The Daily Clarity

The UN veto and its overuse

The United Nations was created just after World War II, by nations weary of a conflict in which the ultimate deterrent, nuclear weapons, had been deployed in anger. The world reeled at its impact and the UN was born. The UN is still one of the greatest achievements of a diplomatic ideal in the modern age, but one that is being strangled by the use of the veto in the Security Council. The veto is crippling the efficiency of the UN, particularly in relation to two current issues, namely resolving the Israeli-Palestinian hostilities and the International Criminal Court (ICC) which could allow for international conflicts to be resolved by law rather than war. The US has used its veto most of late, and has dictated international policy as a result for the rest of the world. However, Russia has used its veto most of all, 123 times in total versus 82 by the US. Russia used it mainly in the 10 years following WW II when the Soviet agenda was at its height, and placed Russia with a whole different set of objectives than the rest of the world, it has used its veto infrequently of late. Recently, the US use of the veto on the two key issues of Israel and the ICC has been the bone of contention of the member nations. The US represents approximately 6% of the world’s population, but its veto is effectively controlling policy for the other 94% of the world. The veto needs to go –  it is anarchistic, imperialist in design,  and is killing the UN charter day by day by the death of a thousand cuts.

The UN was conceived to be the international body, a inheritor of the mantle from the original League of Nations. If we review the efficiency in the execution of its charter, however, it has been limited due largely to the members being unwilling to put aside individual agendas for the overall benefit of its members. The UN has achieved some success in the social arena if not in conflict resolution, fostering human rights, economic development,  decolonization, health and education, for example. In the other area of note, namely security, the UN has had less impact. The founders of the UN had high hopes that it would act to prevent conflicts between nations and make future wars impossible. From about 1947 until 1991, the Cold War made agreement on peacekeeping matters almost impossible, with the two superpowers, Russia and the US effectively combatants albeit through proxies. Following the end of the Cold War,the breakup of the Soviet Union changed the balance among the primary member. It left the United States in the unique position of global dominance, and it has ever since been made impotent, particularly in the Security Council, by the application of the US veto.

The US history of use of the veto is indicative of a nation with a unilateralism streak, that sees the UN as an inhibitor in the achievement of its sovereign agenda. The U.S. first used the veto power in 1970, in relation to Rhodesia, but only first issued a lone veto in 1972, to prevent a resolution censuring Israel which as subsequently become a pattern for it. Since 1972 the US  has become by far the most frequent user of the veto. This is the cause of much of the friction between the General Assembly and the Security Council. This mutual distrust was evidenced when the US undertook the 2003 Iraqi war which the UN refused to endorse. Subsequently, the UN may well have been proven correct in its analysis of the Iraq War justification, but the US blithely ignored the lack of endorsement anyway. The table from the Global Policy Forum below shows the common prevalence of the veto by country, and shows the dominance since 1970 of the US preference for its application.

The way the US has applied its veto is also illuminating. It has used its veto consistently and on multiple occasions to stop UN censure of Israel, and to effectively negate the jurisdiction of the ICC to act as a ‘world court’. The full list of US vetoes is (source – KryssTal site). In fact, the US has used its right of veto in the UN on matters related to Israel around 35 times (depending on definition, +/- 10%). This means that in effect, the US has 35 times denied world opinion through the auspices of the UN of censuring Israel for military actions because of its own political agenda. This unilateral position does little to endear the US on the international stage, and as a result it causes may commentators to disparage the effectiveness of the UN to act on key matters due to this veto pattern.

What is even more irritating about the use of the veto in the Security Council is that the controlling Article 27 of the UN Security Council charter does not explicitly grant the right of veto. It is an interpretive ruling known as the ‘great Power unanimity’ that implies the right for this veto to exist.

Article 27 states:

1) Each member of the Security Council shall have one vote.

2) Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members.

3) Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VI, and under paragraph 3 of Article 52, a party to a dispute shall abstain from voting.

The veto is not mentioned directly,  however, the fact that Security Council decisions require “the concurring votes of the permanent members“, means that any of those permanent members can prevent the adoption of any draft resolutions on ’substantive’ matters by the application of the principle of veto. Abstention is not the same as a veto, though again it is use is often applied to weaken the impact of a Security Council ruling.

The US veto pattern in relation to Israel is repetitive, even though the Security Council has made 101 resolutions on Israel’s military action not one has ever escalated to Chapter IV of the UN charter which allows the UN to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take military and nonmilitary action to “restore international peace and security”. Under President Bush’s tenure the ever-ready veto has also blocked the effective implementation of a world court, though the jury is out as of yet as to whether the new Administration under President Obama, as it did in its campaign, will reverse this course. However, regardless of the Obama Administration position on the ICC, it is highly unlikely that the US will change its veto usage in relation to Israel.

The Security Council veto makes a mockery of the democratic process at the heart of the UN intent. It should be a case of majority rule as opposed to every party agreeing. Imagine if the same principle as implied by Article 27 was utilized in the US electoral process when, say, one application of a veto by a US senator, could block the appointment of a President. It is a practice that needs to be discontinued if balance is to be restored to the UN,  and if the UN is still to be an effective vehicle in the modern age. If a practice is laid down in charter that allows one member to frustrate the intents of all other nations is allowed to continue, a member, at the moment the US, but any member could use that provision to effectively nullify the UN charter. Article 27 should be the target of reform, but again it is a conundrum, because the US  could use its power of veto potentially to deny any meaningful reform to UN efficiency, as it has in relation to the ICC and the Israel-Palestine conflict.