This chapter reflects on the institutional strength of the Security Council. It emphasises the fact that the Security Council forms part of the greater organisation of the United Nations, composed of 193 states. While it is obvious that the Security Council is a forum of power politics, the Council is not only composed of the powerful and the permanent. This chapter submits that the less powerful states do not necessarily need always to play a secondary role – especially if they team up. The chapter is also guided by the idea that less powerful states, in particular, have an interest in the rule of law guiding international relations as a means of constraining raw power politics. The chapter thus presents an institutionalist perspective. At its core, this perspective is about checks and balances, as well as the ability to take the interests of ‘the others’ into account (i.e., those that do not have a permanent seat at the Security Council). The chapter applies this perspective to examine the exercise of distinct Security Council powers pertaining to the use of force, UN sanctions, and counter-terrorism legislation, as well as to possible new work terrains for the Security Council.

Judicial review is central to the Constitution-in-practice, and in the American system of vertical precedent this necessarily gives the Supreme Court, because it is the final voice in the primary American process of articulating constitutional law, the most important role in solving constitutional problems. It does not follow, however, that all constitutional questions are to be answered by the Supreme Court or that all constitutional answers are the ones that a majority of the justices think are correct in the abstract. The practice of constitutional law involves a web of principles, doctrines, and practices that make the perspective from which one is addressing a question a significant factor, much of the time, in the reasoning the constitutional lawyer should employ.