Abstract
When the idea of a potential world organization first emerged in 1943, arbitration was soon to be made between maintaining effective power within the scope of a few powers, and the necessity to gain the support from small and medium States. The only possible answer to this dilemma was to initiate a process of legitimization, by which the most important nations, with their permanent seats and rights of veto, would acquire legitimacy coming from less influential States. Still, these countries opposed firmly, during Dumberton Oaks Conference, the idea of having some happy few retaining enormous powers. Indeed, never have an international organization had so much power as the Security Council of the United Nations: it we briefly take a glance at the legal documents, we will observe that the Charter grants the Council wide latitude to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" (Art. 39) and the authority to require all kinds of supporting action from the member states when such an international threat, breach, or act has been found (Arts. 40, 41, 42, 36).
