The Third Step: Issuance of the Decision: The Use of Precedent

In the third step of the UNSC decision-making process, the creation of an atrocities investigation by the UNSC requires that the UNSC members draft one resolution committing their agreement into words. Beyond political bargaining, the UNSC members routinely use precedent to convince other states to vote in favor of their draft resolutions. As presented in this chapter, the UNSC resorts to precedent, contrary to prior explanations, to not only (i) safeguard the interests of the affected parties, (ii) ensure consistent outcomes to similar issues, and (iii) render the decision-making process more efficient. Instead, the members of the UNSC use precedent as a bargaining tool to overcome the uncertainty inherent in UNSC deliberations. Five short case studies from the UNSC’s deliberations over atrocities investigations lend support to the bargaining use of precedent.