2. Activity of the Council - Global Policy and the United Nations Security Council

This Chapter provides some background on the Security Council. Firstly, it discusses the political provisions of the post WWII climate and U.S. power in establishing the five veto-power members and the problems of inertia in the Security Council as it still maintains these provisions. Secondly, it discusses reform that the Security Council has taken, and changes in veto use. Thirdly, it introduces the current political and security climate leading into a more detailed discussion of dynamics of the Council in Chapter Three and reform of the veto in Chapter Four.

After the demise of the League of Nations, the heat of World War II forged the UN[31] in the hope of addressing some of the League’s weaknesses.[32] Firstly, the UN had the backing of the U.S., a major improvement on one of the failings of the League. It was also hoped to resolve compliance with collective security provisions, by the creation of the Security Council under Chapter V of the UN Charter. The Security Council comprised five “permanent” members (P5), the major powers at the end of WWII (the permanency of their seats was given to ensure commitment to the Council), and six non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly.[33] The mandate included provisions to maintain and restore international peace and security through the undertaking of member states to provide armed forces, facilities and assistance (Article 25 and Article 43 of the UN Charter). This more regulated involvement of members was pursued to prevent any failure of compliance with provisions of the organisation – a factor which caused the downfall of the League of Nations.

2.1.1) Security Council Provisions – Creation of the ‘Great Power Right’

Causes of criticism of, and deadlock in, the Security Council today are rooted in the very requirements of the United States of America (U.S.) in 1943-44, if the U.S. was to be involved in the organisation. The U.S., under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, played leader in many of the negotiations and modeling of the United Nations, including the name of the international organisation itself.[34] Many of the provisions were adopted on U.S. terms, including the ‘fourth policeman’ of China as a Permanent Member of the Security Council.[35]

The UN Charter provided that the primary responsibility and decisions regarding international peace and security would be undertaken by the Security Council [Article 24 (1)], and would require an affirmative vote of seven[36] members [Article 27 (2)], including the five Permanent Members - China, France, the former Soviet Union (U.S.S.R), the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the U.S. The power given to the P5 was such that a negative vote from one of them vetoed any Council decision on a draft resolution pertaining to a substantive (not procedural) matter.[37] This then created the Great Power Right, or the veto, within the Security Council. The veto was regarded as a ‘right’ of the P5 at the time, as it was specifically created to allow the ‘powers’ to prevent any Council decision that authorised the use of force against them - Cordell Hull, U.S. Secretary of State under President Roosevelt, stated that the veto “…was chiefly for the benefit of the United States in the light of the world situation and our own public opinion.”[38] (This perception focuses the feasibility of veto reform on the U.S.)

However, the use of this inordinate privilege abuses its original provisions, and the interpretation of the use of the veto on a substantive versus procedural basis was, and still is continually under question. Only a portion of vetoes cast have been in cases where vital international security issues were at stake.[39]

The call for election criteria for other Council members demonstrates the disquiet with the validity of the P5, not just in their continuing permanency, but also in retaining privileges.

“Because Art. 23, Sect. 1 of the Charter speaks of criteria for the selection of non-permanent members (their “contribution” to the “maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization”), some countries have called on the General Assembly to develop objective measures for this purpose.” [40]

These ‘objective measures’ might include such items as non-nuclear proliferation, evidence of reduction in arms and stock of biological and chemical weapons, adherence to international environmental treaties, unreserved submission to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and payment of UN contributions on time. These criteria would be embarrassing to the P5 (for example, the P5 collectively account for ~90% of the world’s major arms exports[41]), especially the U.S.,[42] but it is time to use these factors to push for reform of the P5 privilege to improve democracy, credibility and legitimacy of the Council.

It is revealed that in 1945, there was a lack of majority agreement with the provisions of the Charter, especially with the Chapters on the Security Council, as protested by Mexico in a statement to the Open-Ended Working Group on Security Council Reform in 1998.[43] In reaction to the proposed voting formula and extended use of the veto for the Security Council, in June 1945, Australia had proposed an amendment which would limit the scope of the veto to decisions taken under the provisions of what became Chapter VII of the Charter.[44] However, this proposal was not passed, as there were many abstentions (Appendix 2).

