You raise a very interesting point about the dilemma of a collective alliance and there being particular unilateral actions and statements on behalf of individual states.
To a certain extent, I don't think there's much that can be done about those individual state statements, if you will. With respect to the evolution of a Security Council-mandated action, and let's remember that this is what this was, if we were to go back to 1999, we can think about how things have changed.
Right up until the day of Resolution 1973, the Secretary General of NATO was saying that we will not act without a resolution from the Security Council, so the council authorized that action. NATO was the council's delegated authority, if you will.
There are actually mechanisms the United Nations has used for peacekeeping operations to exert some control. There are sunset clauses on peacekeeping missions. There are reporting requirements back to the Security Council. There are caveats you could put into missions.
Of course, these kinds of procedural mechanisms have their drawbacks, and the response, for example, of the United States to suggestions like these is to say that you're trying to slow down its operation and that you have to let militaries do what they will.
I think the days of the U.S., French, and U.K. militaries being able to say to the rest of the world, “Trust us; we're liberal democracies, and we will do the right thing in the field,” are over, in my view.
I think the move for accountability mechanisms when actions are mandated by the council is a very strong one. I would actually advise the committee to have a look at the proposal of the Brazilian government, called “responsibility while protecting”, which was released about a year ago in a letter to the UN Secretary-General, to get a flavour of some of the things being discussed around the accountability of actors like NATO.