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United Nations Security Council

January 19, 2024

"Security Council" and "UNSC" redirect here. For other uses, see Security Council (disambiguation) and UNSC (disambiguation).

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN)[2] and is charged with ensuring international peace and security,[3] recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly,[4] and approving any changes to the UN Charter.[5] Its powers as outlined in the United Nations Charter include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. The UNSC is the only UN body with authority to issue resolutions that are binding on member states.

United Nations Security Council
  • Arabic:مجلس الأمن للأمم المتحدة
    Chinese:联合国安全理事会
    French:Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies
    Russian:Совет Безопасности Организации Объединённых Наций
    Spanish:Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas
UN Security Council Chamber in New York City
AbbreviationUNSC
Formation24 October 1945
TypePrincipal organ
Legal statusActive
HeadquartersNew York City, New York, U.S.
Membership
Presidency
France (January 2024)[1]
Parent organization
United Nations
Websitewww.un.org/securitycouncil/
  African States (3)
  Asia-Pacific States (3)
  Eastern European States (2)
  Latin American and Caribbean States (2)
  Western European and Other States (5)

Like the UN as a whole, the Security Council was created after World War II to address the failings of the League of Nations in maintaining world peace. It held its first session on 17 January 1946 but was largely paralyzed in the following decades by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (and their allies). Nevertheless, it authorized military interventions in the Korean War and the Congo Crisis and peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, West New Guinea, and the Sinai Peninsula. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, UN peacekeeping efforts increased dramatically in scale, with the Security Council authorizing major military and peacekeeping missions in Kuwait, Namibia, Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Security Council consists of fifteen members, of which five are permanent:[6] China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These were the great powers that were the victors of World War II (or their successor states). Permanent members can veto (block) any substantive Security Council resolution, including those on the admission of new member states to the United Nations or nominees for the office of Secretary-General. This veto right does not carry over into any General Assembly or emergency special sessions of the General Assembly[citation needed] matters or votes. The other ten members are elected on a regional basis for a term of two years. The body's presidency rotates monthly among its members.

Resolutions of the Security Council are typically enforced by UN peacekeepers, which consist of military forces voluntarily provided by member states and funded independently of the main UN budget. As of November 2021, there have been 12 peacekeeping missions with over 87,000 personnel from 121 countries, with a total annual budget of approximately $6.3 billion.[7]

History edit

Background and creation edit

Further information: History of the United Nations

In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations and conferences had been formed to regulate conflicts between nations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907.[8] Following the catastrophic loss of life in World War I, the Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations to maintain harmony between the nations.[9] This organization successfully resolved some territorial disputes and created international structures for areas such as postal mail, aviation, and opium control, some of which would later be absorbed into the UN.[10] However, the League lacked representation for colonial peoples (then half the world's population) and significant participation from several major powers, including the US, the USSR, Germany, and Japan; it failed to act against the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, the 1937 Japanese occupation of China, and Nazi expansions under Adolf Hitler that escalated into World War II.[11]

 
Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II.
 
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference, February 1945

On New Year's Day 1942, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, Maxim Litvinov, of the USSR, and T. V. Soong, of the Republic of China, signed a short document, based on the Atlantic Charter and the London Declaration,[12][13] which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration. The next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures."[14] The term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed.[15] "Four Powers" was coined to refer to the four major Allied countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China.[16] and became the foundation of an executive branch of the United Nations, the Security Council.[17]

Following the 1943 Moscow Conference and Tehran Conference, in mid-1944, the delegations from the Allied "Big Four", the Soviet Union, the UK, the US and the Republic of China, met for the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, D.C. to negotiate the UN's structure,[18] and the composition of the UN Security Council quickly became the dominant issue. France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the UK and US were selected as permanent members of the Security Council; the US attempted to add Brazil as a sixth member but was opposed by the heads of the Soviet and British delegations.[19] The most contentious issue at Dumbarton and in successive talks proved to be the veto rights of permanent members. The Soviet delegation argued that each nation should have an absolute veto that could block matters from even being discussed, while the British argued that nations should not be able to veto resolutions on disputes to which they were a party. At the Yalta Conference of February 1945, the American, British and Russian delegations agreed that each of the "Big Five" could veto any action by the council, but not procedural resolutions, meaning that the permanent members could not prevent debate on a resolution.[20]

On 25 April 1945, the UN Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco, attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organizations involved in drafting the United Nations Charter.[21] At the conference, H. V. Evatt of the Australian delegation pushed to further restrict the veto power of Security Council permanent members.[22] Due to the fear that rejecting the strong veto would cause the conference's failure, his proposal was defeated twenty votes to ten.[23]

The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.[21] On 17 January 1946, the Security Council met for the first time at Church House, Westminster, in London, United Kingdom.[24] Subsequently, during the 1946–1951 period it conducted sessions at the United Nation's interim headquarters in Lake Success, New York, which were televised live on CBS by the journalist Edmund Chester in 1949.[25][26][27]

Cold War edit

 
Church House in London where the first Security Council Meeting took place on 17 January 1946

The Security Council was largely paralyzed in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and USSR and their allies and the Council generally was only able to intervene in unrelated conflicts.[28] (A notable exception was the 1950 Security Council resolution authorizing a US-led coalition to repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea, passed in the absence of the USSR.)[21][29] In 1956, the first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the Suez Crisis;[21] however, the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR's simultaneous invasion of Hungary following that country's revolution.[30] Cold War divisions also paralysed the Security Council's Military Staff Committee, which had been formed by Articles 45–47 of the UN Charter to oversee UN forces and create UN military bases. The committee continued to exist on paper but largely abandoned its work in the mid-1950s.[31][32]

In 1960, the UN deployed the United Nations Operation in the Congo (UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to restore order to the breakaway State of Katanga, restoring it to the control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 1964.[33] However, the Security Council found itself bypassed in favour of direct negotiations between the superpowers in some of the decade's larger conflicts, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Vietnam War.[34] Focusing instead on smaller conflicts without an immediate Cold War connection, the Security Council deployed the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority in West New Guinea in 1962 and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus in 1964, the latter of which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions.[35][36]

On 25 October 1971, over US opposition, but with the support of many Third World nations, along with the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, the mainland, communist People's Republic of China replaced Republic of China with a seat on the Security Council; the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization.[37] With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the Middle East, Vietnam and Kashmir, the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange. By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its budget for peacekeeping.[38]

Post-Cold War edit

 
US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds a model vial of anthrax while giving a presentation to the Security Council in February 2003.

After the Cold War, the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties, taking on more missions in ten years than it had in its previous four decades.[39] Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, and the peacekeeping budget increased more than tenfold.[40] The UN negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War, launched a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia, and oversaw democratic elections in post-apartheid South Africa and post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia.[41] In 1991, the Security Council demonstrated its renewed vigor by condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on the same day of the attack and later authorizing a US-led coalition that successfully repulsed the Iraqis.[42] Undersecretary-General Brian Urquhart later described the hopes raised by these successes as a "false renaissance" for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed.[43]

Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another, in the early 1990s, the UN faced a number of simultaneous, serious crises within nations such as Haiti, Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia.[44] The UN mission to Bosnia faced "worldwide ridicule" for its indecisive and confused mission in the face of ethnic cleansing.[45] In 1994, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in the face of Security Council indecision.[46]

In the late 1990s, UN-authorized international interventions took a wider variety of forms. The UN mission in the 1991–2002 Sierra Leone Civil War was supplemented by British Royal Marines and the UN-authorized 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was overseen by NATO.[47] In 2003, the US invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization, prompting a new round of questioning of the organization's effectiveness.[48] In the same decade, the Security Council intervened with peacekeepers in crises including the War in Darfur in Sudan and the Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2013, an internal review of UN actions in the final battles of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered "systemic failure".[49] In November/December 2014, Egypt presented a motion proposing an expansion of the NPT (non-Proliferation Treaty), to include Israel and Iran; this proposal was due to increasing hostilities and destruction in the Middle-East connected to the Syrian Conflict as well as others. All members of the Security Council are signatory to the NPT, and all permanent members are nuclear weapons states.[50]

Role edit

The UN's role in international collective security is defined by the UN Charter, which authorizes the Security Council to investigate any situation threatening international peace; recommend procedures for peaceful resolution of a dispute; call upon other member nations to completely or partially interrupt economic relations as well as sea, air, postal and radio communications, or to sever diplomatic relations; and enforce its decisions militarily, or by any means necessary. The Security Council also recommends the new Secretary-General to the General Assembly and recommends new states for admission as member states of the United Nations.[51][52] The Security Council has traditionally interpreted its mandate as covering only military security, though US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke controversially persuaded the body to pass a resolution on HIV/AIDS in Africa in 2000.[53]

Under Chapter VI of the Charter, "Pacific Settlement of Disputes", the Security Council "may investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute". The Council may "recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment" if it determines that the situation might endanger international peace and security.[54] These recommendations are generally considered to not be binding, as they lack an enforcement mechanism.[55] A minority of scholars, such as Stephen Zunes, have argued that resolutions made under Chapter VI are "still directives by the Security Council and differ only in that they do not have the same stringent enforcement options, such as the use of military force".[56]