Ambassador Tello of Mexico pointed to an interesting analogy of the ubiquity of the veto; “Fifty years have elapsed and the situation remains unchanged. The veto, like a weed, spreads throughout the Charter. We find it for the first time in Article 4. It last appears in Article 109.”[45] Robert Johansen also comments on the democracy of the veto and accountability of the Security Council to the global community, where the inequity of the veto “…allows a country to place itself outside the law by blocking criticism or enforcement action against itself.”[46] This disregards the principle of Article 2(1) of the Charter on democratic equality of member states.

A correct use of the veto has not been enforced, and many regard it as the main problem with Security Council procedure. There is a problem in defining the correct use of the veto and voting procedures. Bailey and Daws cite that the Security Council was “…able to produce only curtailed and unsatisfactory provisional rules of procedure…The failure of the Preparatory Commission to recommend clear and precise draft rules of procedure for the Security Council was unfortunate.”[47] This lack of clarity caused ambiguity in veto use in procedural issues and a spread of undemocratic influence of veto-power bias in the Council.

The Charter provides that use of the veto is to occur only in substantive issues (that is, ‘non-procedural’ decisions or as stated in Article 23(7) of the Charter ‘…all other matters…”). Veto use on procedural issues (the manner in which Council business is conducted) has no proper basis, decreases efficiency in the Council by delaying action on substantive issues, and lays down national bias of the P5 in dictating how the Council should operate. One recent example being the U.S. veto in the matter of electing Dr. Boutros-Ghali to a second term as UN Secretary General, which was directly linked to U.S. bias in dissatisfaction of its relations with the Secretary-General. Boutros-Ghali was substantially supported by the majority of member states of the UN, and applauded for his work in reforming the UN; thus the veto was seen by many, especially by Third-World and Arab states, as an outright rejection of democracy.

The Rules of Procedure of the Security Council are decided by the Council itself, but this ability is given to the Council within the UN Charter Article 30, and subject to the mandate of the Charter, which was created to cooperatively advance human welfare and promote conditions of peace. The privilege of five nation-states having the veto denies the cooperative right of nation-states of the UN to act in providing global human security if a security issue is against the national interests of a P5 member. In the Kosovo case for example, the veto was threatened by China and Russia over the issue of dispatch of a UN force as violating sovereignty of Serbia (this is further discussed in Chapter Three). This caused a gross delay of action in the interests of human security and eventually undermined the Security Council when NATO intervened without Council approval.

Other issues pertaining to veto use reside in its ‘unofficial’ use. The use of closet veto (also known as the ‘hidden’ or ‘indirect’ veto) was and is apparent to the elected members of the Security Council, often rendering any input to decisions by those other than the P5 virtually non-existent. Although veto use has decreased in the post-Cold War period (Table 1A - p. 25), its ‘official’ use alone is not a full measure of its importance. The P5 frequently threaten to use the veto in closed-door consultations, as a means to get their way.[48] The closet veto is used in persuading other Council members to abstain in voting, so that a resolution cannot be passed due to lack of affirmative votes. One P5 member said; “I think that all or almost all of us here…know quite well that, given the existence in the Security Council of a firm majority prepared at all times to defend and support certain views of the Western Powers [1961], there is no need for the representatives of those powers to cast a negative vote.”[49]

The boycotting of the Council by the U.S.S.R. in 1950 allowed a resolution to be passed on action in North Korea (against the sympathies of the U.S.S.R.), which would have otherwise been vetoed. This prompted the U.S. to propose the “Uniting for Peace” resolution.[50] There was hope of changing the veto privilege of the P5 in that the resolution was supposed to circumvent the veto by transferring power for decision to the General Assembly through ‘emergency special sessions.’ However, this transfer was only to occur at the Security Council’s request, hence a proposal to transfer to the General Assembly could be vetoed. The Uniting for Peace proposal was passed by the General Assembly as at the time it consisted of a large Western majority, although it did not have the full support of the U.K. nor were many U.S. friendly states ‘enthusiastic’.[51] Despite being passed, the resolution has not been favoured since the 1960s,[52] as with decolonisation and an increase in UN membership the West no longer had an automatic majority in the Assembly. The Commission on Global Governance comments that because of the change in UN membership, “…the United States and the other Western permanent members once again became strong defenders of the exclusive powers of the Security Council in matters of peace and security.”[53]

