 And finally, chapter 7. Chapter 7 is entitled Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. Chapter 7 is a central part of the Charter under which the Security Council has the power to take resolutions that are binding on the UN member states. Under Chapter 7, the resolution of the Security Council can be recommendations, but they may also be binding decisions. In Article 48 of the Charter, compels member states to comply with the measures decided by the Council. I quote, The action required to carry out the decisions of the Security Council shall be taken by all the member states of the United Nations or by some of them as the Security Council may determine. End of quote. Later in the course, I'll address the legal effects of Security Council resolutions. But let me concentrate now on what is required for the Council to exercise its powers under Chapter 7 in a concrete situation. In order to trigger its binding powers under Chapter 7, the Security Council must first determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression. Those words of Article 39 are central. A situation, a crisis must be qualified by the Council as constituting either a threat to the peace or a breach of the peace or an act of aggression. And there is a clear gradation of seriousness in those words. And you can think at them as concentric circles with the act of aggression at the core, then the breach of the peace and then the threat to the peace as being even more encompassing. And as we've seen earlier this week, Resolution 3314 of 1974 adopted by the General Assembly offers some guidance as to the definition of what is an aggression. However, the Council has so far refrained from going as far as speaking of an act of aggression. Even when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, which was a blatant act of aggression, the Council preferred to refer to, I quote, a breach of international peace and security as regards the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. And that's Resolution 660. For the rest, there is no definition of what constitutes a breach of the peace and even less of the concept of threats to the peace. To make it short, a threat to the peace is what the Security Council determines to be a threat to the peace. Saying that does not mean that the Council would make frivolous determinations because the procedure to reach a maturity with no veto is rather cumbersome and requires to engage in delicate diplomacy. Be that as it may, the concept of threat to the peace is wide and not limited to crisis situations between states. The notion of peace is not reduced to the absence of armed conflict between nations. Peace is a much wider notion and threats to the peace also. And the Security Council made that very clear in the landmark declaration of 31 January 1992 when it met at the level of heads of states and heads of government at the end of the Cold War. On many, many occasions since then, the Security Council has qualified purely internal situations and conflicts as being threats to the peace, therefore opening its powers under Chapter 7. Under Article 2, paragraph 7 of the Charter, I quote, matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of states fall beyond the competence of the UN. But this is precisely without prejudice to the enforcement powers of the Security Council under Chapter 7. Therefore, the sacrosanct internal affairs of states can be interfered with by the Security Council when it determines that a threat to the peace exists. Very often, it is because grave breaches of international law have occurred that the Council determines the existence of a threat to the peace. However, it is important to remember that qualifying a situation as being a threat to the peace is not a judicial qualification but a political qualification made by a political organ. And it is in any event independent of any legal finding. Absent any breach of international law, the Council could determine that a threat to the peace exists. And for instance, a natural disaster having important repercussions could give rise to a threat to the peace. And let me take a stupid example in order to make this point clear. If extraterrestrial creators were to invade our planet, there would be no breach of any international law because international law is the law of humanity. But such invasion could still be qualified by the Security Council as a threat to the peace. And the Council could, for instance, forbid the Member States to conclude any separate peace agreement with the invaders coming from deep space. So there's no relation, no necessary relation between threat to the peace and a breach of international law. Let us turn now to what the Security Council can do with its powers under Chapter 7 once it has determined the existence of a threat to the peace, a breach of the peace or an act of aggression.