Under Chapter VII, the council has broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression."[32] In such situations, the council is not limited to recommendations but may take action, including the use of armed force "to maintain or restore international peace and security."[32] This was the legal basis for UN armed action in Korea in 1950 during the Korean War and the use of coalition forces in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991 and Libya in 2011.[57][58] Decisions taken under Chapter VII, such as economic sanctions, are binding on UN members; the Security Council is the only UN body with authority to issue binding resolutions.[59][60]

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes that the Security Council has authority to refer cases to the Court in which the Court could not otherwise exercise jurisdiction.[61] The Council exercised this power for the first time in March 2005, when it referred to the Court "the situation prevailing in Darfur since 1 July 2002"; since Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute, the Court could not otherwise have exercised jurisdiction.[62][63] The Security Council made its second such referral in February 2011 when it asked the ICC to investigate the Libyan government's violent response to the Libyan Civil War.[64]

Security Council Resolution 1674, adopted on 28 April 2006, "reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity".[65] The Security Council reaffirmed this responsibility to protect in Resolution 1706 on 31 August of that year.[66] These resolutions commit the Security Council to protect civilians in an armed conflict, including taking action against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.[67]

Members edit

Permanent members edit

Main article: Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
See also: China and the United Nations, France and the United Nations, Russia and the United Nations, Soviet Union and the United Nations, United Kingdom and the United Nations, and United States and the United Nations

The Security Council's five permanent members, below, have the power to veto any substantive resolution; this allows a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, but not to prevent or end debate.[68]

At the UN's founding in 1945, the five permanent members of the Security Council were the Republic of China, the Provisional Government of the French Republic, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States. There have been two major seat changes since then. China's seat was originally held by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government, the Republic of China. However, the Nationalists were forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan in 1949, during the Chinese Civil War. The Chinese Communist Party assumed control of mainland China, thenceforth known as the People's Republic of China. In 1971, General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized the People's Republic as the rightful representative of China in the UN and gave it the seat on the Security Council that had been held by the Republic of China, which was expelled from the UN altogether with no opportunity for membership as a separate nation.[37] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation was recognized as the legal successor state of the Soviet Union and maintained the latter's position on the Security Council.[69] Additionally, France eventually reformed its government into the French Fifth Republic in 1958, under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle. France maintained its seat as there was no change in its international status or recognition, although many of its overseas possessions eventually became independent.[70]

The five permanent members of the Security Council were the victorious powers in World War II[71] and have maintained the world's most powerful military forces ever since. They annually topped the list of countries with the highest military expenditures.[72] In 2013, they spent over US$1 trillion combined on defence, accounting for over 55% of global military expenditures (the US alone accounting for over 35%).[72] They are also among the world's largest arms exporters[73] and are the only nations officially recognized as "nuclear-weapon states" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), though there are other states known or believed to be in possession of nuclear weapons.[citation needed]

The block of Western democratic and generally aligned permanent members (France, the UK and the US) is styled as the "P3".

Veto power edit

Main article: United Nations Security Council veto power
See also: List of vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions

Under Article 27 of the UN Charter, Security Council decisions on all substantive matters require the affirmative votes of three-fifths (i.e. nine) of the members. A negative vote or a "veto" by a permanent member prevents adoption of a proposal, even if it has received the required votes.[68] Abstention is not regarded as a veto in most cases, though all five permanent members must vote for adopting any amendment of the UN Charter or any recommendation of the admission of a new UN member state.[59] Procedural matters cannot be vetoed, so the veto right cannot be used to avoid discussion of an issue. The same holds for certain decisions that directly regard permanent members.[68] Most vetoes have been used for blocking a candidate for Secretary-General or the admission of a member state, not in critical international security situations.[74]

In the negotiations leading up to the creation of the UN, the veto power was opposed by many small countries and was in fact forced on them by the veto nations—the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, and the Soviet Union—by threatening that the UN would otherwise not be founded. Here is a description of the situation by Francis O. Wilcox, an adviser to the US delegation to the 1945 conference:

At San Francisco, the issue was made crystal clear by the leaders of the Big Five: it was either the Charter with the veto or no Charter at all. Senator Connally [from the U.S. delegation] dramatically tore up a copy of the Charter during one of his speeches and reminded the small states that they would be guilty of that same act if they opposed the unanimity principle. "You may, if you wish," he said, "go home from this Conference and say that you have defeated the veto. But what will be your answer when you are asked: 'Where is the Charter?'"[75]

As of 2012, 269 vetoes had been cast since the Security Council's inception.[d] In this period, China used the veto 9 times, France 18, the Soviet Union or Russia 128, the United Kingdom 32, and the United States 89. Roughly two-thirds of Soviet and Russian combined vetoes were in the first ten years of the Security Council's existence. Between 1996 and 2012, the United States vetoed 13 resolutions, Russia 7, and China 5, while France and the United Kingdom did not use the veto.[74]

An early veto by Soviet Commissar Andrei Vishinsky blocked a resolution on the withdrawal of French forces from Syria and Lebanon which were under french mandate in February 1946; this veto established the precedent that permanent members could use the veto on matters outside of immediate concerns of war and peace. The Soviet Union went on to veto matters including the admission of Austria, Cambodia, Ceylon, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Laos, Libya, Nepal,[76] Portugal, South Vietnam and Transjordan as UN member states, delaying their joining by several years. The United Kingdom and France used the veto to avoid Security Council condemnation of their actions in the 1956 Suez Crisis. The first veto by the United States came in 1970, blocking General Assembly action in Southern Rhodesia. From 1985 to 1990, the US vetoed 27 resolutions, primarily to block resolutions perceived as anti-Israel but also to protect its interests in Panama and Korea. The Soviet Union, the United States and China have all vetoed candidates for Secretary-General, with the US using the veto to block the re-election of Boutros Boutros-Ghali in 1996.[77]

Non-permanent members edit

See also: List of members of the United Nations Security Council, United Nations Security Council elections, 2020, 2021, and 2022

Along with the five permanent members, the Security Council of the United Nations has temporary members that hold their seats on a rotating basis by geographic region. Non-permanent members may be involved in global security briefings.[78] In its first two decades, the Security Council had six non-permanent members, the first of which were Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, the Netherlands and Poland. In 1965, the number of non-permanent members was expanded to ten.[79]

These ten non-permanent members are elected by the United Nations General Assembly for two-year terms starting on 1 January, with five replaced each year.[80] To be approved, a candidate must receive at least two-thirds of all votes cast for that seat, which can result in deadlock if there are two roughly evenly matched candidates. In 1979, a standoff between Cuba and Colombia only ended after three months and a record 154 rounds of voting; both eventually withdrew in favour of Mexico as a compromise candidate.[81] A retiring member is not eligible for immediate re-election.[82]

The African Group is represented by three members; the Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, and Western European and Others groups by two apiece; and the Eastern European Group by one. Traditionally, one of the seats assigned to either the Asia-Pacific Group or the African Group is filled by a nation from the Arab world, alternating between the groups.[83] Currently, elections for terms beginning in even-numbered years select two African members, and one each within Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean; the traditional "Arab seat" is elected for this term. Terms beginning in odd-numbered years consist of two Western European and Other members, and one each from Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.[81]

During the 2016 United Nations Security Council election, neither Italy nor the Netherlands met the required two-thirds majority for election. They subsequently agreed to split the term of the Western European and Others Group. It was the first time in over five decades that two members agreed to do so.[84] Usually, intractable deadlocks are resolved by the candidate countries withdrawing in favour of a third member state.

The current elected members, with the regions they were elected to represent, are as follows:[85][86][87][88][89]

Term Africa Asia-Pacific Eastern Europe Latin America
and Caribbean 		Western Europe
and Other
2022   Gabon   Ghana   United Arab Emirates   Albania   Brazil
2023   Mozambique   Japan   Ecuador   Malta   Switzerland
2024   Algeria   Sierra Leone   Republic of Korea   Slovenia   Guyana
2025

President edit

Main article: President of the United Nations Security Council

The role of president of the Security Council involves setting the agenda, presiding at its meetings and overseeing any crisis. The president is authorized to issue both Presidential Statements (subject to consensus among Council members) and notes,[90][91] which are used to make declarations of intent that the full Security Council can then pursue.[91] The presidency of the council is held by each of the members in turn for one month, following the English alphabetical order of the member states' names.[92]

The list of nations that will hold the Presidency in 2024 is as follows:[93]

Presidency in 2024
Month Country
January   France
February   Guyana
March   Japan
April   Malta
May   Mozambique
June   South Korea
July   Russia
August   Sierra Leone
September   Slovenia
October    Switzerland
November   United Kingdom
December   United States

Meeting locations edit

 
US President Barack Obama chairs a United Nations Security Council meeting.
 
