Is the UN Security Council an effective

institution?
In February 1945, at the Yalta conference, the five victors of the Second World War
the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the USSR and the Republic of China agreed
to create a specific body in the newly-founded United Nations, whose sole goal would be to
maintain international peace and security. This was achieved on the 26th of June with the
signature of the Charter of the United Nations, which created the Security Council and
specified its aims and the powers entrusted to it. These were, and are still today, to
investigate in international disputes and determine whether they constitute a threat to
world peace; to call upon the parties to settle these disputes by peaceful means and act as
mediators or councilors; to agree to peaceful actions such as complete or partial
interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other
means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations if deemed necessary ;
to regulate armament throughout the world. It was also given the power to take military
action to maintain or restore peace in a region, if all other means are deemed or have
proven themselves inefficient. The Charter of the United Nations gave the Security Council
fifteen members, five permanent which were given the right of veto (the five victors of
WWII) and the ten others, elected for two-year periods.
This institution has lived on without reform until today, and recent events trigger the
question of its efficiency in a world that has thoroughly changed since 1945. For example,
the multiple vetoes opposed by both Russia and China to any resolution of the Security
Council on the Syrian crisis have frozen its initiative in that matter, keeping the regime of
Bachar al-Assad unpunished for its ruthless repression of Syrian demonstrators, and later,

rebels and presumably for using chemical weapons against its own population. Is the
Security Council truly capable of facing the challenges of world peace today?
First of all, the Security Council has proven itself unable to produce, as mandated by
the article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations, a system for the regulation of armaments
throughout the world. Its efficiency is also put in question by the fact that it tends to be
more and more often used as a political weapon by the Western countries. Furthermore,
many Security Council resolutions have been infringed in the past and today, both by States
supposed to be affected by these resolutions and by the Member-States ; this puts its
credibility in jeopardy.

I The inability of the Security Council to produce a global

disarmament program
In 2008, the General Assembly of the United Nations issued a report on Collective
Security and Armament Regulation, whose conclusions were clear: negligible progress has
been made since 1945 in the effort for disarmament, which was supposed to be conducted
by the Security Council (article 26 of the Charter of the United Nations). Attempts were
made from time to time, but failed or were insufficient. In 1946, the UN Atomic Energy
Commission was created, composed of the Security Council plus Canada, to deal with the
problem of atomic energy. Its goal was to put an end to weapons of mass destruction.
However, successive stalemates during the negotiations caused by either American or Soviet
vetoes proved that an agreement was impossible to come by. This failure led to the nuclear
arms race and to a turning away by the Security Council from its article 26 mandate. No
other attempts have been made since then to secure international control of nuclear
weapons. The UN Commission for Conventional Armament, also created in 1946, suffered

the same fate as the UNAEC: the Soviet Union pressed for immediate disarmament, whereas
the United States supported reductions only when an effective framework for collective
security was in place. The USSR used the issue of the representation of China in the UNCCA
to withdraw from the negotiations, and from that point the Council stopped playing a role
on armaments regulation and disarmament. Discussion of the Article 26 was never revived.
Progress, however, was achieved under the supervision of the General Assembly,
starting in 1978 with the Special Session on disarmament, which created what was intended
to be an integrated disarmament machinery: the Disarmament Commission and the
Conference on Disarmament, which is today constituted of 66 members. Two other Special
sessions on disarmament took place in 1982 and 1988, but despite huge negotiating efforts,
achievements in the direction of global disarmament and arms regulation within the United
Nations remained negligible - agreements have been reached on very specific kinds of
weapons, such as the prohibition of the military use of environmental modification
techniques in 1977 or the 1992 Convention on chemical weapons - and practically inexistent
within the Security Council. The only clear progress of a generic instrument at the global
level is the UN Register of Conventional Arms, established in 1991 by the General Assembly.
It is the main global instrument for enabling UN member states to publicly report on their
imports and exports of major conventional weapons. But this instrument is not binding and
the submission of data has been rather limited. For instance in 2007, only 66 countries
reported (39 percent of UN member states). It is fair to conclude that the Security Council
has, as of today, failed to meet the specific responsibilities the Charter had entrusted to it.

