Can the United Nations intervene in Gaza?

I recently saw a video recording of the Irish President Michael Higgins calling for intervention under the United Nations Charter:

I cannot really stand in a public venue and give a public speech ... when I see such an incredible destruction of an entire people taking place. Are we to watch children starving? Women dehydrated trying to feed their children? So something must happen.

I am personally in favor of the Secretary General of the United Nations using procedures that are there in the Charter of the United Nations, to use a Chapter 7 procedure. By which I mean in fact, whether or not the Security Council agrees and even if there is a blockage, the right exists for the Secretary General to seek to put together an international defense of a corridor. There are 6,000 trucks with enough food for three months and it is being blocked. It is outrageous.

This sounds incredibly convincing as it invokes both emotion and procedural expertise. I want to jump on social media and say there is a viable, legal way to aid the people in Gaza using the UN Charter. Anything to circumvent the Israeli State's siege and starvation of Gaza.

And yet: I do not know anything about the Charter, so I am taking a step back before getting all wound up. I still feel all of it – the outrage that international law is a mirage rather than a house of cards. That the exceptions undermine us all, but mostly the Palestinian people's fundamental human rights.

So let's read Chapter 7 of the UN Charter together, shall we? You and me friend, in this together.

Article 39: The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Security Council determines, not Secretary General.

Article 40: In order to prevent an aggravation of the situation, the Security Council may, before making the recommendations or deciding upon the measures provided for in Article 39, call upon the parties concerned to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary or desirable. Such provisional measures shall be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned. The Security Council shall duly take account of failure to comply with such provisional measures.

Same issue: Security Council determines, not Secretary General.

Article 41: The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.

I really want to read Secretary General, but it is Security Council after all.

Article 42: Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

COUNCIL...

Article 43:
1. All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. 2. Such agreement or agreements shall govern the numbers and types of forces, their degree of readiness and general location, and the nature of the facilities and assistance to be provided.3. The agreement or agreements shall be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council. They shall be concluded between the Security Council and Members or between the Security Council and groups of Members and shall be subject to ratification by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.

Member States must contribute to the actions, but the Security Council remains the decision maker.

Article 44: When the Security Council has decided to use force it shall, before calling upon a Member not represented on it to provide armed forces in fulfilment of the obligations assumed under Article 43, invite that Member, if the Member so desires, to participate in the decisions of the Security Council concerning the employment of contingents of that Member's armed forces.

This is getting repetitive.

Article 45: In order to enable the United Nations to take urgent military measures, Members shall hold immediately available national air-force contingents for combined international enforcement action. The strength and degree of readiness of these contingents and plans for their combined action shall be determined within the limits laid down in the special agreement or agreements referred to in Article 43, by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.

It may be worth mentioning that Palestine is not a Member State of the United Nations yet. It is merely an observer, not a participant.

Article 46: Plans for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee.

Article 47: There shall be established a Military Staff Committee to advise and assist the Security Council on all questions relating to the Security Council's military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security, the employment and command of forces placed at its disposal, the regulation of armaments, and possible disarmament.
1. The Military Staff Committee shall consist of the Chiefs of Staff of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representatives. Any Member of the United Nations not permanently represented on the Committee shall be invited by the Committee to be associated with it when the efficient discharge of the Committee's responsibilities requires the participation of that Member in its work.2. The Military Staff Committee shall be responsible under the Security Council for the strategic direction of any armed forces placed at the disposal of the Security Council. Questions relating to the command of such forces shall be worked out subsequently.3. The Military Staff Committee, with the authorization of the Security Council and after consultation with appropriate regional agencies, may establish regional sub-committees.

Okay, the Military Staff Committee then is also mostly made up of the Security Council members, except when a Member State is needed for successful completion of the mandate the Council has agreed upon. At least, that is my lay reading. Not much in there about the procedures available to the Secretary General.

Article 48:
1. The action required to carry out the decisions of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security shall be taken by all the Members of the United Nations or by some of them, as the Security Council may determine.2. Such decisions shall be carried out by the Members of the United Nations directly and through their action in the appropriate international agencies of which they are members.

So all Member States have to carry out Security Council decisions – this does not grant any rights to the Secretary General. I will stop commenting on each section now.

Article 49: The Members of the United Nations shall join in affording mutual assistance in carrying out the measures decided upon by the Security Council.

Article 50: If preventive or enforcement measures against any state are taken by the Security Council, any other state, whether a Member of the United Nations or not, which finds itself confronted with special economic problems arising from the carrying out of those measures shall have the right to consult the Security Council with regard to a solution of those problems.

Article 51: Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.

To sum up, there is nothing in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter that permits the Secretary General to directly intervene in Israel's blockade of Gaza. The General can merely convene a Security Council meeting to vote on taking such action, but that is where it stops. Last time there was a call for a ceasefire in the Security Council, the United States vetoed the resolution.

Let's keep reading these fundamental documents so we learn what actually is the basis of the "international order."