Paper UN

      Controversy of Veto Power Over 

The Effectiveness of UNSC

        The UN Charter established six main organs of the United Nations, including the Security Council. It gives primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security to the Security Council, which may meet whenever peace is threatened.

United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has four main purposes: firstly to maintain international peace and security; secondly, to develop friendly relations among nations; thirdly, to cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights; and finally to be a Centre for harmonizing the actions of nations

UNSC has 15 members, which consist of 5 permanent members (Russia, France, China, United Kingdom, and United States) and the 10 non-permanent members’ seats are distributed on a regional basis as follows: five for African and Asian States; one for Eastern European States; two for the Latin American and Caribbean States; and two for Western European and other States.

The five permanent members have veto powers, enabling them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of the level of international support for the draft. The rationale for the P5 veto power was to ensure that the UNSC did not suffer the same fate as its predecessor the League of Nations. In essence, the veto power was granted to the P5 as reassurance that their interests would not be ignored and in the hope that it would ensure their participation in the new organization. The veto power was designed ‘to transform a wartime alliance into a big-power oligarchy to secure the hard won peace that would follow.

After the UN was established there were regular calls to reform the veto power, the most common grounds being that the veto violated the principle of sovereign equality, that it would be used as a tool of great power domination, and that it would effectively exempt the P5 from being governed by the Council. In the last decades, the world have been arguing about thus the veto power is relevant over the effectiveness of the UNSC.

In the world’s eyes, the UNSC that is supposed to be a world organization seems change into ‘the king of the nations’. The permanent members (P5) seem like they have control over this organization, especially with their veto powers. As we can see The UNSC action has become rare in recent decades with the last occasion being in 1997 to take action against Israel.

United States has used the veto on 82 occasions between 1946 and 2007; and has used its veto power more than any other permanent member since 1972. And in the other hand, Russia / The Soviet Union has used the veto on 124 occasions, more than any two others of the five permanent members of the Security Council combined. Most recent vetoes that have been used are The United States vetoed a draft resolution condemning Israel Settlements in the West Bank in February 18, 2012; then China and Russia vetoed a resolution threatening Chapter 7 of The UN Charter sanctions against Syria in July 19, 2012.

There have been several world meetings and debates occurred to discuss about this veto power’s contravention. However variety of debates about how to reform the Council had occurred but these led only to a change in the number of the members (from eleven to fifteen) not the veto power. Even the World Summit in 2005 seems the same as the previous. There were ‘no practical way of changing the existing members’ veto powers.

It may seem hard to abolish the veto powers, so with all the world’s issues and problems that happen in the world, P5 should agree not to use their veto power to block action in response to genocide and mass atrocities that would otherwise pass the majority. It will prevent the harm of the conflict that occur in the world.

The responsibility to protect the world that is the task of the UNSC should be emphasized.  The responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’ as well as ‘their incitement’ (paragraph 138 of The UN Charter).

There are three pillars that need to be emphasized inside of UNSC. The first is the responsibility of each state to use appropriate and necessary means to protect its own population from the four crimes as well as from their incitement. The second pillar refers to the commitment that UN member states will help each other exercise this responsibility. This includes specific commitments to help states build the capacity to protect their populations from the four crimes and to assist those that are under stress before crises and conflicts erupt. The third pillar refers to international society’s collective responsibility to respond through the UN in a timely and decisive manner, using Chapters VI, VII and VIII of the UN Charter as appropriate, when national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from the four crimes listed above.

Even if the veto power could not be abolished, UNSC should look for the solution over the controversy that happen for a very long time. We believe that the veto powers should not been used over the genocide and mass atrocities. The permanent members should use their veto powers wisely and not use it for diplomatic benefits only, and taking care of the world’s security as their main goal and basic purpose.