gally - to undertake collective action that will have sanctioning result. In instances of threats to or breaches of the peace short of war, they may decide politically to take anticipatory action short of force. Moreover, it is for the members of the Security Council to determine when a threat to peace, a breach of peace, or an act of aggression has occured. Even thi determination is made on political rather than legal criteria. The Security Council may have a legal basis for acting, but self-interst determines how each of it members votes, irrespective of how close to aggression the incident at issue may be. Hence by virtue of both its constitutional limitations and the exercise of sovereign prerogatives by its members, the security council's role as a sanctioning device in international law is sharply restricted.As the subject matter of the law becomes more politicized, states are less willing to enter into formal regulation, or do so only with loopholes for escape from apparent constraints. In this area, called the law of community, governments are generally less willing to sacrifice their soverein liberties. In a revolutionary international system where change is rapid and direction unclear, the integrity of the law of community is weak, and compliance of its often flaccid norms is correspondingly uncertain.The law of the political framework resides above these other two levels and consists of the legal norms governing the ultimate power relations of states. This is the most politicized level of international relations; hence pertinent law is extremely primitive. Those legal norms that do exist suffer from all the political machinations of the states who made them. States have taken care to see that their behaviour is only minimally constrained; the few legal norms they have created always provide avenues of escape such as the big-power veto in the UN Security Council.Despite the many failures and restrictions of international law, ...