The meeting room exhibits the United Nations Security Council mural by Per Krohg (1952).

Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council is not bound to sessions. Each Security Council member must have a representative available at UN Headquarters at all times in case an emergency meeting becomes necessary.[94]

The Security Council generally meets in a designated chamber in the United Nations Conference Building in New York City. The chamber was designed by the Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg and was a gift from Norway. The United Nations Security Council mural by Norwegian artist Per Krohg (1952) depicts a phoenix rising from its ashes, symbolic of the world's rebirth after World War II.[95]

The Security Council has also held meetings in cities including Nairobi, Kenya; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Panama City, Panama; and Geneva, Switzerland.[94] In March 2010, the Security Council moved into a temporary facility in the General Assembly Building as its chamber underwent renovations as part of the UN Capital Master Plan.[96] The renovations were funded by Norway, the chamber's original donor, for a total cost of US$5 million.[97] The chamber reopened on 16 April 2013.[98] The representatives of the member states are seated on a horseshoe-shaped table, with the president in the very middle flanked by the Secretary on the right and the Undersecretary on the left. The other representatives are placed in clockwise order alphabetically from the president leaving two seats at the ends of the table for guest speakers. The seating order of the members is then rotated each month as the presidency changes.

Because of the public nature of meetings in the Security Council Chamber delegations use the chamber to voice their positions in different ways, such as for example with walkouts.[99]

Consultation room edit

Due to the public scrutiny of the Security Council Chamber,[100] much of the work of the Security Council is conducted behind closed doors in "informal consultations".[101][102]

In 1978, West Germany funded the construction of a conference room next to the Security Council Chamber. The room was used for "informal consultations", which soon became the primary meeting format for the Security Council. In 1994, the French ambassador complained to the Secretary-General that "informal consultations have become the Council's characteristic working method, while public meetings, originally the norm, are increasingly rare and increasingly devoid of content: everyone knows that when the Council goes into public meeting everything has been decided in advance".[103] When Russia funded the renovation of the consultation room in 2013, the Russian ambassador called it "quite simply, the most fascinating place in the entire diplomatic universe".[104]

Only members of the Security Council are permitted in the conference room for consultations. The press is not admitted, and other members of the United Nations cannot be invited into the consultations.[105] No formal record is kept of the informal consultations.[106][107] As a result, the delegations can negotiate with each other in secret, striking deals and compromises without having their every word transcribed into the permanent record. The privacy of the conference room also makes it possible for the delegates to deal with each other in a friendly manner. In one early consultation, a new delegate from a Communist nation began a propaganda attack on the United States, only to be told by the Soviet delegate, "We don't talk that way in here."[102]

A permanent member can cast a "pocket veto" during the informal consultation by declaring its opposition to a measure. Since a veto would prevent the resolution from being passed, the sponsor will usually refrain from putting the resolution to a vote. Resolutions are vetoed only if the sponsor feels so strongly about a measure that it wishes to force the permanent member to cast a formal veto.[101][108] By the time a resolution reaches the Security Council Chamber, it has already been discussed, debated and amended in the consultations. The open meeting of the Security Council is merely a public ratification of a decision that has already been reached in private.[109][101] For example, Resolution 1373 was adopted without public debate in a meeting that lasted just five minutes.[101][110]

The Security Council holds far more consultations than public meetings. In 2012, the Security Council held 160 consultations, 16 private meetings and 9 public meetings. In times of crisis, the Security Council still meets primarily in consultations, but it also holds more public meetings. After the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2014, the Security Council returned to the patterns of the Cold War, as Russia and the Western countries engaged in verbal duels in front of the television cameras. In 2016, the Security Council held 150 consultations, 19 private meetings and 68 public meetings.[111]

Subsidiary organs/bodies edit

Article 29 of the Charter provides that the Security Council can establish subsidiary bodies in order to perform its functions. This authority is also reflected in Rule 28 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure. The subsidiary bodies established by the Security Council are extremely heterogenous. On the one hand, they include bodies such as the Security Council Committee on Admission of New Members. On the other hand, both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda were also created as subsidiary bodies of the Security Council. The by now numerous Sanctions Committees established in order to oversee implementation of the various sanctions regimes are also subsidiary bodies of the council.

United Nations peacekeepers edit

Main articles: United Nations peacekeeping and List of United Nations peacekeeping missions

After approval by the Security Council, the UN may send peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states. These soldiers are sometimes nicknamed "Blue Helmets" for their distinctive gear.[112][113] The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.[114]

 
South African soldiers patrolling as part of MONUSCO in 2018

As of 28 February 2023, the UN had 86,903 uniformed and civilian personnel serving in 12 peacekeeping missions, with 121 countries contributing military personnel.[115] The largest was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), which included 20,688 uniformed personnel. The smallest, United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), included 42 uniformed personnel responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir. Peacekeepers with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948, the longest-running active peacekeeping mission.[116]

UN peacekeepers have also drawn criticism in several postings. Peacekeepers have been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, or sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[117] Haiti,[118] Liberia,[119] Sudan and what is now South Sudan,[120] Burundi and Ivory Coast.[121] Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the 2010–2013 Haiti cholera outbreak, which killed more than 8,000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[122]

The budget for peacekeeping is assessed separately from the main UN organisational budget; in the fiscal year 1 July 2021 - 30 June 2022 peacekeeping expenditures amounts for $6.38 billion.[123][124] UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular funding scale, but including a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members. This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries.

This amount finances 10 of the 12 ongoing UN peacekeeping missions, along the liquidation of the UN African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) and logistics support for the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), providing the technology, logistics and general support to all peace operations through global service centres in Brindisi (Italy) and a regional service centre in Entebbe (Uganda). The UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO) and the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) are excluded from the Peacekeeping Operations budged and are financed through the regular UN budget.[123]

For the 2020–2021 budget, the top 10 providers of assessed financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations were the US (27.89%), China (15.21%), Japan (8.56%), Germany (6.09%), the United Kingdom (5.79%), France (5.61%), Italy (3.30%), Russian Federation (3.04%), Canada (2.73%) and South Korea (2.26%).[123]

Criticism and evaluations edit

Main article: Criticism of the United Nations

In examining the first sixty years of the Security Council's existence, British historian Paul Kennedy concludes that "glaring failures had not only accompanied the UN's many achievements, they overshadowed them", identifying as particular failures the lack of will to prevent ethnic massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda.[125] Kennedy attributes the failures to the UN's lack of reliable military resources, writing that "above all, one can conclude that the practice of announcing (through a Security Council resolution) a new peacekeeping mission without ensuring that sufficient armed forces will be available has usually proven to be a recipe for humiliation and disaster."[126]

Several studies have examined the Security Council's responsiveness to armed conflict. Findings suggests that the Council is more likely to meet and deliberate on conflicts that are more intense and have led to more humanitarian suffering, but that its responsiveness is also shaped by the political interests of member states and in particular of the permanent members.[127]

A 2005 RAND Corporation study found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared UN nation-building efforts to those of the United States, and found that 88% of UN cases had led to lasting peace.[128] Also in 2005, the Human Security Report documented a decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuses since the end of the Cold War, and presented evidence, albeit circumstantial, that international activism—mostly spearheaded by the UN—had been the main cause of the decline in armed conflict since the end of the Cold War.[129]

Scholar Sudhir Chella Rajan argued in 2006 that the five permanent members of the Security Council, all of which are nuclear powers, had created an exclusive nuclear club that predominantly addresses the strategic interests and political motives of the permanent members—for example, protecting the oil-rich Kuwaitis in 1991 but poorly protecting the resource-poor Rwandans in 1994.[130] Since three of the five permanent members are European, and four are predominantly white developed nations, the Security Council has been described as a pillar of global apartheid by Titus Alexander, former Chair of the Westminster United Nations Association.[131]

The Security Council's effectiveness and relevance are questioned by some because, in most high-profile cases, there are essentially no consequences for violating a Security Council resolution. During the Darfur crisis, Janjaweed militias, allowed by elements of the Sudanese government, committed violence against an indigenous population, killing thousands of civilians. In the Srebrenica massacre, Serbian troops committed genocide against Bosniaks, although Srebrenica had been declared a UN safe area, protected by 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers.[132]

In his 2009 speech, Muammar Gaddafi criticized the Security Council's veto powers and the wars that permanent members of the Security Council had engaged in.

