'UN Security Council veto reform will address global crises'
Oct 11, 2024
"A handful of powerful nations have abused their veto powers at the Council for their short-term political gains. We need an overhaul of the veto system," Oxfam says.
Oxfam says the UN Security Council (UNSC) is failing people living in conflict. (Courtesy photos)
Jackie Achan
Journalist @New Vision
A significant reform in the UN Security Council including the abolition of veto powers will ensure that the needs of people in conflict zones are prioritised over political interests, Oxfam has said.
The charity organisation in its publication: Vetoing Humanity: How a few powerful nations hijacked global peace, argues that vetoes of UN Security Council permanent members have often contradicted the will of the UN General Assembly where all member states are represented.
"A handful of powerful nations have abused their veto powers at the Council for their short-term political gains. We need an overhaul of the veto system," Oxfam says.
On September 19, before the UN Summit of the Future kicked off in New York, Oxfam and partners called for a wholesale reform of the UN Security Council starting with abolishing the veto power of the "elite club" - five permanent members: China, France, Russia, UK and US.
Oxfam says the UN Security Council (UNSC) is failing people living in conflict, with Russia and US particularly responsible for abusing their veto power, which is blocking progress toward peace in Ukraine, Syria and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel.
A new Oxfam report, "Vetoing Humanity," studied 23 of the world’s most protracted conflicts over the past decade, including Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Libya, Niger, OPT, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen, and found that 27 of the 30 UNSC vetoes cast on these conflicts were on OPT, Syria and Ukraine.
Consequently, more than a million people have been killed and more than 230 million people are today in urgent need of aid – an increase of over 150 per cent since 2015.
A bygone colonial age
According to Oxfam, China, France, Russia, the UK and the US took responsibility for global security at the UNSC in what is now a bygone colonial age.
“The contradictions of their acting as judge and jury of their own military alliances, interests and adventures are incompatible with a world seeking peace and justice for all,” Oxfam International executive director Amitabh Behar says.
Also critiqued was another of the five permanent member’s powers called “pen-holding”, which allows them to lead on negotiations and direct how resolutions are drafted and tabled, or ignored – again, too often according to their own interests.
For instance, while France and the UK have not used their veto power in the last decade, they and the US have held the pen on two-thirds of resolutions relating to the 23 protracted crises, says Oxfam.
The UK holds the pen on Yemen, for example, where it has a colonial legacy and strategic interests to maintain the maritime routes.
Whereas in 2023, Mali objected to French pen-holding given what it considered “acts of aggression and destabilisation” there.
Furthermore, many other initiatives are not even written up or tabled because they would inevitability be vetoed, the report says. As a result, nearly half of the crises have been largely neglected with fewer than five resolutions each over the last decade, including none on Ethiopia.
On the other hand, the UNSC has passed nearly 80 resolutions on both South Sudan and Sudan, 53 on Somalia and 48 on Libya. None have led to lasting peace.
What's more despite the DR Congo having had 24 UNSC resolutions in the past 10 years, the UN mission there (MONUSCO) has been hindered by chronic underfunding and lack of co-ordination.
“The erratic and self-interested behaviour of UNSC members has contributed to an explosion of humanitarian needs that is now outpacing humanitarian organisations’ ability to respond. This demands a fundamental change of our international security architecture at the very top,” Behar says.
The report is critical of the fact that humanitarian funding remains entirely dependent upon voluntary contributions. In contrast, UN member state funding for peacekeeping operations is mandatory.
“We need a new vision for a UN system that meets its original ambitions and made fit for purpose for today’s reality,” Behar adds.
“A Council that works for the global majority, not a powerful few. This starts with renouncing the veto and pen-holding privilege of the five permanent members and expanding membership to more countries”.
Is reform attainable?
Decision-making is an exercise of power and decisions are made by the powerful, Dr Sabastiano Rwengabo, a Ugandan political scientist and independent consultant, in fragility and resilience assessments, political economy analyses and governance, says.
He adds that weak states may influence decisions but they cannot alter the strategic decisions imperatives of international institutions.
According to Rwengabo, for the weak nations to be heard and make key impactful decisions, they must inject resources, money, into these organisations.
“Weigh the money spent on the war in Ukraine by US, EU, Russia or the Middle East by US and you will understand what superpower priorities are.
“Unless and until war and bloodshed are on superpowers' lands, the rest of us can perish and few decision-makers will care. Unfortunately, the world seems to be as rough and as inhumane as that…”
Rwengabo says countries can never have equal power. He, however, says the formation of global organisations is an exercise in global governance, which is the hallmark of global politics.
“When global power shifts — a process which is always fraught with turbulence, tensions and even major wars — we will not avoid other global organisations emerging.
On the other hand, similar organisations made up of weaker powers, such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Group of 77 plus China which is currently chaired by Uganda, are mainly insignificant in global agenda setting.
However, he says hope lies in the formation of other stronger organisations. BRICS the intergovernmental organisation comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is one such promising global organisation.