The United Nations has its Security Council as its main body. It’s the principal crisis-management body of the UN and has the authority to impose binding obligations to the 193 member states that encompassed the United Nations to maintain international peace and security. The security council of the UN mainly occupies a significant position in governing the use of force in politics internationally. The Security Council works mostly to ban the individual use of force for other purposes other than for self-defense and determines the existence of a threat to international peace and security. However, the Security Council is only taken with the assets of UN's permanent five veto-bearing Members (P-5) by presentations in (Article 27). Although the UN has been adamant in maintaining international peace and security since its formation, it has not been without criticism even though there are some real justifications on its legitimacy, authority, and usefulness.
Justification
Under the charter of the United Nations, using force to maintain world peace and security is only legal in cases where self-defense is mandatory or when given authorization by the Security Council. Although some of the actions taken by the United Nations in the name of maintaining peace and security between nations have been met with controversy, they have also received justification for their occurrences. One of the most known incidents involved seventy-day air war that took place in Kosovo without the authorization of the Security Council. People were arguing for the legitimacy of this humanitarian intervention. A bombing campaign was made to protect Kosovar Albanians from being ethnically cleansed by Serbs after Russia indicated that it would block the authorization of the bombing in the council (CFR, 2017) . Although this decision by the UN was termed illegal by several humanitarian bodies, it was deemed legitimate.
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Consequently, a justification was given for the use of force outside authorization by the United Nations Security Council after the emergence of the responsibility to protect (R2P) in early 2000. This justification mainly centered on the fact that this use of force qualified the principle of noninterference in sovereign affairs. This doctrine primarily specifies that every member state of the United Nations has a responsibility of protecting their inhabitants from crimes that are against humanity. With this doctrine, the international community, therefore, has a mandate to use peaceful means to protect a population that is threatened and if a nation fails to uphold its responsibilities, coercive measures are authorized to be collectively undertaken (Bogandy & Venzke, 2012) .
Criticism
The United Nation’s Security Council has been faced with various criticisms including criticism from member states of developing nations. These many critics have upheld for a long time that the structure of the UN’s Security Council does not often reflect current geopolitical realities of the world (CFR, 2017) . For this reason, they have expanded the previous six elected members to ten from the period of 1965 to 1971 and since the occupation of the Republic of China the composition of the body has remained the same. However, regional powers of nations such as Brazil, India, Germany, Japan, South Africa and Nigeria have since sought to increase the size of UN's Security Council and to secure permanent their permanent seats. Consequently, since the European Union is working towards forming a unified security policy, other regional powers have called for a standard European seat. Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s move of declining a seat in the Security Council in October 2013 by announcing that it would not serve in the absence of institutional reform cannot go unnoticed (CFR, 2017) .
Additionally, the security council of the United Nations has been criticized by advocates of R2P regarding deference’s that are given to political interest of the P5 (CFR, 2017) . This criticism has however brought several inactions in the face of mass atrocities. However, it is not only the P5 member that has given demonstrations that they are reluctant to use force. Moreover, regional powers and aspirants to the permanent-member status have for a long time contemplated on the odds that interventions and sovereignty have with those that are often enacted the United States (Bogandy & Venzke, 2012) .
Justifications and Criticism for the legitimacy, authority, and usefulness of the World Court
Justification
The international court is part of the institutional design that is geared towards solving some of the most pressing problems in the world. Moreover, the court pursues various global shared objectives; they seek to overcome issues that may hinder cooperation between nations and additionally try to solve failures of collective actions. However, in their quest to achieve their mission, they have been faced with several dilemmas that although have had people questioning their legitimacy, authority and usefulness have been justified. Recently, a case on the obligations of concerning negotiations that relate to the cessation of Nuclear Arms Race and Nuclear disarmament was submitted to the International Court of Justice. However, it was rejected because there was no legal dispute between the Marshall Island and the United Kingdom, as with a case that involved India and Pakistan. Although nuclear weapons are existential threats to humankind, which can cause significant damage to humanity globally, the court went against the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear weapons, a case that was justified by reasoning that advancements in nuclear disarmament agendas though international litigations were unlikely (Grossman, 2013) . Moreover justifications on the legitimacy, authority, and usefulness of the World Courts on the decisions that they make stems from the consent that states must give for the jurisdictions of these decisions. Since states are considered to be sovereign and independent, whatever they will consent to will be justified, whether acceptable or not (Grossman, 2013) .
Criticism
The world court, also known as the international court of justice has over the years been met with several objections regarding its legitimacy, authority, and usefulness. One of the criticisms the world court has faced is related to its Article 36 (1) of the statue that specifies that the court has jurisdiction in issues that are mainly provided in treaties or convections (Arora, 2014) . However, this clause only clears a path for various parties not to take part in proceedings and act in accordance with the decisions that are made by the world court. This situation occurred at the time Iran took it upon itself not to participate in the case where it was involved in a hostage crisis that was brought by the United States. Their refusal was because the situation was mainly based on the voluntary clause of the Vienna Convection on issues of diplomatic relations and hence it was not mandatory for them to comply with the court order given to them (Arora, 2014) .
Consequently, the world court has also been criticized on issues concerning its Article 36 (2) of the statue that specifies that states can declare their own time of accepting compulsory jurisdictions of the world court in matters that are related to international law (Arora, 2014) . This was with the case between USA and Nicaragua whereby Nicaragua filed a complaint against the United States Central Intelligence Agency for mining in Nicaragua ports and harbors. This complaint to the international court of justice came about in that the CIA of America violated several treaties and general principles of international law. The United States therefore flatly refused to comply with court orders and withdrew its acceptance from compulsory jurisdiction by arguing that the world court neither has authority on treaties nor a compulsory jurisdiction that is applicable (Arora, 2014) . Moreover, when the United States was arraigned before the Security Council of the World Court they, vetoed against the decision that was made by the council.
Christian World View
Christianity profoundly advocates the preservation of human dignity and life. The Bible indicates that we should love another same as we love ourselves. Additionally, one of the greatest commandments ever given to humankind specifies that thou shall not kill. Moreover, the scripture tells us to live in peace with one another and to look out for the welfare of our neighbors. Since the United Nations Security Council and the World Court main mission is to maintain global peace and security and to bring international justice to those who have been wronged, they have to work towards preserving humanity. However, Christians adamantly oppose the way the World Court and the Security Council deals with cases of humanity as they have failed in maintaining human rights for a long time. They have failed in their mission of ensuring that human beings live like brothers and sisters universally. These two institutions have been caught up in their clauses too much to realize that innocents are suffering in the hands of other humans (Abidi, 2017) . Additionally, their political ambitions have made them too blind to see the atrocities that are being committed against other innocent humans.
References
Abidi, A. (2017, November 3). UN Security Council: Refer Burma to the ICC. Retrieved July 2018, from Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/03/un-security-council-refer-burma-icc
Arora, M. (2014, Feb 16). Criticism of International Court of Justice. Retrieved July 2018, from Omabc: http://www.omabc.com/united-nations/icj/criticism-international-court-justice/
Bogandy, V. A., & Venzke, I. (2012). In Whose Name? An Investigation of International Courts’ Public Authority and Its Democratic Justification. European Journal of International Law, 23 (1), 7-41.
CFR. (2017, September 7). The UN Security Council. Retrieved July 2018, from Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/un-security-council
Grossman, N. (2013, Fall). The Normative Legitimacy of International Courts. Pp. 1-47.
