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Urging the UNSC for reform
Bereket Gebru
Ethiopia is the reigning President of the UN Security Council. Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has been commended by world leaders about his leadership in these highly contested platforms. His proposals to ensure peace and security in the world have also been accepted. Related news stories have been coming out fast since Ethiopia assumed the role on September 1.
Developing countries are, however, only left with such rare opportunities to make a meaningful impact on the international organization. The security council is predominantly controlled by a selected group of countries that have the right to annul any decisions they deem impossible to accept.
The website of the United Nations (UN) states that the Security Council is one of the six main organs of the international organization responsible for maintaining international peace and security. The Security Council has 15 members 5 of which are permanent while the rest are rotating members.
Under the United Nations Charter, the functions and powers of the Security Council are:
- to maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations;
- to investigate any dispute or situation which might lead to international friction;
- to recommend methods of adjusting such disputes or the terms of settlement;
- to formulate plans for the establishment of a system to regulate armaments;
- to determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to recommend what action should be taken;
- to call on Members to apply economic sanctions and other measures not involving the use of force to prevent or stop aggression;
- to take military action against an aggressor;
- to recommend the admission of new Members;
- to exercise the trusteeship functions of the United Nations in “strategic areas”;
- to recommend to the General Assembly the appointment of the Secretary-General and, together with the Assembly, to elect the Judges of the International Court of Justice.
It further states that all members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. While other organs of the United Nations make recommendations to member states, only the Security Council has the power to make decisions that member states are then obliged to implement under the Charter.
That means even though the General Assembly is the biggest organ of the UN incorporating all 193 member states, its decisions are not as obligatory as that of the Security Council. Especially, the five permanent members of the Council that have veto powers wield a considerable amount of power.
These five permanent members of the Security Council are: China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States. Various sources indicate that more than 60 United Nations Member States have never been Members of the Security Council.
A State which is a Member of the United Nations but not of the Security Council may participate, without a vote, in the Security Council’s discussions when the Council considers that that country’s interests are affected. Both Members and non-members of the United Nations, if they are parties to a dispute being considered by the Council, may be invited to take part, without a vote, in the Council’s discussions; the Council sets the conditions for participation by a non-member State.
The United Nations Security Council “power of veto” refers to the veto power wielded solely by the five permanent members of the United NationsSecurity Council, enabling them to prevent the adoption of any “substantive” resolution, as well as decide which issues fall under the “substantive” title.
This de facto control over the UN Security Council by the five governments is seen by critics, since its creation in 1945, as the most undemocratic character of the UN. It is this concentration of power in these five permanent members that has progressively led to a louder call for reform. Critics also note the veto power as a main cause for most international inaction on war crimes and crimes against humanity. The veto does not apply to procedural votes, which is significant in that the Security Council’s permanent membership can vote against a “procedural” draft resolution, without necessarily blocking its adoption by the Council.
The veto is exercised when any permanent member—the so-called “P5“—casts a “negative” vote on a “substantive” draft resolution. Abstention or absence from the vote by a permanent member does not prevent a draft resolution from being adopted.
Sources indicate that the veto was forced on all other governments by the (soon to be) five veto holders. In the negotiations building up to the creation of the UN, the veto power was resented by many small countries, and in fact was forced on them by the veto nations – US, UK, China, France and the Soviet Union – through a threat that without the veto there would be no UN.
Here is a description by Francis O. Wilcox, an adviser to US delegation to the 1945 conference: “At San Francisco, the issue was made crystal clear by the leaders of the Big Five: it was either the Charter with the veto or no Charter at all. Senator Connally [from the US delegation] dramatically tore up a copy of the Charter during one of his speeches and reminded the small states that they would be guilty of that same act if they opposed the unanimity principle. “You may, if you wish,” he said, “go home from this Conference and say that you have defeated the veto. But what will be your answer when you are asked: ‘Where is the Charter’?”
“The Security Council’s membership and working methods reflect a bygone era. Though geopolitics have changed drastically, the Council has changed relatively little since 1945, when wartime victors crafted a Charter in their interest and awarded “permanent” veto-wielding Council seats for themselves.”
