Changes in the UN System

The United Nations was founded by the signing of the United Nations Charter on 26^th June 1945 by the 50 member states (Poland singed in June to become the 51^st member). It officially came into existence on 24^th October 1945 when the Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States and by a majority of other signatories.[1] The United Nations Security Council is one of the most important parts of the UN. In its original form the Security Council had eleven members, of which five would be permanent members and six would hold seats for two years. The Security Council was given responsibility of preventing future wars, and it was responsible for making decisions on what actions the UN needed to take. Also, the veto power was given to these five permanent members in Article 30 after the insistence of the major powers. These members are China, France, United Kingdom, Russia and United States. Due to diplomatic pressures the number of members in the Security Council was increased to 15 but the permanent positions remained the same. 

The Security Council has a number of powers and functions, “It can investigate any situation threatening international peace; recommend procedures for peaceful resolution of a dispute; call upon other member nations to completely of partially interrupt economic relations as well as sea, air, postal and radio communications, or to sever diplomatic relations; Enforce its decisions militarily, or by any means necessary; avoid conflict and maintain focus on co-operation.”[2] Focusing on this wing of the UN, the following changes are proposed in the working, system, constitution of the Security Council.

Membership

The reality is that the Security Council is the only decision making forum at the UN that matters critically in international relations. The UN has from its start, grown from 51 to 194 member states and the world population has grown from 2 billion to 7 billion. Also the system which was established then in 1945 is not matching the global needs in 2011. The decisions that are made in the Security Council have lost their legitimacy plainly for the reason because the decisions do not involve most of the world’s people. “It is highly unrepresentative- with the permanent members being made up of two European countries and three other ‘superstates’-USA, China and Russia. Not one African, Arabic or South American has a permanent seat.”[3]

What needs to be done is that the membership of the Security Council should be opened up. There should be equal representation from each of the 7 blocks. However, even after this the group would be too small to represent the whole membership of the UN, but including everyone into the Security Council would make the group to carry out serious negotiations. The problems lies in the countries that are to be added into the group and some system has to be devised, by which each block gets equal representation and a particular point of time by rotation. The proposed change would increase the legitimacy of the collective authority of the Security Council and would thus increase the efficiency. This increase in the group would certainly lead to a great effect on the political complexion of the Council. “This could be seen in the 1965 expansion too, when, prior to the reforms, almost all the vetoes were cast by the USSR, whilst almost all vetoes thereafter were cast by the Western permanent members, since they no longer had an inherent majority on the Council to insulate them from having to cast vetoes.”[4]

Hence, admit the charges that the permanent members reach consensus privately before going to the Security Council as a whole on a range of issues, it is desirable that the increase in the number of member states should be reflected on the Security Council.

Veto Rights

It is proposed that the veto right given to the permanent members be done away with. In the Chapter 5 of the UN Charter, Article 23 names five states as permanent members of the Secuirty Council and Article 27, par. 3 accords them the veto power over substantive matters. “The word “veto” nowhere appears in the United Nations Charter. While technically inaccurate, it has come into common usage.”[5] “To make matters worse, the permanent members can veto the determination of an issue as either a “dispute” or a mere “situation”. Thus, the permanent members have a so called double veto power on the meta level that decides the preliminiary question of whether or not a certain matter is subject to the veto. They can therefore fully protect their interests, and the absentation clause contained in Article 27, which looks good on paper, is worthless.”[6] The concept of double veto gives the powers to the members from not only vetoeing the decision of the Council but also determining which question to be vetoed. The veto power has been misused by the members in a number of cases and in furtherance of their national interests. An example of this is, “Since 1984, United States has vetoed 43 times, nearly 30 of these 43 US vetoes have been in support of Israeli interests, despite at times the remaining 14 members all voting in favour of the resolution.”[7]

Given the fact that all the members having veto powers are nuclear powers, the democratic dialogue is not facilitated in practice. This power “not only jeoparadizes the systemic consistency of the Charter, but at the same time it is extremely detrimental to the universal acceptance, legitimacy and implementation of the United Nations resolutions. The voting privilege stated in Art 27 stands in direct conflict with the universal recognition of the United Nations as a transnational authority.”[8]

The criteria of giving these nations veto power are in question. It is proving that having a “super-state” tag by having a stable better economy, best military and large population would lead to have an unequal and superior status in an organization that claims to be equal to all member states. The veto is against the letter and spirit of the United Nations Charter and the acceptance of this under Article 27 clearly expressed that “international law is surrendered to power politics”.[9] 

The balance of power has shifted into the hands of the permanent members and the political inequality thus created has raised questions on the credibility of the United Nations. Further, there would be no “peaceful co-operation” when this kind of power is given to the nations. Hence, the legally unsound concept of veto power given to the permanent members of the Security Council needs to be abolished so as to have the institution more reliable and credible.

Dev Chaudhary

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[1] Available at- www.un.org/aboutun/history.htm

[2] Available on- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council

[3] Mike Morgan, Forget the EU, it’s time to reform the UN Security Council, Available at- www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

[4] Sam Daws, Security Council Reforms: The Dual Risks

[5] Palmer and Perkins, International Relations, A.I.T.B.S Publishers, 3^rd Ed., Pg 379

[6] Hans Kochler, The Voting Procedure in the United Nations Security Council

[7] Ibid note 3

[8] Ibid note 6

[9] Supra.