THE UNITED NATIONS AND THE GENEVA ACCORDS
The development of negotiations under UN auspices
As noted earlier, the Soviet Union’s status as a permanent member
of the UN Security Council afforded it the capacity to veto any
condemnation by that body of its invasion, let alone any forceful
response of the type which Chapter VII of the United Nations
Charter permits the Council to authorise in the event of a threat to
international peace and security. Resolutions of the General
Assembly, while powerful indicators of international opinion,
could not bind member states as a matter of international law.
Thus, there was effectively no mechanism available in the UN sys-
tem by which to compel a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
However, one avenue did exist to establish a process to facilitate
Soviet withdrawal should the Soviet leadership feel compelled to
change course. The avenue in point was a product of what are
known as the ‘Good Offices’ of the Secretary-General, in which
the UN mediates between parties to a dispute with a view to pro-
ducing a peaceful resolution on terms satisfactory to the parties.
Such activity has a clear constitutional basis. The Secretary-
General of the League of Nations (1920–46) was very much an
administrative officer, and the position of Secretary-General of the
League was something of a graveyard for diplomats with promis-
ing political careers. When the UN Charter was being drafted, its
authors understood that there could by advantages in enhancing the
political capabilities of the UN Secretary-General. Article 99 of the
Charter gave the Secretary-General a novel political capacity: ‘The
Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security
Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the mainten-
ance of international peace and security.’ In the hands of Dag
Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General from 1953 until his death in
a plane crash in 1961, the office on the basis of this Article devel-
oped a new salience (Newman, 1998: 21). Article 98 provided also
that the Secretary-General should perform certain identified func-
tions, and should perform ‘such other functions as are entrusted to
134 The Afghanistan Wars