The UN Secretary General rang alarm bell by invoking Article 99 of the UN Charter as an early warning; witnessing the appalling human suffering in Gaza. The extraordinary security situation in Gaza urged UNSG, Antonio Guterres to explicitly invoke this rare Article 99 of the UN Charter in a bid to culminate Israel’s gross human rights violations and atrocities in Gaza. It holds special powers and plays a crucial role in emphasizing the preventive aspect of the UN’s mission and providing a platform for the Secretary-General to alert the Security Council to potential threats. However, its effectiveness depends on the willingness of Security Council to act collectively and decisively in response to these warnings. The essentials to the applicability of this special article greatly depends on overcoming political barriers and ensuring unified action remains a challenge in realizing the potential of Article 99 in maintaining international peace and security.

Invoking Article 99 is actually an early warning to the most powerful five of the UN to hold back hostile situation before it turns into an imminent apocalypse. It asserts special powers to the Secretary-General that he may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security. What is going on in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories; Gaza is beyond inhumane and barbaric. The irony is that the so-called self-claimed guarantor of human rights is supporting the genocide along with its allies while 153 states have turned in favor of Palestine. In such case, UN Charter grants special powers to the Secretary General through Article 99 to call for ceasefire, humanitarian pause or diplomatic settlement to give impetus to already passed resolutions regarding the matter.

The historical precedents show that the article had been restored thrice in the past for the preservation of international peace and security.  At first, it was invoked in Congo in 1960. During colonial period until 1960, under Belgian monarchy, Congolese suffered grave genocide on which Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld invoked article 99 as a preventive measure as a result of which UN resolution 143 was passed, calling for withdrawal of Belgian troops and deployment of UN Peacekeeping forces in Congo. The efforts met failure and the conflicting situation got prolonged and worsened. It was invoked for the second time when Iranian revolution broke out and revolutionaries demanded return of Raza Shah Pahlavi from New York to face trial in Iran in exchange of captivated American hostages at the US embassy in Iran. It resulted in adoption of UN resolution 457 but again of no use.  Thirdly, it was restored when civil war erupted in Lebanon and the situation was more than worse due to the involvement of extra-regional players; playing their cards for their own interests, resulting in obliteration of Lebanon.

This time, the need of hour is again invocation of Article 99 in the face of massive international human rights violations and negligence of global powers to avert the Gaza conflict. The need of Article 99 arises when there emerges serious threat to global peace and security or to hold back escalation of conflict that could hold potential for disruption of peace. Since October 18^th, the UN Secretary-General has been calling for humanitarian ceasefire but U.S. is trying to be an epitome of loyal ally to Israel; vetoing every single resolution passed for it. Invocation of this article could be possibly last resort to establish truce for humanitarian pause. Therefore, Antonio Guterres utilized this political tool to avert the dynamics of conflict by initiating negotiations or diplomatic engagements.

The effectiveness of Article 99 merely grants power to UNSG to present a resolution, in reality it has no legal effect without the consent of Security Council. Its failure and success largely and solely depend on whether the resolution will be vetoed by any of the UNSC members. The harsh fact that despite invocation of this article even in the past, it could not make any difference is that it only works as a procedural requirement or to make alive the spirit of the article otherwise interests of P5 precedes human rights of the oppressed. This cannot end the hostility unless implementation is detached from P5 which seems a hard nut to crack.

The decision of invoking article 99 by Secretary-General is absolutely in the right but mere invocation of UN articles cannot make a single difference without the consent of big five. If UN is unable to halt the onslaught of Israel, Congolese genocide and atrocities committed in Lebanon then its existence as for restoration of peace is questionable. History has witnessed UN’s blind attitude towards the weaker ones, yet the world is hoping for UN to control situation before it gets worse.