of this chapter.