The UN Charter gives all three powers of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches to the Security Council.[133]

In his inaugural speech at the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in August 2012, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized the Security Council as having an "illogical, unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism" and called for a complete reform of the body.[134]

The Security Council has been criticized for failure in resolving many conflicts—including Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Syria, Kosovo, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict—reflecting the wider shortcomings of the UN. For example; at the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key heavily criticized the UN's inaction on Syria, more than two years after the Syrian civil war had begun.[135]

There is evidence of bribery in the Security Council. Countries that are elected to the Security Council see a large increase in foreign aid from the US, averaging 59%. They also see an 8% increase in aid from the UN, mainly from UNICEF.[136] The increase most strongly correlates to years in which the Security Council addresses issues relevant to the US. There is also evidence of increased foreign aid to elected countries from Japan and Germany. One study found membership on the Security Council correlates with reduced economic growth for a given country over the course of its two-year term—3.5% growth during membership compared to 8.7% over four years of non-membership—although the effect is mainly driven by African authoritarian countries. Elected members also experience a reduction in democracy and freedom of the press.[137]

Membership reform edit

Main article: Reform of the United Nations Security Council
 
The G4 nations: Brazil, Germany, India, Japan
 
The Uniting for Consensus: Italy, Pakistan, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Turkey, South Korea and others

Proposals to reform the Security Council began with the conference that wrote the UN Charter and have continued to the present day. As British historian Paul Kennedy writes, "Everyone agrees that the present structure is flawed. But consensus on how to fix it remains out of reach."[138]

There has been discussion of increasing the number of permanent members. The countries which have made the strongest demands for permanent seats are Brazil, Germany, India and Japan. Japan and Germany, the main defeated powers in WWII, had been the UN's second- and third-largest funders, respectively, before China took over as the second largest funder in recent years, while Brazil and India are two of the largest contributors of troops to UN-mandated peace-keeping missions.

Italy, another main defeated power in WWII and now the UN's sixth-largest funder, leads a movement known as Uniting for Consensus in opposition to the possible expansion of permanent seats. Core members of the group include Canada, South Korea, Spain, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, Turkey, Argentina and Colombia. Their proposal is to create a new category of seats, still non-permanent, but elected for an extended duration (semi-permanent seats). As far as traditional categories of seats are concerned, the UfC proposal does not imply any change, but only the introduction of small and medium size states among groups eligible for regular seats. This proposal includes even the question of veto, giving a range of options that goes from abolition to limitation of the application of the veto only to Chapter VII matters.

Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked a team of advisers to come up with recommendations for reforming the United Nations by the end of 2004. One proposed measure is to increase the number of permanent members by five, which, in most proposals, would include Brazil, Germany, India and Japan (known as the G4 nations), one seat from Africa (most likely between Egypt, Nigeria or South Africa), and/or one seat from the Arab League.[139] On 21 September 2004, the G4 nations issued a joint statement mutually backing each other's claim to permanent status, together with two African countries. Currently the proposal has to be accepted by two-thirds of the General Assembly (128 votes).

The permanent members, each holding the right of veto, announced their positions on Security Council reform reluctantly. The United States has unequivocally supported the permanent membership of Japan and lent its support to India and a small number of additional non-permanent members. The United Kingdom and France have essentially supported the G4 position, with the expansion of permanent and non-permanent members and the accession of Germany, Brazil, India and Japan to permanent member status, as well as an increase in the presence of African countries on the Council. China has supported stronger representation of developing countries and has firmly opposed Japan's membership.[140]

In 2017, it was reported that the G4 nations were willing temporarily to forgo veto power if granted permanent UNSC seats.[141] In September 2017, US Representatives Ami Bera and Frank Pallone introduced a resolution (H.Res.535) in the US House of Representatives (115th United States Congress), seeking support for the elevation of India to permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.[142]

While discussions on expanding permanent membership to individual nations such as the G4 continue, alternative proposals have been put forward to reconsider the structure of the Security Council. The Noble World Foundation (NWF) proposes a novel approach, suggesting that UNSC membership and veto power be shifted from individual states to sovereignty-pooling organizations like the European Union (EU). This proposal aligns with the UNSC's practice of regionally-based selection of non-permanent members, aiming to improve the Council's decision-making and effectiveness. The EU serves as a primary example of such pooled sovereignty, especially following the European Court of Justice's 1964 ruling that established the precedence of EU law over national laws of its member states. The NWF advocates that regional entities like the EU could be eligible for UN membership in the Security Council, enabling a significant reform without necessitating an amendment to the UN Charter.[143][144]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The People's Republic of China was admitted to the UN and the Security Council in 1971, replacing and expelling the Republic of China. The Charter of the United Nations still lists the Republic of China as the member.
  2. ^ a b The Russian Federation succeeded the seat of the Soviet Union, see Russia and the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations still lists the Soviet Union as the member.
  3. ^ On 25 October 1971, with opposition from the United States, the mainland communist People's Republic of China was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the Republic of China on Taiwan.
  4. ^ This figure and the figures that follow exclude vetoes cast to block candidates for Secretary-General, as these occur in closed session; 43 such vetoes have occurred.[74]

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Further reading edit

  • Bailey, Sydney D.; Daws, Sam (1998). The Procedure of the UN Security Council (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-828073-6.
  • Bosco, David L. (2009). Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-532876-9.
  • Cockayne, James; Mikulaschek, Christoph; Perry, Chris (2010). The United Nations Security Council and Civil War: First Insights from a New Dataset. New York: International Peace Institute. from the original on 18 April 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  • Grieger, Gisela (2013). Reform of the UN Security Council (PDF). Library of the European Parliament. (PDF) from the original on 15 June 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  • Hannay, David (2008). New World Disorder: The UN after the Cold War – An Insider's View. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-719-1.
  • Hurd, Ian (2007). After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12866-5.
  • Köchler, Hans (1991). The Voting Procedure in the United Nations Security Council: Examining a Normative Contradiction in the UN Charter and its Consequences on International Relations (PDF). Studies in International Relations. Vol. 17. Vienna: International Progress Organization. ISBN 978-3-900704-10-0. (PDF) from the original on 6 September 2006.
  • Lowe, Vaughan; Roberts, Adam; Welsh, Jennifer; Zaum, Dominik, eds. (2008). The United Nations Security Council and War: The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-953343-5.
  • Malone, David (1998). Decision-Making in the UN Security Council: The Case of Haiti, 1990–1997. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-829483-2.
  • Matheson, Michael J. (2006). Council Unbound: The Growth of UN Decision Making on Conflict and Postconflict Issues after the Cold War. Washington: US Institute of Peace Press. ISBN 978-1-929223-78-7.
  • Roberts, Adam; Zaum, Dominik (2008). "Selective Security: War and the United Nations Security Council since 1945". Strategic Survey: The Annual Review of World Affairs. Adelphi Paper. Abingdon, England: Routledge. 395. ISBN 978-0-415-47472-6. ISSN 0567-932X.
  • Vreeland, James; Dreher, Axel (2014). The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council: Money and Influence. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51841-3.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to United Nations Security Council.
  • Official website  
  • UN Security Council Research Guide
  • Global Policy Forum – UN Security Council
  • Security Council Report – information and analysis on the council's activities
    • What's In Blue – a series of insights on evolving Security Council actions
  • Center for UN Reform Education – information on current reform issues at the United Nations
  • UN Democracy: hyperlinked transcripts of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council

