The UN’s failure
These powerful countries hold this veto power so close to their chest to derail any move that goes against their interest that the US and the UK would probably not have accepted the creation of the UN without this privilege.
The 1945 San Francisco conference is a case in point when a number of small and medium states opposed the provision of veto power as it “violated the notion of sovereign equality”. They were snubbed by the P5, who made it clear their participation in the UN was contingent to veto power. And so from then on, the veto left the UN system ineffective when it concerned interests of the P5 no matter if this meant permitting and genocide.
Another mentionable case is Myanmar. In 2007 when China and Russia cast a double veto on a draft resolution calling on Myanmar to cease military attacks on Rohingyas and other ethnic minorities. The duo again vetoed another Security Council move on Myanmar in 2009. And finally in March 2017, China and Russia together once again blocked a press statement to condemn the genocide on the Rohingyas. In September, they once again blocked a discussion on the Rohingyas’ plight.
Under such circumstances, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein has lamented, “When journalists are jailed in huge numbers in Turkey, and the Rohingya are dehumanised . . . with all these examples bedevilling us, why are we doing so little to stop them, even though we should know how dangerous all of this is?”
In the face of such fecklessness by the UN ranging from the genocide of Rwanda to Bosnia to Congo to Sudan to Ukraine, a major discourse has surfaced about reforming the UN to stop the veto power of the P5.
Canada launched the International Commission on Intervention and States Sovereignty in 2000 giving birth to the concept of “responsibility to protect” that argues P5 members should agree not to use veto to obstruct military intervention to save human lives. The concept was endorsed by UN members at the World Summit in 2005.
In support of the move, five small countries known as S5 – Singapore, Costa Rica, Jordan, Switzerland and Liechtenstein – proposed reforms to refrain the P5 from using veto to block Security Council actions aimed at preventing and ending genocides or crimes against humanity. Its proposals were tabled at the General Assembly in 2012 but were killed.
Right now two proposals, one by France and Mexico and supported by 99 states and the other by Liechtenstein backed by 27 small countries has been adopted by 112 states.
Then French President Francois Hollande in his UN address in 2015 pledged “France would never use its power of veto where there have been mass atrocities”. The UK has endorsed this view.
The Accountability, Coherence and Transparency group formed by 24 small and medium states have laid down a code of conduct for the Security Council regarding genocides and atrocities.
Meantime, a 2008 move by the Holocaust Museum, American Academy of Diplomacy and the US Institute of Peace have recommended that the P-5 should agree that unless three permanent members were to agree to veto a given resolution, all five would abstain or support it.
But the US, China and Russia refrain from participating in such reform moves. The system is unjust and skewed as even if the whole world agrees to an action that would be skirted if any of the P5 members feel otherwise. And so very justifiably former UN chief Ban Kimoon in his last General Assembly debate in 2016 bemoaned: “Is it fair for any one country to wield such disproportionate power and hold the world hostage on so many important issues?”
The question remains valid.