Article 103 of the United Nations Charter: Uncharted Possibilities? The Ukraine Conflict and Beyond

Article 103 of the United Nations Charter establishes the primacy of states’ obligations under the Charter over their other international obligations. The effect of Article 103 on states’ obligations has been discussed in the jurisprudence and literature but only in the context of obligations conflicting with binding Security Council decisions. Those discussions fail to shed light on its legal significance in a variety of other situations. This writing explores the application of Article 103 in other contexts. It explores the legal ramifications of Article 103 applied to states’ obligations that conflict with the Charter itself, with obligations contained in certain General Assembly resolutions, and with International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) judgments. The importance of filling this gap can be seen when applying the rule in Article 103 to the conflict in Ukraine, including to the Ukraine v. Russia case under the Genocide Convention before the ICJ, as a case study.

∗ Attorney and Consultant in International Law; Adjunct Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. The author wishes to thank Professor Sean Murphy, Professor Eirik Bjorge, and Sir Michael Wood, KC, for their valuable input on earlier drafts.