January 19, 2024
united, nations, security, council, security, council, unsc, redirect, here, other, uses, security, council, disambiguation, unsc, disambiguation, this, article, needs, updated, reason, given, members, have, joined, please, help, update, this, article, reflect. Security Council and UNSC redirect here For other uses see Security Council disambiguation and UNSC disambiguation This article needs to be updated The reason given is New members have joined Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information January 2024 The United Nations Security Council UNSC is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations UN 2 and is charged with ensuring international peace and security 3 recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly 4 and approving any changes to the UN Charter 5 Its powers as outlined in the United Nations Charter include establishing peacekeeping operations enacting international sanctions and authorizing military action The UNSC is the only UN body with authority to issue resolutions that are binding on member states United Nations Security Council Arabic مجلس الأمن للأمم المتحدةChinese 联合国安全理事会French Conseil de Securite des Nations UniesRussian Sovet Bezopasnosti Organizacii Obedinyonnyh NacijSpanish Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones UnidasUN Security Council Chamber in New York CityAbbreviationUNSCFormation24 October 1945TypePrincipal organLegal statusActiveHeadquartersNew York City New York U S MembershipPermanent members China a France Russia b United Kingdom United StatesNon permanent members Algeria Ecuador Guyana Japan Malta Mozambique Sierra Leone Slovenia South Korea SwitzerlandPresidencyFrance January 2024 1 Parent organizationUnited NationsWebsitewww wbr un wbr org wbr securitycouncil wbr African States 3 Asia Pacific States 3 Eastern European States 2 Latin American and Caribbean States 2 Western European and Other States 5 Like the UN as a whole the Security Council was created after World War II to address the failings of the League of Nations in maintaining world peace It held its first session on 17 January 1946 but was largely paralyzed in the following decades by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies Nevertheless it authorized military interventions in the Korean War and the Congo Crisis and peacekeeping missions in Cyprus West New Guinea and the Sinai Peninsula With the collapse of the Soviet Union UN peacekeeping efforts increased dramatically in scale with the Security Council authorizing major military and peacekeeping missions in Kuwait Namibia Cambodia Bosnia and Herzegovina Rwanda Somalia Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Security Council consists of fifteen members of which five are permanent 6 China France Russia the United Kingdom and the United States These were the great powers that were the victors of World War II or their successor states Permanent members can veto block any substantive Security Council resolution including those on the admission of new member states to the United Nations or nominees for the office of Secretary General This veto right does not carry over into any General Assembly or emergency special sessions of the General Assembly citation needed matters or votes The other ten members are elected on a regional basis for a term of two years The body s presidency rotates monthly among its members Resolutions of the Security Council are typically enforced by UN peacekeepers which consist of military forces voluntarily provided by member states and funded independently of the main UN budget As of November 2021 update there have been 12 peacekeeping missions with over 87 000 personnel from 121 countries with a total annual budget of approximately 6 3 billion 7 Contents 1 History 1 1 Background and creation 1 2 Cold War 1 3 Post Cold War 2 Role 3 Members 3 1 Permanent members 3 1 1 Veto power 3 2 Non permanent members 3 3 President 4 Meeting locations 4 1 Consultation room 5 Subsidiary organs bodies 6 United Nations peacekeepers 7 Criticism and evaluations 8 Membership reform 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 11 1 Citations 11 2 Sources 12 Further reading 13 External linksHistory editBackground and creation edit Further information History of the United Nations In the century prior to the UN s creation several international treaty organizations and conferences had been formed to regulate conflicts between nations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 8 Following the catastrophic loss of life in World War I the Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations to maintain harmony between the nations 9 This organization successfully resolved some territorial disputes and created international structures for areas such as postal mail aviation and opium control some of which would later be absorbed into the UN 10 However the League lacked representation for colonial peoples then half the world s population and significant participation from several major powers including the US the USSR Germany and Japan it failed to act against the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria the Second Italo Ethiopian War in 1935 the 1937 Japanese occupation of China and Nazi expansions under Adolf Hitler that escalated into World War II 11 nbsp Chiang Kai shek Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill met at the Cairo Conference in 1943 during World War II nbsp British Prime Minister Winston Churchill US President Franklin D Roosevelt and Soviet general secretary Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference February 1945On New Year s Day 1942 President Roosevelt Prime Minister Churchill Maxim Litvinov of the USSR and T V Soong of the Republic of China signed a short document based on the Atlantic Charter and the London Declaration 12 13 which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration The next day the representatives of twenty two other nations added their signatures 14 The term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration By 1 March 1945 21 additional states had signed 15 Four Powers was coined to refer to the four major Allied countries the United States the United Kingdom the Soviet Union and the Republic of China 16 and became the foundation of an executive branch of the United Nations the Security Council 17 Following the 1943 Moscow Conference and Tehran Conference in mid 1944 the delegations from the Allied Big Four the Soviet Union the UK the US and the Republic of China met for the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington D C to negotiate the UN s structure 18 and the composition of the UN Security Council quickly became the dominant issue France the Republic of China the Soviet Union the UK and US were selected as permanent members of the Security Council the US attempted to add Brazil as a sixth member but was opposed by the heads of the Soviet and British delegations 19 The most contentious issue at Dumbarton and in successive talks proved to be the veto rights of permanent members The Soviet delegation argued that each nation should have an absolute veto that could block matters from even being discussed while the British argued that nations should not be able to veto resolutions on disputes to which they were a party At the Yalta Conference of February 1945 the American British and Russian delegations agreed that each of the Big Five could veto any action by the council but not procedural resolutions meaning that the permanent members could not prevent debate on a resolution 20 On 25 April 1945 the UN Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco attended by 50 governments and a number of non governmental organizations involved in drafting the United Nations Charter 21 At the conference H V Evatt of the Australian delegation pushed to further restrict the veto power of Security Council permanent members 22 Due to the fear that rejecting the strong veto would cause the conference s failure his proposal was defeated twenty votes to ten 23 The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then permanent members of the Security Council and by a majority of the other 46 signatories 21 On 17 January 1946 the Security Council met for the first time at Church House Westminster in London United Kingdom 24 Subsequently during the 1946 1951 period it conducted sessions at the United Nation s interim headquarters in Lake Success New York which were televised live on CBS by the journalist Edmund Chester in 1949 25 26 27 Cold War edit nbsp Church House in London where the first Security Council Meeting took place on 17 January 1946The Security Council was largely paralyzed in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and USSR and their allies and the Council generally was only able to intervene in unrelated conflicts 28 A notable exception was the 1950 Security Council resolution authorizing a US led coalition to repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea passed in the absence of the USSR 21 29 In 1956 the first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the Suez Crisis 21 however the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR s simultaneous invasion of Hungary following that country s revolution 30 Cold War divisions also paralysed the Security Council s Military Staff Committee which had been formed by Articles 45 47 of the UN Charter to oversee UN forces and create UN military bases The committee continued to exist on paper but largely abandoned its work in the mid 1950s 31 32 In 1960 the UN deployed the United Nations Operation in the Congo UNOC the largest military force of its early decades to restore order to the breakaway State of Katanga restoring it to the control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 1964 33 However the Security Council found itself bypassed in favour of direct negotiations between the superpowers in some of the decade s larger conflicts such as the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Vietnam War 34 Focusing instead on smaller conflicts without an immediate Cold War connection the Security Council deployed the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority in West New Guinea in 1962 and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus in 1964 the latter of which would become one of the UN s longest running peacekeeping missions 35 36 On 25 October 1971 over US opposition but with the support of many Third World nations along with the Socialist People s Republic of Albania the mainland communist People s Republic of China replaced Republic of China with a seat on the Security Council the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization 37 With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the Middle East Vietnam and Kashmir the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange By the 1970s the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its budget for peacekeeping 38 Post Cold War edit nbsp US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds a model vial of anthrax while giving a presentation to the Security Council in February 2003 After the Cold War the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties taking on more missions in ten years than it had in its previous four decades 39 Between 1988 and 2000 the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled and the peacekeeping budget increased more than tenfold 40 The UN negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War launched a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia and oversaw democratic elections in post apartheid South Africa and post Khmer Rouge Cambodia 41 In 1991 the Security Council demonstrated its renewed vigor by condemning the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on the same day of the attack and later authorizing a US led coalition that successfully repulsed the Iraqis 42 Undersecretary General Brian Urquhart later described the hopes raised by these successes as a false renaissance for the organization given the more troubled missions that followed 43 Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another in the early 1990s the UN faced a number of simultaneous serious crises within nations such as Haiti Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia 44 The UN mission to Bosnia faced worldwide ridicule for its indecisive and confused mission in the face of ethnic cleansing 45 In 1994 the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in the face of Security Council indecision 46 In the late 1990s UN authorized international interventions took a wider variety of forms The UN mission in the 1991 2002 Sierra Leone Civil War was supplemented by British Royal Marines and the UN authorized 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was overseen by NATO 47 In 2003 the US invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization prompting a new round of questioning of the organization s effectiveness 48 In the same decade the Security Council