Whether the changed security climate in the post-Cold War era could re-implement the use of the Uniting for Peace Resolution as an incremental step in veto reform depends on two factors. Firstly, it requires a Security Council request in the form of a resolution which should be exempted from veto, and secondly, there exists a ‘doubtful legality’ for the General Assembly to apply enforcement measures whether or not the Security Council was in a state of stalemate.[54]

In the following decade, the burgeoning number of newly ‘independent’ nation-states turned to the UN as a forum for equal opportunity, fairness and just treatment in areas of security and human rights. Consequently, there were amendments of the UN Charter in 1963, which came into force on 31 August 1965.[55] The amended Article 23 on composition of the Security Council, increased the number of elected member seats from six to ten (the E10 – see Appendix 3a),[56] and the amended Article 27 on voting in the Security Council, increased the necessary number of affirmative votes needed to pass resolutions on decisions and actions from seven to nine. This was the first case of ‘reform’ of the Security Council, where in accord with an increase in member states, the Security Council increased from a total of eleven to fifteen members.

The reform reflected a democratic change, but merely increased the number of elected members - having only a two-year term on the Council with a ban on immediate re-election and no veto power. Thus accountability of the Council to these new nation-states created from decolonisation was not improved, as the efficiency of the Security Council was still affected by the P5 veto. (This is a point to consider in promoting veto reform in the Council as precedent to any reform on enlargement.) The Council was less hindered however, by a marked decrease in veto use from the 1960s by the U.S.S.R. (with a slight increase by the U.K. and the first veto by the U.S.,[57] but overall decrease in veto use in the Council), most likely due to a distracted but worthy focus on the process of decolonisation.[58] This process was also reflected in the increase in resolutions passed by the Security Council (Appendix 3b).

A summary of veto use from decolonisation illustrates nation-state bias of the P5 over concerns of international peace and security. At the onset of the 1970s and the oil crisis, the use of the veto increased overall to levels that occurred at the onset of the Cold War (Table 1A- p. 25). The increase in veto use by the U.S. was most likely due to Third World political concerns becoming prevalent, and to prevent Council censure of U.S. activities in Central America and the Caribbean and as an ally to Israel in the Middle-East.[59] The increase of vetoes by the U.K. and France was likely due to disagreement over issues of their once colonised territories.[60] As a result, from 1971 to 1990, the U.S. used the veto 66 times, the U.K. 28, and France 14 (Table 1B – p. 25). Previous to 1965, it was the U.S.S.R. that cast the majority of the vetoes, with a markedly lower number by the other Permanent members.

When Gorbachev came to power in the U.S.S.R. in 1985, “…prospects for an effective Security Council changed considerably…(with) his policy of conciliation with the West of ‘de-ideologizing relations among states.’”[61] The new cooperation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. that followed led to a re-activation of the Security Council’s

(Figures in brackets are the portion from the unbracketed figure that were vetoes made by the member state against admission of a another state to the UN in that year. These bracketed figures demonstrate veto use in issues not affecting international peace and security.)

Period	China^#	France	U.K.	U.S.	USSR/Russia	VETO TOTAL	No. res. Vetoed^x
Total	5	18	30	72	116	240	200
1999	1	-	-	-	-	1	1
1998	-	-	-	-	-	0	0
1997	1	-	-	2	-	3	3
1996	-	-	-	-	-	0	0
1995	-	-	-	1	-	1	1
1994	-	-	-	-	1	1	1
1993	-	-	-	-	1	1	1
1992	-	-	-	-	-	0	0
1991	-	-	-	-	-	0	0
1990	-	-	-	2	-	2	2
1985-89	-	3	10	29	-	42	28
1980-84	-	4	5	18	4	31	22
1975-79	-	6	5	15(6)	2	28	18
1970-74	2(1)	1	7	6	5	21	16
1965-69	-	-	-	-	2	2	2
1960-64	-	-	1	-	16(2)	17	17
1955-59	1(1)	2	2	-	27(21)	32	30
1950-54	-	-	-	-	15(6)	15	15
1946-49	-	2	-	-	42(22)	44	43

Period	China^#	France	U.K.	U.S.	USSR/ Russia	TOTAL
Total	8	18	33	72	126	257
1991-1997	1	-	-	5	2	8
1971-1990	6	14	28	66	16	70
1946-1970	1	4	5	1	108	119

Total

France

TOTAL

Total