This House Would Abolish the Veto Power in the United Nations Security Council
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This house would abolish the veto power in the United Nations Security Council
Sergey Ten
SolBridge International School of Business
This house would abolish the veto power of the UN Security Council.
Introduction
A world-known United Nations was founded by 51 countries right after the end of World War II in 1945. All nations committed to maintain world peace and security.
The Security Council is one of six organs of the United Nations established by the UN Charter. It ministers for maintaining international peace and security, whenever the first or latter are under the threat. Unlike the other five organs, which make recommendations to member countries, only the Security Council has power to make decisions that other member states are obligated for their implementation in accordance with the Charter. The Security Council consists of fifteen members: five veto power wielding permanent members, so-called P5, and ten non-permanent members.
Five permanent members are the United States of America, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Russia, France and China. These members are based on their powerful military forces as well as they are victors in World War II. Moreover, all members of P5 are officially declared as nuclear-weapon states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Definitions
In this motion, by saying abolish we want to carry out a reform in the UN to deprive the Security Council permanent members of their ultimate power. And by saying veto power we imply discriminatory and unequal against the other state members privilege, wielded by Permanent Five countries as well as the ability to reject or prevent any draft resolution, proposed by any of the fifteen members of the United Nations Security Council. Veto power is a tool or “weapon”, that provides an opportunity to powerful minority to determine the fate of others – the majority.
Affirmative argument 1
Democracy within the United Nations Security Council.
Since the United Nations was formed as a symbol of peace and unity with a view to establish a new world order, under which superpowers, roughly saying, would not be able to do whatever they want without consultation with other nations. The UN’s structure more resembles a democratic regime, that trying to establish balance and fairness in arising world issues. However, with this absolute power of veto, wielded by Permanent Five, this equilibrium is not achievable. Ahmad Kamal, a former Ambassador of Pakistan to the UN, spoke out on this issue. He stated that in terms of democracy no one can be more equal than others and determined veto power anachronistic and undemocratic.
As we have already mentioned, the reason why exactly only these five powers are pillar of the Security Council and own veto because they are known as victors in the Second World War as well as nuclear states. However, nowadays, this is no more reason for them to be “higher” than others; to have more privileges than others. Why? Because the UNSC’s structure is outmoded. Maybe in former times they used to be the only powers, who had nuclear weapon, but by present time the list of those who wield a nuke has expanded. In accordance with Aljazeera (2012), besides P5 members there are nine more nations, which host nuclear weapon and 30 countries that produce atomic energy, including such nations as India, Pakistan, Israel and so forth.
Not only in terms of nuclear power, in other aspects, on which permanent states were chosen, they are also no longer excelling the others. For instance, according to statistics, in terms of military forces the Russia is the fifth, France and the United Kingdom are not even included in top ten ranking, yielding to such countries like India, South Korea and Turkey . Moreover, considering about economic power the second and the third are Japan and Germany . Thus, we can easily see this unfairness against such nations like India, Israel, Japan and Germany, which have the same rights to be on the same level with P5 and have a stronger voice or more precisely – the veto power.
All of the P5 members of the SC are the countries, from which we usually get used to hear about democracy and freedom, however, in fact, if we look back, for the past fifty years of their practice and interaction with the other nations, the demonstration of democracy can be hardly seen. To establish peace and balance in the world, first of all, the Security Council needs to equilibrate itself from the inside, that’s why we believe veto power should be dissolved.
Affirmative Argument 2
The P5 members’ interests against the international security and peace.
Despite of the fact that the Security Council as well as the United Nations particularly declared that the world peace and international security are the base principles that they allegedly follow, we believe, it is only theoretical and has never had its application in practice. Each country prioritizes its own national interest and that’s why Permanent Five sometimes neglect the interest of international society to their own nation’s interest. And if a country has such a powerful tool that influence the decisions related to other countries, it can exercise this tool in order to protect their concerns or to reach its goals. Virtually, according to Aljazeera, 263 vetoes have been experienced upon various resolutions, occurred in the period from this institution was founded by present time.
The realism theory that is one of the dominant in international relations views states as the actor whose main concern is the country’s own security, increase of its power and expansion of its influence over the other countries. Since government of the country was elected by its citizens the government role is to represent and benefit its own citizens. But it wasn’t elected in order to bring benefit and represent the citizens of the whole world. And in order for government to be legitimate, it should think about the security of its own citizens in the first place. What we want to point out is that government can sacrifice the security and sovereignty of another country when it is needed. Therefore, the national interest is sometimes used as the excuse to justify the aggression.
Unfortunately, the UNSC Permanent members are protecting