Collective security and human rights as necessary interconnected components of the system for preventing military conflicts
Authors: Vasetsky Vyacheslav Yuriyovych 
Published: January 2025

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has affected many countries of the world, and conflicts in the world have a
tendency to spread. Therefore, based on the premise that significant historical events are accompanied by significant
changes in the legal sphere and they are the origins of law, such changes should be expected in connection with
large-scale events in the world. Changes in the legal relationship will have a manifestation in various directions,
which will concern both international institutions and the national legislation of individual countries.

The purpose of the work is the problems related to two issues that were solved earlier in certain historical periods
and may turn out to be key in view of the possible directions of future legal changes and, as a result, will turn out
to be interdependent: new approaches to security issues that require reforming legal institutions, which guarantee
the security of states and their citizens, and the second issue, which concerns increased attention to ensuring human
rights and freedoms, the role of which is aimed to obtaining additional security guarantees from civil society and
each person separately.

The current events in Ukraine in the historical aspect have many analogies that give an idea of the legal solutions
to the terrible consequences. One of the first pan-European documents was the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, which
appeared as a result of the end of the bloody medieval Thirty Years’ War. It included, in particular, the principle of
state sovereignty as a guarantee for maintaining peace, which became a universally recognized legal category. The
League of Nations is the first international organization created with the aim of achieving peace and security among
nations, the impetus for its establishment was the consequences of the First World War. The weakness of the League
of Nations as a peacekeeping instrument was caused, in particular, by the need for the consent of all members of
the organization to take measures against the aggressor. UN, although it took into account the achievements and
miscalculations of its predecessor — the League of Nations, was unable to ensure international peace to the required
extent. This was manifested, in particular, in the activities of the UN Security Council as a body that bears the main
responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. The weakness of the Security Council is that each of
its permanent members has the right of veto. This was especially shamefully manifested during Russia’s aggression
against Ukraine.

Scientific developments in the areas of overcoming the shortcomings of the existing system of collective security
and law-making work on finding the contours of the reformed legal system at the international and subsidiary levels
are considered. It was concluded that the legal means to prevent the occurrence of large-scale military conflicts
in the conditions of a globalized world, consisting of an integral system of interconnected means, should have
the following two necessary, interconnected components: an effective reformed system of collective security
and a universally binding the system of ensuring human rights and freedoms, which activates additional security
guarantees on the part of civil society and each person separately.

Key words: аggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, League of Nations, United Nations, reforming
the collective security system, ensuring human rights and freedoms.