intervened with peacekeepers in crises including the War in Darfur in Sudan and the Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo In 2013 an internal review of UN actions in the final battles of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered systemic failure 49 In November December 2014 Egypt presented a motion proposing an expansion of the NPT non Proliferation Treaty to include Israel and Iran this proposal was due to increasing hostilities and destruction in the Middle East connected to the Syrian Conflict as well as others All members of the Security Council are signatory to the NPT and all permanent members are nuclear weapons states 50 Role editThe UN s role in international collective security is defined by the UN Charter which authorizes the Security Council to investigate any situation threatening international peace recommend procedures for peaceful resolution of a dispute call upon other member nations to completely or partially interrupt economic relations as well as sea air postal and radio communications or to sever diplomatic relations and enforce its decisions militarily or by any means necessary The Security Council also recommends the new Secretary General to the General Assembly and recommends new states for admission as member states of the United Nations 51 52 The Security Council has traditionally interpreted its mandate as covering only military security though US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke controversially persuaded the body to pass a resolution on HIV AIDS in Africa in 2000 53 Under Chapter VI of the Charter Pacific Settlement of Disputes the Security Council may investigate any dispute or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute The Council may recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment if it determines that the situation might endanger international peace and security 54 These recommendations are generally considered to not be binding as they lack an enforcement mechanism 55 A minority of scholars such as Stephen Zunes have argued that resolutions made under Chapter VI are still directives by the Security Council and differ only in that they do not have the same stringent enforcement options such as the use of military force 56 Under Chapter VII the council has broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving threats to the peace breaches of the peace or acts of aggression 32 In such situations the council is not limited to recommendations but may take action including the use of armed force to maintain or restore international peace and security 32 This was the legal basis for UN armed action in Korea in 1950 during the Korean War and the use of coalition forces in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991 and Libya in 2011 57 58 Decisions taken under Chapter VII such as economic sanctions are binding on UN members the Security Council is the only UN body with authority to issue binding resolutions 59 60 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes that the Security Council has authority to refer cases to the Court in which the Court could not otherwise exercise jurisdiction 61 The Council exercised this power for the first time in March 2005 when it referred to the Court the situation prevailing in Darfur since 1 July 2002 since Sudan is not a party to the Rome Statute the Court could not otherwise have exercised jurisdiction 62 63 The Security Council made its second such referral in February 2011 when it asked the ICC to investigate the Libyan government s violent response to the Libyan Civil War 64 Security Council Resolution 1674 adopted on 28 April 2006 reaffirms the provisions of paragraphs 138 and 139 of the 2005 World Summit Outcome Document regarding the responsibility to protect populations from genocide war crimes ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity 65 The Security Council reaffirmed this responsibility to protect in Resolution 1706 on 31 August of that year 66 These resolutions commit the Security Council to protect civilians in an armed conflict including taking action against genocide war crimes ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity 67 Members editPermanent members edit Main article Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council See also China and the United Nations France and the United Nations Russia and the United Nations Soviet Union and the United Nations United Kingdom and the United Nations and United States and the United Nations The Security Council s five permanent members below have the power to veto any substantive resolution this allows a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution but not to prevent or end debate 68 Country Regional group Current state representation Former state representation nbsp China Asia Pacific nbsp People s Republic of China nbsp Republic of China c 1945 1949 1949 1971 nbsp France Western Europe and Others nbsp French Republic nbsp Provisional Govt 1945 1946 Fourth Republic 1946 1958 nbsp Russia Eastern Europe nbsp Russian Federation nbsp Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 1945 1991 b nbsp United Kingdom Western Europe and Others nbsp United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland nbsp United States Western Europe and Others nbsp United States of America At the UN s founding in 1945 the five permanent members of the Security Council were the Republic of China the Provisional Government of the French Republic the Soviet Union the United Kingdom and the United States There have been two major seat changes since then China s seat was originally held by Chiang Kai shek s Nationalist Government the Republic of China However the Nationalists were forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan in 1949 during the Chinese Civil War The Chinese Communist Party assumed control of mainland China thenceforth known as the People s Republic of China In 1971 General Assembly Resolution 2758 recognized the People s Republic as the rightful representative of China in the UN and gave it the seat on the Security Council that had been held by the Republic of China which was expelled from the UN altogether with no opportunity for membership as a separate nation 37 After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Russian Federation was recognized as the legal successor state of the Soviet Union and maintained the latter s position on the Security Council 69 Additionally France eventually reformed its government into the French Fifth Republic in 1958 under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle France maintained its seat as there was no change in its international status or recognition although many of its overseas possessions eventually became independent 70 The five permanent members of the Security Council were the victorious powers in World War II 71 and have maintained the world s most powerful military forces ever since They annually topped the list of countries with the highest military expenditures 72 In 2013 they spent over US 1 trillion combined on defence accounting for over 55 of global military expenditures the US alone accounting for over 35 72 They are also among the world s largest arms exporters 73 and are the only nations officially recognized as nuclear weapon states under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty NPT though there are other states known or believed to be in possession of nuclear weapons citation needed The block of Western democratic and generally aligned permanent members France the UK and the US is styled as the P3 Veto power edit Main article United Nations Security Council veto power See also List of vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions Under Article 27 of the UN Charter Security Council decisions on all substantive matters require the affirmative votes of three fifths i e nine of the members A negative vote or a veto by a permanent member prevents adoption of a proposal even if it has received the required votes 68 Abstention is not regarded as a veto in most cases though all five permanent members must vote for adopting any amendment of the UN Charter or any recommendation of the admission of a new UN member state 59 Procedural matters cannot be vetoed so the veto right cannot be used to avoid discussion of an issue The same holds for certain decisions that directly regard permanent members 68 Most vetoes have been used for blocking a candidate for Secretary General or the admission of a member state not in critical international security situations 74 In the negotiations leading up to the creation of the UN the veto power was opposed by many small countries and was in fact forced on them by the veto nations the United States the United Kingdom China France and the Soviet Union by threatening that the UN would otherwise not be founded Here is a description of the situation by Francis O Wilcox an adviser to the US delegation to the 1945 conference At San Francisco the issue was made crystal clear by the leaders of the Big Five it was either the Charter with the veto or no Charter at all Senator Connally from the U S delegation dramatically tore up a copy of the Charter during one of his speeches and reminded the small states that they would be guilty of that same act if they opposed the unanimity principle You may if you wish he said go home from this Conference and say that you have defeated the veto But what will be your answer when you are asked Where is the Charter 75 As of 2012 update 269 vetoes had been cast since the Security Council s inception d In this period China used the veto 9 times France 18 the Soviet Union or Russia 128 the United Kingdom 32 and the United States 89 Roughly two thirds of Soviet and Russian combined vetoes were in the first ten years of the Security Council s existence Between 1996 and 2012 the United States vetoed 13 resolutions Russia 7 and China 5 while France and the United Kingdom did not use the veto 74 An early veto by Soviet Commissar Andrei Vishinsky blocked a resolution on the withdrawal of French forces from Syria and Lebanon which were under french mandate in February 1946 this veto established the precedent that permanent members could use the veto on matters outside of immediate concerns of war and peace The Soviet Union went on to veto matters including the admission of Austria Cambodia Ceylon Finland Ireland Italy Japan Laos Libya Nepal 76 Portugal South Vietnam and Transjordan as UN member states delaying their joining by several years The United Kingdom and France used the veto to avoid Security Council condemnation of their actions in the 1956 Suez Crisis The first veto by the United States came in 1970 blocking General Assembly action in Southern Rhodesia From 1985 to 1990 the US vetoed 27 resolutions primarily to block resolutions perceived as anti Israel but also to protect its interests in Panama and Korea The Soviet Union the United States and China have all vetoed candidates for Secretary General with the US using the veto to block the re election of Boutros Boutros Ghali in 1996 77 Non permanent members edit See also List of members of the United Nations Security Council United Nations Security Council elections 2020 2021 and 2022 Along with the five permanent members the Security Council of the United Nations has temporary members that hold their seats on a rotating basis by geographic region Non permanent members may be involved in global security briefings 78 In its first two decades the Security Council had six non permanent members the first of which were Australia Brazil Egypt Mexico the Netherlands and Poland In 1965 the number of non permanent members was expanded to ten 79 These ten non permanent members are elected by the United Nations General Assembly for two year terms starting on 1 January with five replaced each year 80 To be approved a candidate must receive at least two thirds of all votes cast for that seat which can result in deadlock if there are two roughly evenly matched candidates In 1979 a standoff between Cuba and Colombia only ended after three months and a record 154 rounds of voting both eventually withdrew in favour of Mexico as a compromise candidate 81 A retiring member is not eligible for immediate re election 82 The African Group is represented by three members the Latin America and the Caribbean Asia Pacific and Western European and Others groups by two apiece and the Eastern European Group by one Traditionally one of the seats assigned to either the Asia Pacific Group or the African Group is filled by a nation from the Arab world alternating between the groups 83 Currently elections for terms beginning in even numbered years select two African members and one each within Eastern Europe Asia Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean the traditional Arab seat is elected for this term Terms beginning in odd numbered years consist of two Western European and Other members and one each from Asia Pacific Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean 