How to Reform the United Nations Security Council?

The Security Council is rightfully considered the most powerful and influential body of the United Nations. The authority granted by Chapter VII of the UN Charter allows it to pronounce universally binding decisions and authorize all types of conflict-preventing missions, including armed military interventions as a means of last resort to mitigate the gravest challenges to international peace and security. Yet, the decision-making process in the Security Council has never been fully transparent, inclusive, or equitable. Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council was founded as an elitist body to facilitate the balance, and possibly, consensus of the great post-WWII powers. For this reason, when a certain issue laid out of the great powers interest scope, or unanimity was not possible due to an impassable disagreement, the Council would become dysfunctional. The latest example of Syria show its repeated incapacity to stop the conflict with a death toll of almost 200,000 people,[i] primarily due to a veto-based blocking policy of Russia and China, and the NATO powers’ lack of interest, caused by war-weariness.

 

Although power discrepancy between the world political players has a significant impact on the UN decision-making process, the Security Council institutional design plays a more important role. The Council has always been a small body, and the veto right of the five permanent members remained a foundational principle since 1946, although the UN itself went through a triple enlargement, and the international political system – through an impressive transformation. Nowadays some scholars view the existing structure of the Security Council as obsolete, and insist on reforms. There is an array of ideas on the reformed Council design. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the causes of the Council’s incompetency, evaluate the main approaches to its reform, and conclude, which one is the most effective and feasible.

 

The first problem is that the Security Council represents a circle of “chosen” states, not accountable to the outside majority. Eric Voeten describes its decision-making procedure as non-inclusive, non-transparent and elitist.[ii] Moreover, Thomas Weiss claims that the Council does not reflect the actual distribution of the twenty-first-century power.[iii] Indeed, the Council frequently works in its own “political vacuum,” being especially hard to reach for the outsiders. For instance, Japan and Germany, world’s third and fourth economies respectively,[iv] currently do not enjoy any power inside the Security Council. Second problem is an unchecked domination of the five permanent members: the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France. The power of insiders without a veto right is ridiculously small, much less than it seems. Using Shapley-Shubik index, Barry O’Neill calculated a total voting power of non-permanent members, which appeared to be below 2%.[v] Based on this evidence, we can say that a lack of representation is not the main reason of countries’ inequality when it comes to resolving world’s security issues, for even being a non-permanent member of the Council, a country may still have a null decision-making power. Thus, the veto right of the P5 is the main cause that cripples the Council’s capacity and legitimacy.

 

We now need to distinguish the main approaches to the Security Council reform. The first approach implies a numerical increase of seats. In March 2005, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan presented a report “In Larger Freedom,” which included two variants of the Security Council reform.[vi] Both plans would increase the total number of seats to 24. Plan A proposed 6 additional permanent seats, and 3 rotating, total 11 veto an 13 non-veto seats. Plan B reserved the veto right exclusively for the P5 countries, and proposed to add 8 seats with a 4-year renewable tenure, along with 11 two-year non-renewable seats. The proposal of six additional permanent seats was met by a consolidation of the G4 group: Brazil, Germany, India and Japan – a community of countries supporting each other’s bids for a permanent seat. In turn, the G4 initiative found a strong opposition in a broad group of more than a dozen states, called Uniting for Consensus. In July 2005, UfC put forward an alternative proposal to leave the five permanent seats untouched, and add ten rotating.[vii] The Organization of Islamic Cooperation also managed to take the initiative, calling for a permanent representative for the Muslim world.[viii]

 

As we may notice, the dispute about the UN SC enlargement is in fact a struggle for the permanent seats. As O’Neill’s analysis demonstrates, the Council’s enlargement up to 25 members hardly improves the voting power of the non-veto powers.[ix] Permanent members’ votes are still the essential core of decision-making, and it is relatively easy for the P5 to find supporting votes when they enjoy unanimity. Thereby, increasing the number of non-permanent seats is useless. On the other hand, more veto-right members will not improve the Council’s functioning. Diversity of political orientation will only cause more dissention, making unanimity almost impossible.

 

As long as any manipulation with the number of the Council’s members does not resolve the institutional crisis, it makes sense to consider the second approach, internal structural reform. Obviously, the main internal obstacle for the Council’s functioning is veto. Since the UN SC establishment in 1946, 190 draft resolutions have been vetoed, most of them by USSR/Russia and the United States.[x] Major Cold War interventions, such as the USSR in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan, and the U.S. in Vietnam, were not countered because of veto. Despite the existence of the UN General Assembly Resolution 377 (Uniting for Peace),[xi] which gave the Assembly a right to authorize collective measures for peace and security protection in case of the Council’s stalemate, this mechanism usually did not work, primarily because the GA resolutions are recommendatory, not binding.  Therefore, veto right should be reformed to prevent such a shortcoming in the future. The question is about the exact design of such a reform. Some proposals call to limit veto to a certain number of issues, though not yet specified, while others claim it should be totally abolished. However, a struggle with the veto right is a vicious circle, because its abolition, just like any change to the UN Charter, requires the P5 approval.[xii] Still, none of them has expressed any intention to cease their right.

 

There are even some unusual proposals, which do not have a certain author or lobbyist. First, to introduce the veto right rotation, and tie it to the rotation of membership. Second, to make the vote in the Council proportionate to the country’s population or economic power. The second proposal is irrelevant, because it contradicts with the UN principle of sovereign equality. The first one requires P5 acquiescence, and risks to grant exceptional authority to politically weak states, which may abuse this power for the sake of their vested interests.

 

After considering the two broad approaches, we can definitely say that reforming the veto right makes more sense than any manipulation with the number of the Council’s members. An abolished veto idea certainly wins versus a restricted or rotating one, because it eliminates an obstacle to equitable decision-making and meets the UN principle of sovereign equality. Nevertheless, the Security Council of fifteen peer-members would probably lack an ability to pass truly expert resolutions without any additional filter. In my view, veto should stop being a political instrument, and become a means of quality control. Resolutions drafted in haste and lacking political expertise, should be rejected and sent back to the Council for revision. In this judge-jury type relation, the role of a judge will be assumed by the presiding country (which rotates every month) together with the UN Secretary General. Sustaining a veto will only be possible by the Security Council President upon consent of the Secretary General, making the decision truly deliberate and impartial. This reform will remove the negative impact of veto and revitalize the Secretary General’s leadership.

 

To sum up, the reformed Security Council will include the same number of seats, but the veto right will belong only to a tandem of the President and Secretary General. The final question is how feasible this reform is, and what are the conditions for its implementation. Obviously, the P5 members should cease their veto. This acquiescence will be possible under two conditions: high cost of unilateralism, and impossibility to move an important agenda through the Council due to veto obstacles, as it happened with a proposed intervention into the Syrian conflict. When both internal and external environments become impassible for the great powers’ initiatives, the P5 will make concessions. With the Cold War far behind, American-based unipolar system eroded, and a rising authority of international law, the chances for such a change are improving, although they still remain relatively low versus the status