Resolving the European Paradox in the U.N. Security Council

We've been talking a lot lately about the urgent need to reform the United Nations Security Council. Two weeks ago, we laid out the need for an expansion of its permanent membership, and suggested that India, Japan, Brazil and South Africa be given permanent seats. Last week, we explored the possibility of giving a permanent seat to a Muslim-majority nation, and determined that Indonesia would be the most ideal choice. This week, we'll be talking about the need to resolve the problems related to permanent European representation on the Security Council.

Currently, the United Kingdom and France both hold permanent seats on the Security Council, and it would be all but politically impossible to persuade them to give them up, even if that were determined to be a good idea. Germany has long been agitating for a seat of its own, and its immense economic strength and role in financing the United Nations gives its claim great weight.

But giving a seat to Germany raises problems. First, many other European nations (Italy in particular) are opposed to it, because the same criteria for giving Germany a seat could apply to other European countries, at least to some degree. Why, so the argument does, should Germany be considered more deserving of a permanent Security Council seat than Italy? After all, Germany cannot represent the whole of Europe.

This point is articulated by the rise of the supranational experiment of the European Union. In recent years, and particularly since the passage of the Treaty of Lisbon, the EU has been acting with a more unified voice in foreign affairs. Its immense economic strength, its innovative use of soft power, and its crucial role in global economic development make it obvious that it is going to be an important force in global affairs during the 21st Century. Indeed, as far as relations with the rest of the world are concerned, the EU is likely to be more important than individual European national governments.

Considering Europe's disproportionate role in global affairs, it does not seem improper for two seats on the Security Council to be held by Europe, as is presently the case. The problem is to give Europe an arrangement that adequately represents all the people of Europe as they become increasingly unified in a federation. Some have suggested simply abolishing the British and French seats and giving the European Union a representative on the Council, especially if the role the EU plays in foreign affairs becomes more decisive than the role played by national governments. This might work, but we must face the fact that persuading the the British and French to give up their individual, nationally-held seats at the Security Council is politically impossible. An innovative compromise must be found.

The seat held by the United Kingdom presents two other problems. First, there is no guarantee that the British will remain in the EU indefinitely. Unlike other major EU states, there are powerful political forces within the United Kingdom that want a complete British withdrawal from the organization. This is not only the rising UKIP party (which received the second largest number of votes in the last European Parliament election), but a strong faction within the Conservative Party itself. Opinion polls routinely show strong support for British withdrawal, so this possibility cannot be ruled out.

Also, there is the possibility, low but not nonexistent, that the United Kingdom itself could break up within the next few decades. The Scottish National Party is currently in control of the devolved Scottish Parliament, and continues to pursue its dream of an independent Scotland. Plaid Cymru does not have the same strength in Wales, but still yearns for an independent Wales. While the idea of a breakup of the United Kingdom may be rather far-fetched, it cannot be discounted altogether. If the United Kingdom is reduced merely to England, should it retain a permanent seat at the Security Council?

Here is a possible compromise that could attempt to straighten out these convoluted issues. Suppose that the two present seats, held by the British and the French, were combined into a single seat which the British and French would hold in annual rotation. This might be termed the Entente Cordiale seat. At the same time, a new seat could be created that would be filled by a European Union representative, with the stipulation that the EU representative would never be French or British. If the British ever withdrew from the European Union, it could still hold its half-seat, and if the United Kingdom ever broke up by Scottish and Welsh secession, the seat could fall to England, which would likely be the successor state to the United Kingdom under international law.

This arrangement may seem convoluted, but it or something like it may represent the best possible solution, balancing the need for significant European representation on the Security Council, while acknowledging political realities by preserving British and French influence on the Council. here are no perfect solutions for such problems as these, but we can always find the best possible option.

Putting what we have discussed over the past few weeks into a single package, then, the permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council should be expanded from five seats to ten, so as to include the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, the European Union, and a seat in annual rotation by the United Kingdom and France. As it currently the case, ten nonpermanent members will continue to be elected to two-year terms by the General Assembly.

Such an expansion would be the most fundamental reform ever to be enacted within the United Nations. But as we have already discussed, it would make an already bad problem even worse. A major problem with the Security Council is the ability of any single permanent member to veto any resolution, which causes the Council to lock up completely whenever any permanent member believes it own interests would be threatened by a resolution. Doubling the number of permanent members obviously makes this problem twice as bad as it already was. Therefore, any expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council must be accompanied by a reform of the manner in which the permanent members are allowed to use their veto power.

We'll talk about that next week.