The same source goes on to explain that since 1993, the UN General Assembly has hotly debated Council reform but has not been able to reach agreement. A handful of states aspire to “permanent” status for themselves, while many other countries reject such claims. The Security Council’s membership and working methods reflect a bygone era. Though geopolitics have changed drastically, the Council has changed relatively little since 1945, when wartime victors crafted a Charter in their interest and awarded “permanent” veto-wielding Council seats for themselves.
The debate on membership expansion (and new permanent members) attracts most of the attention, but Council reform involves much more than the chairs around the table and who sits in them. The Council is far too loosely organized and depends far too much on the management of the permanent five (P-5). By design, it has only minor institutional support from the Secretariat, placing impossible burdens on the delegations of elected members and weakening all efforts at institutional development, precedent-setting and organized institutional memory. Incredibly, the Council’s rules of procedure remain “provisional” after nearly sixty years of operation.
A Global Policy Forum article by James Paul and Céline Nahorystates that calls for Council reform began in the early 1990s, in response to the Council’s controversial action and inaction (Iraq and Rwanda for example) and the Council’s growing activity in the post-Cold War period. Critics of the Council made seven demands – that the Council be: (1)more representative, (2)more accountable, (3)more legitimate, (4)more democratic, (5)more transparent, (6)more effective and (7)more fair and even-handed (no double standards).
The article goes on to explain “reformers sometimes ask: how can even the best-organized Council function effectively and fairly in a world where great powers, like Tyrannosaurs, stalk the global landscape? Powerful governments that claim to champion “freedom,” “democracy,” and “good governance,” have been known to behave despotically in the international arena, bending small states to their will and acting in violation of international law. Such powers sit in the Council and cannot be expected to solve problems that they themselves have created. This can be called the “foxes guarding the chicken coop” problem.”
One of the strongest reasons behind the issue of reform has to do with representation. Of the five permanent members with veto power, none is from Africa yet the continent provides the largest membership of the UN. In contrast, there are three countries in the Security Council representing Europe. More generally, all five members of the Security Council are from the industrialized nations of the Northern Hemisphere with the poor nations of the world that host the majority of the world’s population not represented at all.
Sources indicate that the UN is made up of 193 member states. Of these, 54 are from Africa, Asia-Pacific (53), the Eastern European Group (23), the Western European and Others Group (28), while the Latin American and Caribbean Group has 33 members. The remaining two members namely the State of Palestine and the Holy See are observer states.
As can clearly be seen, the regions of the world that support the largest population sizes are not represented while those that have the least are over-represented. As an international organization incorporating states across the globe, the UN should have given more emphasis to population size than wealth. The membership of the Security Council, as it has always been, is one acutely bent towards the wealthy and powerful states. This reality has created the perfect platform for the richest and powerful nations to impose their will over the people and resources of the poorest majority of the planet.
With only a few of the world’s population controlling the immense power of a permanent seat in the Security Council along with the veto power that comes with it, the UN is obviously an organization in which some of its members are more important than others. It is an organization in which major obligatory decisions are made by a special few to be imposed upon the rest of the world.
As a writer put it, “with global power shifting in recent decades where Africa, for example, is now the fastest emerging continent and China the biggest economy in the world, reforms to the council are more urgent to ensure that the body is in line with new realities and emerging geo-political dynamics.”
The other thing that has changed drastically since the establishment of the UN is that those holding the permanent seats of the Security Council and thus are responsible for decision on peace and security in the world are actually inciting violence across the globe for their imperialistic goals. Whether it is directly through the use of military power or through the Multi-National Corporations that they host, these countries are working tirelessly to amass the riches of the world.
The invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, the color revolutions in Eastern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East along with the unconstitutional changes in Latin America and Asia have all been instigated by the same states the UN has put in charge of world peace and security. These states have increasingly become the biggest threat to world peace and security especially in the 21st century. Therefore, leaving these states unchecked with these destructive powers is only going to spell more harm to the world. Therefore, a reform of the Security Council should be realized in such a way that it acts as a restraint to these forces and not as a factor multiplying their powers.
