UNSC reforms |
THE UN system, established after 1945, reflected the realities of a Hobbesian world, in which the victors’ justice was codified in the UN Charter that gave the five major World War II victors the power to keep their interests protected and their rivalries ring-fenced in a veto cage. Though the present UN Charter defines the legality of war and the territorial rights of each member state through Article 2(4), there is no check or meaningful cost on the breach of the same article by veto-wielding powers of the P5.
The result is the inability of the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council to prevent genocide and violation of sovereign states’ territorial integrity. The Atlantic Charter that birthed Nato too suffered from the same anomalies of power politics. Nato, instead of the putative collective security under Article 5, was known more by its first secretary general Lord Ismay’s observation: “Nato was created to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
The UN system and UNSC are beset with the same anomalies. Despite the best intentions and exertions of the 10 non-permanent member states, the five permanent veto-wielding states can stymie all efforts at peace enforcement. The veto-based system........