II The Security Council used as a political instrument

The Charter of the United Nations gives to the Security Council for sole purpose to maintain
peace throughout the world. However, it has become clear that the powers given to its members
have been misused, over-used or used to serve their own interests. It is the case with the right of
veto granted to the five permanent members of the Security Council. Between 1946 and 2012 for
instance, 216 resolutions have been vetoed. The fact that the actual distribution of this right is still
the 1945 distribution is very questionable in a world that has thoroughly changed. It perpetuates a
supremacy that is outdated, and simply does not comply with the principle of equality between the
sovereign nations within the United Nations. It also favors inertia in international decisions, which
can only be negative for both the credibility and the efficiency of the United Nations. Moreover,
vetoes are very largely used as political weapons: it can be seen through the successive vetoes
opposed by Russia towards any resolution concerning Syria. Damascus is Moscows seventh best
client in military trade, and cooperates closely with Russia on a military basis ; Russia also has strong
economic interests in the country (Tatneft, a Russian oil and gas company, is the first energy firm in
Syria). Furthermore, Russia believes that a victory of the Syrian rebels could trigger further instability
in its already unstable Muslim populated southern regions. By vetoing resolutions that could
trigger military intervention in Syria, Russia protects its national interests, regardless of the
seriousness of the civil war and repression in this country. China, who also opposed its veto to the
resolutions, has no major economic interests in the region; but this decision corresponds with the
way Beijing and Moscow have earlier stalled or diluted West-led resolutions in the United Nations
against rogue regimes like those in Burma and North Korea. A key motive is to present a united antiWest alliance to counter international influence by the United States and its allies. Political reasons
are at stake in the matter, rather than pure considerations of the protection of civilians and
maintenance of international peace.

The right of veto, however, is not always necessary to the members of the Security Council to
turn it into a political instrument. The intervention in Cte dIvoire of UN and French troops in 2011 is
a flagrant example of such a use. The Security Council adopted a resolution clearly supporting
Alassane Ouattara, thus overstepping its mandate and acting outside of the boundaries set by the
Charter of the United Nations. Indeed, no article allows the Security Council to take sides and decide
which candidate has been legally elected, when the legal and constitutional institution of the country
has rendered its decision. Taking up such a position transforms the Security Council in an eminently
political institution in the service of the interests of certain of its members, here to oppose a
government whose major defect was to refuse Western supremacy.

III The infringements of the Security Council resolutions damage its

credibility
A major problem the Security Council is faced with is the lack of sanctions that can be
imposed on countries that do not respect its resolutions. For more than sixty years,
resolutions of the Security Council have flown in to try to contain the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict; however, the State of Israel continuously oversteps these resolutions, blindly and
unconditionally supported by the United States. For example, the resolutions 242 and 338,
adopted in 1967 and declaring the illegality of the occupation by Israel of Palestinian
territory are still not respected. It is easy to understand why Israel makes so little
consequence of these resolutions: the United Stated have opposed 13 vetoes to projects of
resolutions openly condemning the conduct of Israel since 1948. The Security Council can
hardly stay credible if some States can consider themselves to be above international law.
However, it is not only the countries concerned by the resolutions that do not respect
Security Council resolutions: the member-States themselves tend to comply selectively and
discriminatingly with the decisions they have taken. For instance, the UN embargo on Libya

decided by the resolution 1973 of the Security Council was infringed by France, the United
States, the UK and Italy, who parachuted large quantities of weapons to the Libyan rebels.
The arms embargo, supposed to apply to all belligerents to favor the return of peace, was
therefore divert from its initial purpose and was used to weaken Gadhafis military forces
whilst supporting the rebels. The 1973 resolution emphasized its respect of the national
Libyan sovereignty and made no reference whatsoever to Gadhafis departure from power,
and yet the French and British governments demanded it. Moreover, the resolution issued a
no-fly zone over Libya to prevent civilian bombings. NATO forces, again, decided to overlook
this resolution and launched air raids over Libya, for example against government buildings.
By these actions, the member-States weaken the Security Councils credibility and efficiency.
It cannot function properly if even the countries taking the resolutions disregard them in the
end.

Conclusion
The Security Council clearly has many limits that, in todays world, render it
inefficient. It has failed to develop a global disarmament program that would greatly favor
peace, and its member-States continue to deliver arms to the belligerents they support. The
rights given to the members are used as political weapons and as instruments of an
interventionism that is rarely justified, either than by their personal interests. Many
countries, including the member-States, make little consequence of the Security Council
resolutions. Moreover, it seems clear that the world has greatly changed since 1945 and that
other permanent members should be admitted into the Council, which would be ideally
done according to an equitable geographic repartition. The powers within the United
Nations should be reallocated to match a more even equilibrium between the Security

Council and the General Assembly, the latter being far more representative of the world
than the Security Council. Furthermore, coercive military strikes against a nation are too
serious to be only decided by five countries, and the decisions should rather be taken by the
General Assembly.

Bibliography:

Nations Unies : un conseil dinscurit ou dinstabilit pour les pays en dveloppement?

Robert Yenga, Mon petit editeur

http://www.un.org/fr/sc/

Charter of the United Nations

Update report N1 : Collective Security and Armament regulation (report of the General
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