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The Struggle For A Permanent Seat At The Security Council: A Critical Assessment Of The Contestants In 2012
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One may observe that
since the UNSC was originally intended to deal with most critical issues
of national interests, and because these Great Powers hold the
preponderance of means for the enforcement, such an arrangement may be
considered a necessary departure from the complete abandonment of
unanimity. Though it is impossible to escape the fact that the primary
purpose of the veto is not to foster co-operation but to prevent action,
the use of veto is often in contradiction to the literal terms of the
U.N Charter and has been manipulated for national interests. The veto
strangles the UNSC and prevents a broad consensus from guiding its work
across a wide range of issues surrounding global politics. This device
however, in international politics helps Great Powers to make sure that
their vital interests are not surrendered.
According to Roberts
(2000:41), “there was discontent when the U.S and Britain systematically
blocked council action to impose economic sanctions on South Africa
during hay days of apartheid regime and/or policy in the country in the
1980sâ€. Goodrich (1999:60) notes that, “there was dissatisfaction when
France and Britain blocked action on Suez in 1956; when the U.S refused
action on Vietnam in the 1960s, 70s and when the USSR prevented action
on Afghanistan in the 1980sâ€. Today, the opposition is conspicuous
because the UNSC, rather than failing to act, is now acting in ways that
often seem motivated by geopolitical interests of permanent members.
Currently, there has been sign that Russia and China are willing to veto
any resolution punishing Iran because of its drive to control the
nuclear fuel-cycle.
Expressing the role of veto in the U.N system,
Sheever (1999:59) notes that, “no important action can be undertaken by
the U.N with any reasonable prospect of success in the face of U.S
opposition. Conversely, if the U.S gives full support to a proposal, its
chances of being adopted must be considered very high, unless of course
the veto operatesâ€.
Similarly Roskin observes:
In speeches and
corridor conversations, diplomats often point out that four out of the
five permanent members are ‘European’ (a concept that includes the U.S).
He adds that ‘Four out of five are `industrialized’ countries. The
four-fifths of humankind that live in the poor countries of the global
South, they say, have only one voice, namely, China (Roskin, 1993:63).
The
Chinese role in representing Third World Countries founds expression in
President Robert G. Mugabe’s speech, during his state visit to China
where he implored to the Chinese leaders that Britain wanted to use the
U.N Special Envoy for Zimbabwe, Anna Tibaijuka’s report to put Harare on
the UNSC agenda, but expressed hope that China a staunch ally since the
days of the liberation struggle would use its veto to thwart such
action. In Beijing, the Zimbabwean President said, China, as a member of
the United Nations Security Council, we appeal to you to act in defense
of innocent people and nations in the Third World. My country at the
moment is being brought into an arena of international publicity
unnecessarily (Southern Times, 2005).
In the same vein Huggins
(1988:41) commented that, “it became the practice to use the veto more
broadly both to stop the possibility of any sanction directed against
permanent members, even to stop a mere critical resolution directed
against an allyâ€. It is for this reason that Sigler (2002:67) posits
that “the U.S use of veto has traditionally been tied to Israel with the
U.S vetoing anything critical of the Israeli’s at the Security
Councilâ€. In September 2003, the U.S vetoed a resolution drafted by
Syria that denounced Israel’s threat to remove the then Palestinian
Leader Yasser Arafat. Washington said the resolution was `flawed’
because it did not include a robust condemnation of acts of terrorism by
Palestinian militant groups (Maya, 2005). “In 2002 the U.S again
blocked another draft resolution criticizing the killing by Israeli
forces and the destruction of the World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse
in the West Bank†(Sigler, 2002:67).
These above illustrations depict
how relations among veto-wielding permanent members’ interests impinge
as well as determine the shape, nature and character of global events
within a particular epoch. The veto power was deliberately inserted in
the U.N Charter by the Great Powers and universally accepted by others
as an automatic switch off, to prevent the UNSC from becoming involved
in a great power showdown. Considering the end of the Cold-War, the less
used veto now serves as a mechanism:
To prevent an ad hoc UNSC
majority from ganging up on one of its permanent members, such as China
for its human rights record. In addition, it forces the majority to
consider minority positions in its resolutions, such as softening the
sanctions against Libya for its failure to turn over those wanted for
the airline bombings (Brocker, 2000:42).
In the Libyan case, it is
when the sanctions were softened; China (and other members) abstained,
allowing the resolution to pass.
On Reform, Composition and Voting Power in the Security Council
The
U.N reform, in the sense of changing the organization so that its
capacities to fulfill the goals of its Charter are strengthened, has
been a continuing matter of concern and the object of serious research.
According to Trevor (2000:81), “The U.N’s failure to fully understand
and doctrinally adjust to the new circumstances surrounding global
politics brought the world body to the point of outright strategic
failureâ€. As Hopkinson (1998:50) has put it: “The world balance of power
has changed dramatically in the years since the United Nations was
established but the composition of the Security Council has notâ€. Hence
the need for reform has persistently been suggested.
Over the years, a
variety of proposals to amend the structure of the UNSC, to align it
with the current geopolitical realities have been proffered. However,
the veto power aspect has become a stumbling block, as the five
permanent members have been ever ready to quash any attempt that may
lead to the amendment of Article 108 of the U.N Charter. It was on the
basis of this that Rourke declared that:
The continuing importance of
the veto in practice, its value as a symbol of big power status, and
the difficulty of amending the Charter mean that the veto authority is
likely to continue without major revision despite arguments that its
existence is in the hands of an unrepresentative few countries and is
undermining the legitimacy of the UNSC (Rourke, 1995:363).