81 During the 2016 United Nations Security Council election neither Italy nor the Netherlands met the required two thirds majority for election They subsequently agreed to split the term of the Western European and Others Group It was the first time in over five decades that two members agreed to do so 84 Usually intractable deadlocks are resolved by the candidate countries withdrawing in favour of a third member state The current elected members with the regions they were elected to represent are as follows 85 86 87 88 89 Term Africa Asia Pacific Eastern Europe Latin Americaand Caribbean Western Europeand Other2022 nbsp Gabon nbsp Ghana nbsp United Arab Emirates nbsp Albania nbsp Brazil2023 nbsp Mozambique nbsp Japan nbsp Ecuador nbsp Malta nbsp Switzerland2024 nbsp Algeria nbsp Sierra Leone nbsp Republic of Korea nbsp Slovenia nbsp Guyana2025President edit Main article President of the United Nations Security Council The role of president of the Security Council involves setting the agenda presiding at its meetings and overseeing any crisis The president is authorized to issue both Presidential Statements subject to consensus among Council members and notes 90 91 which are used to make declarations of intent that the full Security Council can then pursue 91 The presidency of the council is held by each of the members in turn for one month following the English alphabetical order of the member states names 92 The list of nations that will hold the Presidency in 2024 is as follows 93 Presidency in 2024 Month CountryJanuary nbsp FranceFebruary nbsp GuyanaMarch nbsp JapanApril nbsp MaltaMay nbsp MozambiqueJune nbsp South KoreaJuly nbsp RussiaAugust nbsp Sierra LeoneSeptember nbsp SloveniaOctober nbsp SwitzerlandNovember nbsp United KingdomDecember nbsp United StatesMeeting locations edit nbsp US President Barack Obama chairs a United Nations Security Council meeting nbsp The meeting room exhibits the United Nations Security Council mural by Per Krohg 1952 Unlike the General Assembly the Security Council is not bound to sessions Each Security Council member must have a representative available at UN Headquarters at all times in case an emergency meeting becomes necessary 94 The Security Council generally meets in a designated chamber in the United Nations Conference Building in New York City The chamber was designed by the Norwegian architect Arnstein Arneberg and was a gift from Norway The United Nations Security Council mural by Norwegian artist Per Krohg 1952 depicts a phoenix rising from its ashes symbolic of the world s rebirth after World War II 95 The Security Council has also held meetings in cities including Nairobi Kenya Addis Ababa Ethiopia Panama City Panama and Geneva Switzerland 94 In March 2010 the Security Council moved into a temporary facility in the General Assembly Building as its chamber underwent renovations as part of the UN Capital Master Plan 96 The renovations were funded by Norway the chamber s original donor for a total cost of US 5 million 97 The chamber reopened on 16 April 2013 98 The representatives of the member states are seated on a horseshoe shaped table with the president in the very middle flanked by the Secretary on the right and the Undersecretary on the left The other representatives are placed in clockwise order alphabetically from the president leaving two seats at the ends of the table for guest speakers The seating order of the members is then rotated each month as the presidency changes Because of the public nature of meetings in the Security Council Chamber delegations use the chamber to voice their positions in different ways such as for example with walkouts 99 Consultation room edit Due to the public scrutiny of the Security Council Chamber 100 much of the work of the Security Council is conducted behind closed doors in informal consultations 101 102 In 1978 West Germany funded the construction of a conference room next to the Security Council Chamber The room was used for informal consultations which soon became the primary meeting format for the Security Council In 1994 the French ambassador complained to the Secretary General that informal consultations have become the Council s characteristic working method while public meetings originally the norm are increasingly rare and increasingly devoid of content everyone knows that when the Council goes into public meeting everything has been decided in advance 103 When Russia funded the renovation of the consultation room in 2013 the Russian ambassador called it quite simply the most fascinating place in the entire diplomatic universe 104 Only members of the Security Council are permitted in the conference room for consultations The press is not admitted and other members of the United Nations cannot be invited into the consultations 105 No formal record is kept of the informal consultations 106 107 As a result the delegations can negotiate with each other in secret striking deals and compromises without having their every word transcribed into the permanent record The privacy of the conference room also makes it possible for the delegates to deal with each other in a friendly manner In one early consultation a new delegate from a Communist nation began a propaganda attack on the United States only to be told by the Soviet delegate We don t talk that way in here 102 A permanent member can cast a pocket veto during the informal consultation by declaring its opposition to a measure Since a veto would prevent the resolution from being passed the sponsor will usually refrain from putting the resolution to a vote Resolutions are vetoed only if the sponsor feels so strongly about a measure that it wishes to force the permanent member to cast a formal veto 101 108 By the time a resolution reaches the Security Council Chamber it has already been discussed debated and amended in the consultations The open meeting of the Security Council is merely a public ratification of a decision that has already been reached in private 109 101 For example Resolution 1373 was adopted without public debate in a meeting that lasted just five minutes 101 110 The Security Council holds far more consultations than public meetings In 2012 the Security Council held 160 consultations 16 private meetings and 9 public meetings In times of crisis the Security Council still meets primarily in consultations but it also holds more public meetings After the outbreak of the Russo Ukrainian War in 2014 the Security Council returned to the patterns of the Cold War as Russia and the Western countries engaged in verbal duels in front of the television cameras In 2016 the Security Council held 150 consultations 19 private meetings and 68 public meetings 111 Subsidiary organs bodies editArticle 29 of the Charter provides that the Security Council can establish subsidiary bodies in order to perform its functions This authority is also reflected in Rule 28 of the Provisional Rules of Procedure The subsidiary bodies established by the Security Council are extremely heterogenous On the one hand they include bodies such as the Security Council Committee on Admission of New Members On the other hand both the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda were also created as subsidiary bodies of the Security Council The by now numerous Sanctions Committees established in order to oversee implementation of the various sanctions regimes are also subsidiary bodies of the council United Nations peacekeepers editMain articles United Nations peacekeeping and List of United Nations peacekeeping missions After approval by the Security Council the UN may send peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities Since the UN does not maintain its own military peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states These soldiers are sometimes nicknamed Blue Helmets for their distinctive gear 112 113 The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988 114 nbsp South African soldiers patrolling as part of MONUSCO in 2018As of 28 February 2023 the UN had 86 903 uniformed and civilian personnel serving in 12 peacekeeping missions with 121 countries contributing military personnel 115 The largest was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo MONUSCO which included 20 688 uniformed personnel The smallest United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan UNMOGIP included 42 uniformed personnel responsible for monitoring the ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir Peacekeepers with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization UNTSO have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948 the longest running active peacekeeping mission 116 UN peacekeepers have also drawn criticism in several postings Peacekeepers have been accused of child rape soliciting prostitutes or sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 117 Haiti 118 Liberia 119 Sudan and what is now South Sudan 120 Burundi and Ivory Coast 121 Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the 2010 2013 Haiti cholera outbreak which killed more than 8 000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake 122 The budget for peacekeeping is assessed separately from the main UN organisational budget in the fiscal year 1 July 2021 30 June 2022 peacekeeping expenditures amounts for 6 38 billion 123 124 UN peace operations are funded by assessments using a formula derived from the regular funding scale but including a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries This amount finances 10 of the 12 ongoing UN peacekeeping missions along the liquidation of the UN African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur UNAMID and logistics support for the African Union Mission in Somalia AMISOM providing the technology logistics and general support to all peace operations through global service centres in Brindisi Italy and a regional service centre in Entebbe Uganda The UN Truce Supervision Organisation UNTSO and the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan UNMOGIP are excluded from the Peacekeeping Operations budged and are financed through the regular UN budget 123 For the 2020 2021 budget the top 10 providers of assessed financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations were the US 27 89 China 15 21 Japan 8 56 Germany 6 09 the United Kingdom 5 79 France 5 61 Italy 3 30 Russian Federation 3 04 Canada 2 73 and South Korea 2 26 123 Criticism and evaluations editMain article Criticism of the United Nations In examining the first sixty years of the Security Council s existence British historian Paul Kennedy concludes that glaring failures had not only accompanied the UN s many achievements they overshadowed them identifying as particular failures the lack of will to prevent ethnic massacres in Bosnia and Rwanda 125 Kennedy attributes the failures to the UN s lack of reliable military resources writing that above all one can conclude that the practice of announcing through a Security Council resolution a new peacekeeping mission without ensuring that sufficient armed forces will be available has usually proven to be a recipe for humiliation and disaster 126 Several studies have examined the Security Council s responsiveness to armed conflict Findings suggests that the Council is more likely to meet and deliberate on conflicts that are more intense and have led to more humanitarian suffering but that its responsiveness is also shaped by the political interests of member states and in particular of the permanent members 127 A 2005 RAND Corporation study found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts It compared UN nation building efforts to those of the United States and found that 88 of UN cases had led to lasting peace 128 Also in 2005 the Human Security Report documented a decline in the number of wars genocides and human rights abuses since the end of the Cold War and presented evidence albeit circumstantial that international activism mostly spearheaded by the UN had been the main cause of the decline in armed conflict since the end of the Cold War 129 Scholar Sudhir Chella Rajan argued in 2006 that the five permanent members of the Security Council all of which are nuclear powers had created an exclusive nuclear club that predominantly addresses the strategic interests and political motives of the permanent members for example protecting the oil rich Kuwaitis in 1991 but poorly protecting the resource poor Rwandans in 1994 130 Since three of the five permanent members are European and four are predominantly white developed nations the Security Council has been described as a pillar of global apartheid by Titus Alexander former Chair of the Westminster United Nations Association 131 The Security Council s effectiveness and relevance are questioned by some because in most high profile cases there are essentially no consequences for violating a Security Council resolution During the Darfur crisis Janjaweed militias allowed by elements of the Sudanese government committed violence