The Security Council (UNSC)

The Security Council (UNSC) is the UN’s most powerful organ and maintains international peace and security. It has five permanent members (the USA, China, Russia, France and the UK) and ten non-permanent members, elected by the General

Assembly, which serve overlapping 2-year terms. Japan, Germany and India have served most frequently as non-permanent members. UNSC resolutions are legally binding under Chapter Seven of the United Nations Charter, which enables the Security Council to impose sanctions or take military action ‘to maintain or restore international peace and security’. The UNSC only tackles issues concerning peace and security (not, for example, climate change or poverty).

The UNSC has passed several important resolutions when the P5 have agreed:

l Following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, UN Resolution 678 authorised member states to deploy ‘all necessary means’ to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. This provided the legal justification for the first US-led Gulf War.
l Following Iraq’s defeat in the first Gulf War (1991), Iraqi Shia Muslims and Kurds revolted against Saddam Hussein. As a result of Saddam’s brutal suppression, UN Resolution 688 established no-fly zones within Iraq to protect these groups from Iraqi military action.
l In 2011, because of prompting by the Arab League, UN Resolution 1973 authorised a no-fly zone and the use of ‘all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack’ from the forces of Colonel Gaddafi.
l In 2023, 12 UN peacekeeping operations were active, all of which had been authorised by Security Council resolutions.l The biggest of these missions are in South Sudan, where 17,000 UN personnel are responsible for consolidating ‘peace and security’, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 15,000 UN peacekeepers are authorised ‘to use all necessary means to carry out its mandate’ to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid.

However, the P5’s right of veto means that the UNSC’s ability to prevent human rights abuses and resolve conflict is severely limited. Although the UK and France have not exercised the veto since 1989, China, Russia and the USA have frequently done so in cases involving their geo-strategic interests. This sort of approach to conflict resolution means that the liberal good intentions of the Security Council are frequently undermined by realist self-interest.

The following UN resolutions were all vetoed when issues of conflict resolution clashed with the diplomatic priorities of China, Russia and the USA:

l China has traditionally opposed Western humanitarian interventions and has strong strategic interests in Myanmar. Therefore, when a UNSC resolution condemned the military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, China vetoed it.
l In September 2022, the USA introduced a draft UNSC resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions (Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia) as illegal. It demanded that Russia ‘immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces’ from Ukraine. Unsurprisingly Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, exercised the veto, declaring that, ‘There will be no turning back as today’s draft resolution would try to impose’.
l As a firm ally of Israel, the USA is committed to the Negroponte Doctrine. It is named after John Negroponte, a former US ambassador to the UN, who declared in 2002 that the USA would veto any UNSC resolution denouncing Israeli actions that did not also condemn terrorist groups. Therefore, despite UN Resolution 242 (1967), which states that Israel is illegally occupying territories it took control of as a result of the Six Days War, the USA has consistently vetoed all UN resolutions condemning the occupation.

Although UNSC resolutions have approved numerous peacekeeping missions, these missions have often been slow to be implemented, lacked sufficient resources to be effective and haven’t possessed a strong enough mandate to achieve success.

l When civil war broke out in Somalia, UNSC Resolution 751 (1992) established a peacekeeping mission there. However, the immense size of the country, the complex ethnic, tribal and religious rivalries, and insufficient military deployments meant that the UN could do nothing to restore peace and stability and so withdrew its forces in 1995.
l During the civil wars following the break-up of Yugoslavia, UNSC Resolution 819 (1993) demanded that ‘all parties concerned treat Srebrenica and its surroundings as a safe area which should be free from any armed attack or any other hostile act’. However, UN blue helmets were not given sufficient resources and a powerful enough mandate to protect and defend the region. Therefore, the task fell to Bosnian Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic´, resulting in the murder of 8000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys.
l During the genocide in Rwanda, UNSC Resolution 918 (1994) increased the size of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda from 444 to 5500 personnel and provided the mission with increased powers to protect civilians and distribute aid. However, by the time the UNSC adopted this resolution in May most of the killing had already taken place.