Advocating the overhaul of the U.N, Galtung observes that:
Abolishing
the Security Council, revising the contribution structure,
significantly reducing the level of the United Nations salaries, the
dewaldheimization of the United Nations system, greatly reducing the
power and authority of the executive heads, and moving the United
Nations headquarters out of New York will make this international body
more efficient and reliable (Galtung, 2000:98).
The special status
enjoyed by the five Permanent members of the Security Council has become
a simmering issue in the U.N. As Rourke (2002:169) argues, “The most
common argument against the arrangement is that the existing membership
has never been fully realistic and is becoming less so as time goes byâ€.
Many global and regional powers that do not have the veto power have
been pressing for changes in the UNSC structure. In the same vein, less
powerful countries have jumped on the bandwagon. This can be illustrated
by the Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga who once called on
the UNSC “to become more representative and more responsible to the
general membership of the United Nations†(Rourke, 2002:169). The Sri
Lankan President’s sentiments were echoed by Zambian President Levy
Mwanawasa who emphasised that “the Security Council can no longer be
retained like the sanctuary of the hollies with only the original
members acting as high priests, deciding on issues for the rest of the
world who cannot be admitted†( Rourke, 2002:169).
In his report in
2005, titled “In Larger Freedom: Development, Security and Human Rights
for Allâ€, the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan,
stated that, no overhaul of the U.N would be complete without reform of
the Security Council. Dissatisfaction with the UNSC has spawned many
plans to revise it. However, any change in the membership of the UNSC
requires an amendment to Article 108 of the U.N Charter which needs the
consent of all the permanent veto-wielding members. As such, it is
highly unlikely that any formal changes concerning membership of the
permanent members or their veto power will materialize.
As Cede
(1999:35) argues, “five seats are attributed to the Afro-Asian group,
two for the Latino-American, two for the Western European and others and
one for the Eastern European groupâ€. The term is for two years, with
half of the number elected by the UNGA (Art. 23) each year. As Article
23(2) stipulates “a retiring member shall not be immediately
re-electedâ€. The principal officer of the UNSC is the President who,
rather than being elected, is appointed monthly, in rotation, according
to alphabetical order. This rule gives each UNSC member (permanent and
non-permanent) a chance to hold the Presidency.
Bourantonis (2005)
asserted that as a result of the entrance of several new member-states
into the United Nations Organisation due to decolonization in the late
1940s and early 1950s, Spain and several Latin American countries
proposed amendments to the UN Charter in 1956 to increase the number of
non-permanent seats on the UNSC from six to eight. Bourantonis equally
argues that after several years of debate and disagreement, including
the Soviet Union’s insistence on linking the issue of UNSC restructuring
to the issue of mainland China’s membership of the UN, there was a
“breakthrough†on the issue in the early 1960s. In December 1963, the
United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) formally approved amendments
increasing non-permanent seats from six to ten, and the amendments were
ratified by the required number of member-states in 1965 (Afoaku and
Ukaga, 2001; Weiss, 2003; Blum, 2005).
As a result of continued
decolonization, overall membership in the UN continued to grow
significantly from the mid-1960s to the late-1970s. At the same time,
developing countries were increasingly dissatisfied with the abuse of
the veto power by the permanent members and the lack of “equitable
representation†for Asian and African countries on the various councils
of the UN. Consequently, India and several developing countries proposed
amendments to the UN Charter in 1979 to increase the number of
non-permanent seats on the UNSC from 11 to 14 (Bourantonis, 2005: 31).
In 1980, several African, Asian, and Latin American countries proposed
increasing the number of non-permanent seats on the UNSC from 10 to 16
(Blum, 2005). Unlike the previous effort to restructure the UNSC in the
early 1960s, these subsequent efforts were unsuccessful largely because
of heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during this
period (Archibugi, 1993).
According to Schlichtmann (1999: 510) the
UNGA approved in 1995 the Declaration on the 50th Anniversary of the
United Nations, which stated that the UNSC should be “expanded and its
working methods continue to be reviewed in a way that will further
strengthen its capacity and effectiveness, enhance its representative
character, and improve its working efficiency and transparencyâ€.
Heinrich
(2012:1) showing the insignificant character of the non-permanent
members of the UN Security Council, posed the question; “there are 10
non-permanent members on the UN Security Council – name threeâ€. He went
on to assert that beyond a handful of policy wonks, no one pays much
attention to non-permanent members, which is indicative of how little
prestige such a seat bestows. Although non-permanent members vote, they
exercise no veto and so lack any pretence to a powerful say on the
council, much less a decisive role of the kind enjoyed by their
permanent, veto-wielding counterparts.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]This work set out to investigate the struggle for Permanent Seats At The Security Council: A Critical Assessment of the Contestants in 2012. While observing that there exists a fundamental need to reform and enlarge both the membership and voting pattern in the Security Council in order to reflect geopolitical realities of the 21st Century by making both the organisation and the Security Council in particular to appear democratic while at the same time enhancing its efficiency and legitimacy aro ... Continue reading---