against an indigenous population killing thousands of civilians In the Srebrenica massacre Serbian troops committed genocide against Bosniaks although Srebrenica had been declared a UN safe area protected by 400 armed Dutch peacekeepers 132 In his 2009 speech Muammar Gaddafi criticized the Security Council s veto powers and the wars that permanent members of the Security Council had engaged in The UN Charter gives all three powers of the legislative executive and judiciary branches to the Security Council 133 In his inaugural speech at the 16th Summit of the Non Aligned Movement in August 2012 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized the Security Council as having an illogical unjust and completely undemocratic structure and mechanism and called for a complete reform of the body 134 The Security Council has been criticized for failure in resolving many conflicts including Cyprus Sri Lanka Syria Kosovo and the Israeli Palestinian conflict reflecting the wider shortcomings of the UN For example at the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly New Zealand Prime Minister John Key heavily criticized the UN s inaction on Syria more than two years after the Syrian civil war had begun 135 There is evidence of bribery in the Security Council Countries that are elected to the Security Council see a large increase in foreign aid from the US averaging 59 They also see an 8 increase in aid from the UN mainly from UNICEF 136 The increase most strongly correlates to years in which the Security Council addresses issues relevant to the US There is also evidence of increased foreign aid to elected countries from Japan and Germany One study found membership on the Security Council correlates with reduced economic growth for a given country over the course of its two year term 3 5 growth during membership compared to 8 7 over four years of non membership although the effect is mainly driven by African authoritarian countries Elected members also experience a reduction in democracy and freedom of the press 137 Membership reform editMain article Reform of the United Nations Security Council nbsp The G4 nations Brazil Germany India Japan nbsp The Uniting for Consensus Italy Pakistan Spain Canada Mexico Argentina Turkey South Korea and othersProposals to reform the Security Council began with the conference that wrote the UN Charter and have continued to the present day As British historian Paul Kennedy writes Everyone agrees that the present structure is flawed But consensus on how to fix it remains out of reach 138 There has been discussion of increasing the number of permanent members The countries which have made the strongest demands for permanent seats are Brazil Germany India and Japan Japan and Germany the main defeated powers in WWII had been the UN s second and third largest funders respectively before China took over as the second largest funder in recent years while Brazil and India are two of the largest contributors of troops to UN mandated peace keeping missions Italy another main defeated power in WWII and now the UN s sixth largest funder leads a movement known as Uniting for Consensus in opposition to the possible expansion of permanent seats Core members of the group include Canada South Korea Spain Indonesia Mexico Pakistan Turkey Argentina and Colombia Their proposal is to create a new category of seats still non permanent but elected for an extended duration semi permanent seats As far as traditional categories of seats are concerned the UfC proposal does not imply any change but only the introduction of small and medium size states among groups eligible for regular seats This proposal includes even the question of veto giving a range of options that goes from abolition to limitation of the application of the veto only to Chapter VII matters Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asked a team of advisers to come up with recommendations for reforming the United Nations by the end of 2004 One proposed measure is to increase the number of permanent members by five which in most proposals would include Brazil Germany India and Japan known as the G4 nations one seat from Africa most likely between Egypt Nigeria or South Africa and or one seat from the Arab League 139 On 21 September 2004 the G4 nations issued a joint statement mutually backing each other s claim to permanent status together with two African countries Currently the proposal has to be accepted by two thirds of the General Assembly 128 votes The permanent members each holding the right of veto announced their positions on Security Council reform reluctantly The United States has unequivocally supported the permanent membership of Japan and lent its support to India and a small number of additional non permanent members The United Kingdom and France have essentially supported the G4 position with the expansion of permanent and non permanent members and the accession of Germany Brazil India and Japan to permanent member status as well as an increase in the presence of African countries on the Council China has supported stronger representation of developing countries and has firmly opposed Japan s membership 140 In 2017 it was reported that the G4 nations were willing temporarily to forgo veto power if granted permanent UNSC seats 141 In September 2017 US Representatives Ami Bera and Frank Pallone introduced a resolution H Res 535 in the US House of Representatives 115th United States Congress seeking support for the elevation of India to permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council 142 While discussions on expanding permanent membership to individual nations such as the G4 continue alternative proposals have been put forward to reconsider the structure of the Security Council The Noble World Foundation NWF proposes a novel approach suggesting that UNSC membership and veto power be shifted from individual states to sovereignty pooling organizations like the European Union EU This proposal aligns with the UNSC s practice of regionally based selection of non permanent members aiming to improve the Council s decision making and effectiveness The EU serves as a primary example of such pooled sovereignty especially following the European Court of Justice s 1964 ruling that established the precedence of EU law over national laws of its member states The NWF advocates that regional entities like the EU could be eligible for UN membership in the Security Council enabling a significant reform without necessitating an amendment to the UN Charter 143 144 See also editReform of the United Nations Small Five Group a group formed to improve the working methods of the Security Council United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs provides secretarial support to the Security Council United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee a standing committee of the Security CouncilNotes edit The People s Republic of China was admitted to the UN and the Security Council in 1971 replacing and expelling the Republic of China The Charter of the United Nations still lists the Republic of China as the member a b The Russian Federation succeeded the seat of the Soviet Union see Russia and the United Nations The Charter of the United Nations still lists the Soviet Union as the member On 25 October 1971 with opposition from the United States the mainland communist People s Republic of China was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the Republic of China on Taiwan This figure and the figures that follow exclude vetoes cast to block candidates for Secretary General as these occur in closed session 43 such vetoes have occurred 74 References 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ISBN 978 3 900704 20 9 Magliveras Konstantinos D 1999 Exclusion from Participation in International Organisations The Law and Practice behind Member States Expulsion and Suspension of Membership Studies and Materials on the Settlement of International Disputes Vol 5 The Hague Kluwer Law International ISBN 978 90 411 1239 2 Manchester William Reid Paul 2012 The Last Lion Winston Spencer Churchill Vol 3 Defender of the Realm New York Little Brown and Company ISBN 978 0 316 54770 3 Matthews Ken 1993 The Gulf Conflict and International Relations London Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 07519 0 Meisler Stanley 1995 United Nations The First Fifty Years New York Atlantic Monthly Press Mikulaschek Christoph 2010 Report from the 39th International Peace Institute Vienna Seminar on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping In Winkler Hans Rod Larsen Terje Mikulaschek Christoph eds The UN Security Council and the Responsibility to Protect Policy Process and Practice PDF Favorita Papers Diplomatic Academy of Vienna pp 20 49 ISBN 978 3 902021 67 0 Archived PDF from the original on 13 February 2016 Retrieved 8 February 2016 Mires Charlene 2013 Capital of the World The Race to Host the United Nations New York University Press ISBN 978 0 8147 0794 4 Neuhold Hanspeter 2001 The United Nations System for the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes In Cede Frank Sucharipa Behrmann Lilly eds The United Nations Law and Practice The Hague Kluwer Law International ISBN 978 90 411 1563 8 Osmanczyk Edmund Jan 2004 Mango Anthony ed Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements Vol 4 Taylor amp Francis ISBN 978 0 415 93924 9 Schlesinger Stephen C 2003 Act of Creation The Founding of the United Nations A Story of Super Powers Secret Agents Wartime Allies and Enemies and Their Quest for a Peaceful World Boulder Colorado Westview Press ISBN 978 0 8133 3324 3 Wilcox Francis O 1945 The Yalta Voting Formula American Political Science Review 39 5 943 956 doi 10 2307 1950035 ISSN 0003 0554 JSTOR 1950035 S2CID 143510142 Zunes Stephen 2004 International Law the UN and Middle Eastern Conflicts Peace Review A Journal of Social Justice 16 3 285 292 doi 10 1080 1040265042000278513 ISSN 1040 2659 S2CID 143010895 Further reading editBailey Sydney D Daws Sam 1998 The Procedure of the UN Security Council 3rd ed Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 828073 6 Bosco David L 2009 Five to Rule Them All The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 532876 9 Cockayne James Mikulaschek Christoph Perry Chris 2010 The United Nations Security Council and Civil War First Insights from a New Dataset New York International Peace Institute Archived from the original on 18 April 2014 Retrieved 8 February 2016 Grieger Gisela 2013 Reform of the UN Security Council PDF Library of the European Parliament Archived PDF from the original on 15 June 2016 Retrieved 8 February 2016 Hannay David 2008 New World Disorder The UN after the Cold War An Insider s View London I B Tauris ISBN 978 1 84511 719 1 Hurd Ian 2007 After Anarchy Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council Princeton New Jersey Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 12866 5 Kochler Hans 1991 The Voting Procedure in the United Nations Security Council Examining a Normative Contradiction in the UN Charter and its Consequences on International Relations PDF Studies in International Relations Vol 17 Vienna International Progress Organization ISBN 978 3 900704 10 0 Archived PDF from the original on 6 September 2006 Lowe Vaughan Roberts Adam Welsh Jennifer Zaum Dominik eds 2008 The United Nations Security Council and War The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 953343 5 Malone David 1998 Decision Making in the UN Security Council The Case of Haiti 1990 1997 Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 978 0 19 829483 2 Matheson Michael J 2006 Council Unbound The Growth of UN Decision Making on Conflict and Postconflict Issues after the Cold War Washington US Institute of Peace Press ISBN 978 1 929223 78 7 Roberts Adam Zaum Dominik 2008 Selective Security War and the United Nations Security Council since 1945 Strategic Survey The Annual Review of World Affairs Adelphi Paper Abingdon England Routledge 395 ISBN 978 0 415 47472 6 ISSN 0567 932X Vreeland James Dreher Axel 2014 The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council Money and Influence Cambridge England Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 51841 3 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to United Nations Security Council Official website nbsp UN Security Council Research Guide Global Policy Forum UN Security Council Security Council Report information and analysis on the council s activities What s In Blue a series of insights on evolving Security Council actions Center for UN Reform Education information on current reform issues at the United Nations UN Democracy hyperlinked transcripts of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council Portals nbsp Politics nbsp Law Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title United Nations Security Council amp oldid 1193748445, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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