The United Nations was designed with a major structural flaw that has kept it from evolving to fit the needs of the global population.
The U.N. is necessary because it connects international leaders and allows them to have a platform focused on achieving world peace and security.
Despite the good the organization does, it’s fatal flaw is in one of its main decision-making bodies- the Security Council.
The current Council arrangement is outdated and ill fitting of the current global setting because of the veto power given to permanent member countries.
According to the United Nations’ Charter, the council is made up of five permanent members that were important in the aftermath of World War II: the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia.
Global politics have drastically evolved since the United Nations’ founding in 1945. The five permanent members of the Security Council are no longer the exclusive world powers, and the global community has different interests in global peace that are not rooted in proxy wars.
The permanent members of the council are focused in two regions: North America and Europe. Other regions are either underrepresented like Asia, or not represented at all like Africa, Latin America and the small island developing states.
According to the United Nations, more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa. Africa has the largest number of member states in the United Nations, yet has no permanent representation in the Security Council.
A lack of diverse representation in permanent members of the Security Council, limits its ability to respond to threats to international peace in a way that accurately reflects the needs of the global population.
The membership distribution of the Security Council has changed very little since its inception in 1945, even though the number of U.N. member states has almost quadrupled since then and the relative power of member states has changed significantly.
In 1945, when the Security Council was formed, the United Nations included 51 member countries. There are now 193 member countries, but the structure of the council and the number of permanent members has not changed.
With the current structure of the Security Council, each permanent member has automatic veto power of any Security Council action and therefore can block any other country from being a permanent member of the Security Council.
The permanent members frequently use and perhaps abuse this veto power. According to the United Nations Library’s veto list, 293 Security Council vetoes have been recorded since 1945.
Efforts to expand the permanent membership of the Council to include countries that have emerged as powerful global actors since the end of WWII such as India, Japan and Germany, have been hindered because of the members’ veto power. For every country that seeks a permanent seat, one of the five permanent members blocks its efforts with a veto.
According to a World Affairs Journal article published in 2007, Japan is the second largest financial contributor to the U.N. after the U.S. However, China continuously votes against the country from becoming a permanent member on the Security Council. If Japan were to be established as one of the permanent members, China would no longer be the sole permanent representative from Asia and would have to contend with Japan, a historic rival.
Because of vetoes from permanent Security Council members, the Council’s actions to maintain international peace and security have been unsatisfactory.
Multiple humanitarian crises occurred because of a lack of action from the Security Council.
One of the more notable cases is the Rwandan genocide. According to a 1999 Security Council Report, the council's refusal to strengthen the peacekeeping forces in the country led to the loss of over 800,000 lives. The report called the genocide “a failure of the United Nations system as a whole.”
The existence of the veto power has allowed the five permanent members to focus the actions of the Security Council on their own members interests and ignore the rest of the world.
Although the United Nations is still needed, it needs to undergo a drastic redistribution of power to achieve a more nuanced picture of the global community with current powers represented.
