Today, a book dealing with the issue of human rights and the UN Security Council does not come as a big surprise. Readers familiar with developments in international law and international relations have become accustomed to a Security Council that tries to promote and protect fundamental human rights in situations of war and internal conflict, as well as to prevent and punish (by means of ad hoc criminal tribunals) grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, such as acts of genocide and war crimes.1 By the same token, it has become a matter of general knowledge that in certain circumstances action taken by the Security Council has given rise to human rights concerns. In particular, the comprehensive economic sanctions against Iraq and the so-called targeted sanctions imposed on individuals in the fight against international terrorism have been sharply criticized as detrimental to the internationally recognized human rights of the affected persons. The ensuing academic discussion resulted in widespread agreement that the Security Council is bound by international human rights, even though authors have used different reasoning to reach this conclusion.