Over the past few weeks, we have been discussing the urgent need to alter and expand the permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council in order to better reflect the geopolitical realities of the 21st Century, thus making it a more effective instrument at preserving peace and security around the world. Under the system we have laid out, the new Security Council would consist not of five permanent members, but of ten: the United States, Russia, China, India, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, a seat held in annual rotation by the United Kingdom and France, and a seat held by a representative of the European Union.
Such a reform would be revolutionary, and it would do much to increase fairness and proper representation within the United Nations. But if enacted by itself, it would also add to a recurring problem with the functioning of the Security Council. Since any single permanent member can veto a Security Council resolution, it is often difficult if not impossible to get meaningful resolutions through unless there is perfect unanimity among the permanent members, which rarely if ever takes place. Expanding the permanent membership from five to ten makes this problem twice as bad as it already had been.
A cautionary tale from history is that of the Liberum Veto in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which lasted from the mid-16th Century to the end of the 18th Century. In many ways, Poland was far ahead of its time in terms of creating a constitutional government that allowed for religious toleration. But in the assembly of nobles which shared power with the king, any individual noble was able to exercise a veto and, if he so desired, terminate the proceedings. This eventually brought the workings of the Polish government to a complete standstill, leaving the country unable to resist the territorial aggression of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
A quick glance at the history of Security Council vetoes serves to illustrate the problem of an individual, absolute veto. Permanent members cast vetoes, or block progress simply by threatening to cast vetoes, whenever they feel they must do so in order to protect their own interests or those of their close allies. The philosopher Bertrand Russell once compared it to allowing burglars to veto laws against theft. The United States routinely casts individual vetoes to block resolutions directed against its ally Israel, with Russia doing the same thing regarding Serbia. China has used its veto power to block resolutions condemning the repressive government of Zimbabwe, Sudan, or Burma, where they have economic interests. There has often been complete deadlock in the Security Council on these critical issues, and the peace and security of the world has suffered as a direct result.
So long as any individual member can veto any resolution, the United Nations Security Council can only function if all the permanent members are in complete accord. In the vast majority of situations, this is so unlikely as to be effectively impossible. If the permanent membership of the Security Council is expanded, the problem will only become worse. For this very reason, any expansion in the membership of the Security Council must be accompanied by a simultaneous reform in the Security Council veto.
There are those who favor abolishing the veto altogether, thus making all resolutions in the Security Council determined by a simple majority vote. Even if this were ideal, but it is also something to which the permanent members of the Security Council would never agree. It will be difficult enough to get them to reform the veto at all; persuading them to give it up altogether is likely to be a lost cause for at least the next few decades. And there are clear situations when it is both necessary and proper for permanent members to veto resolutions. For example, the United States has routinely had to veto resolutions that denounce Israel for taking retalitory actions in response to terrorist attacks yet fail to mention the terrorist attack itself, thus making it appear that Israel as though Israel had launched unprovoked aggression.
A solution that is both achievable and worthwhile would be an elimination of the individual veto in exchange for a requirement that all Security Council resolutions need a two-thirds majority of the permanent members of the Security Council to pass. In other words, all resolutions will require a simple majority of eleven of the twenty Security Council members (the ten permanent ones and the ten non-permanent ones), but will also require seven of the ten permanent members to vote in favor. This system would allow any three of the permanent members to block resolutions they oppose. In effect, this would replace the individual veto with a minority veto.
Some have also suggested that Security Council members not be allowed to veto resolutions dealing with specific issues. Citizens for Global Solutions has suggested that the permanent members of the Security Council "voluntarily restrict their use of the veto in situations involving genocide, major war crimes, and major crimes against humanity." Such a gentleman's agreement might prove useful, but should also be eventually be enshrined in the U.N. Charter itself.
(Full Disclosure: I am a member of Citizens for Global Solutions and serve on its political action committee.)
Replacing the individual national veto with a requirement that three permanent members must vote together for a veto to be enacted, as well as a prohibition on the use of the veto in cases involving genocide, major war crimes, and major crimes against humaniy (in other words, the sort of crimes which are within the jurisfiction of the International Criminal Court) would mak the United Nations Security Council and must more effective instrument in preserving the peace and security of the world.
The world is in urgent need of a United Nations Security Council that can function quickly and effectively, thus fulfilling the role the founders of the United Nations intended for it. Expanding its permanent membership to better reflect the realities of the 21st Century is a necessary step in this process, and must go hand-in-hand with the reformation of the veto process. Once these two changes are made, we can hope that we will have a United Nations that can more effectively prevent wars, stop genocides, block nuclear proliferation, and bring those guilty of crimes against humanity to justice.
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