When the United Nations Security Council voted on the draft resolution for the Syrian crisis, Russia and China vetoed it and the resolution was not able to pass. Ever since the establishment of the United Nations, the Permanent 5′s “veto right” is allegedly believe to be a powerful tool in encouraging international security and peace. But such privilege has not been able to effectively restrict and balance the power expansion of these five nations, therefore causing the UNSC to have little progress over time.
Established in 1945, the “UN Charter” is designed to sustain world peace and security, and appointed the Security Council to be responsible for this cause. Article 23, 27, and 108 to 110 all indicated that the Permanent Five nations are the main body of vetoes, and has the ability to over power procedural votes with only one veto. The P5 has veto rights for both the establishment of new articles within the UN Charter and other Amendments. These regulations has supported the entire UNSC or even the entire United Nations in general, thus making the “veto” power deeply rooted within the United Nations and is extremely difficult to alter.
From the legal perspective, veto power is a from of weighted voting. This system disobeys the traditional voting system, which gives more voting power to member states based on population, contribution to international organizations, level of responsibility, and conflict of interest. Weighted voting is in fact a bald reflection of power between member states, and is often used within international organizations as a way to make compromises and identify priorities.
In reality, veto power is a power given to few nations to go against the majority. The effect of veto power is mostly seen by the P5 nations directly vetoing a resolution supported by a majority of nations, but cannot solely push forth the respective nation’s own resolution. Toward to recent demand of increasing the number of permanent members within the UNSC, a radical but possible scenario can describe the “power” of a veto. Even when 192 out of all the 193+2 nations within the United Nations ratified the passing of a new amendment to include more permanent members, the resolution will not be able to proceed if the one nation that has not agree to this is a UN permanent member state.
Even though the UN Charter has stated that any of the member nations within the security council has to power to halt any “non-procedural” voting on a resolution, all the procedural voting still follows the rule of a simple majority. But in reality there is no concrete separations between a “procedural” and “non-procedural” vote. Any P5 has veto power to decide whether a motion should be a procedural or non-procedural vote. In fact, not only can the P5 veto on UN’s action-taking mechanisms, crisis resolutions, and conflict peace treaties, they can even veto on secondary issues such as controlling nuclear power, accepting new member nations, and appointing new secretary of UN, which leaves obvious traces of manipulation and sought to greater power.
The UN Charter also stated that when a member states is a conflict of interest within an international issue, this member state (which includes the P5 nations as well) may not vote on resolutions regarding this crisis, known as the Obligatory Abstention Provision. This is seen as a restraint to nations with veto powers; however, the many still veto in deciding whether this issue should even be considered as one. During the invasion of Egypt by British and French forces from 1946 to 1989; United States’ invasion on Vietnam, Panama; USSR’s invasion on Afghanistan, Czech Republic and many related crisis, the UNSC was not able to discuss these issues since the above nations all had veto powers.
UNSC is the only mechanism which the UN has power to intervene with national politics, and is effective for all member states. To maintain world peace, UNSC many allocate armed forces if necessary. Unfortunately, the UN Charter did not specify the responsibilities of a SC member state, only requiring them to follow the UN purposes and the UN Charter. This also means that the UNSC has the possibility to acquire unlimited power. Due to this, the P5 nations’ special status within the UN has made any simple changes to the current power structure a difficult and almost impossible task.
