The revival of the UN Security Council’s regulatory powers after the end of the Cold War as well as new challenges to international peace and security have led to the development and diversification of UN operational tools. In the absence of United Nations’ own material capacities to undertake necessary military action, due to the non-conclusion of agreements provided for in Article 43 of the UN Charter by which UN Member States would commit to provide the necessary force and other assistance to the Security Council upon its call, the latter developed other means. Today, there co-exist two mandated operations by the Security Council vested with the power to use force, each however within a different scope, limits and objective: UN-led “Blue Helmets” and UN-authorized military operations. This functional rapprochement causes nevertheless a great confusion, both in practice and recently in the judicial sphere. Hence, the clarification of the legal regime of each is essential. While the UN-led Blue Helmets vested with the limited power to use force represent the new generation of peacekeeping operations, the UN-authorized operations constitute a decentralized execution of the Council’s enforcement measure. In the latter case the Security Council turns to UN Member States or regional organizations and delegates them its exclusive power to use force under Article 42 of the UN Charter to execute it under set conditions. The limitation of the use of force by the UN-led operation to the strict defence of its civilian mandate does not exempt it from the regime of coercion established under Chapter VII of the UN Charter either. This raises a question of the legal status of this UN-led operation and whether possibly such tool approaches the original concept of UN enforcement forces laid down in Article 43. Analysis of the converging and diverging elements of both operations shows the complexity of this operational domain, the clarification of which is proposed in this article via a legal perspective.
Drug crime is clearly increasingly organized especially in trade and production of narcotic and psychotropic substances. Individual members states of the European Union including the Czech Republic and also legislation pervading transnational or national planes, is trying to take the most effective legal means to combat the cited crime. Legal regulations, detection and investigation of that crime must also exhibit certain specifics with regard to their nature. The current legal regulation of drug crime in the Czech Republic is thus intertwined independently with international, EU, but also the national plane. The author in his paper describes to the readers an Europeanisation treatment of drug offenses in the Czech legal order in accordance with the requirements imposed on it by the European Union and international law. She also focuses on its sufficiency– where indeed the legal instruments are blended, wherein it is possible to find flaws. She also reflects the current legal situation in the Czech Republic. She presents to the readers current problems, especially identifying ranges of drugs and related difficulties consequential for the criminal practice.