Review and Commentary Note: Is the UN Security Council - Responsible for or a Threat to Peace?

Abstract

This paper raises many questions about the effectiveness of the current UN Security Council, and its ability to carry out its Mandate, with special reference to the five permanent members - their use of their veto powers while also leading in the sales of conventional arms to developing countries. It would appear to many observers that since its inception in 1946, the UN Security Council has in many ways become the de facto UN itself given the extraordinary power and influence it wields within the UN body, and the extent of the media coverage it commands when compared to the UN General Assembly. The UN Security Council’s Mandate states that: “The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the Charter, for the maintenance of international peace and security”. This Paper argues the case that the current permanent membership of the UN Security Council has neither the credibility or interest in fulfilling its mandate as evidenced in their own current military actions involving war and conflicts either within or outside their own territories, in addition, to the fact that they themselves control 89% of global arms sales to developing countries. How can they purport to be supporting “the maintenance of international peace and security”, while at the same time arming, and thus gaining from the sales, to those involved in global conflicts?  The UN Security Council has been paralyzed for years due to the ‘veto power’ of its permanent members who can block each other’s resolutions at anytime, as we have witnessed over the years. This has made the UN impotent in its attempts to address the many global conflicts and Regimes that persist today in places such as Chad, Darfur, DRC, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chechnya, Tibet and among the Uighurs in China’s north-western Xinjiang region, and in Israel & Palestine.

The paper raises a number of challenges for the new US President to provide the necessary leadership to support the UN Security Council’s Mandate while also leading by example in eliminating Nuclear weapons as part of the NPT. He must also ensure that the US signs off on the Anti Cluster Bomb Treaty signed by over a hundred nations in Norway in December 2008. It raises the question of how the USA can claim to be a leader of peace around the world if it continues to control over 70% of all conventional weapons agreements with developing countries

as in 2008? It is time that the USA ratified the international Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), being the only country of 187 that has yet to do so. The USA still refuses to sign up to the anti-landmine treaty. United States President Barack Obama has no plans to join a global treaty banning landmines because a policy review found the US could not meet its security commitments without them, the State Department said (Nov. 2009). Finally, the paper Challenges the United Nations and especially its Security Council to better reflect the Global interests of all its members and not just the few who sit as Permanent Members. Given the arguments made in this Paper and evidence included, is it not time to call for a radical change in both the Permanent and Non-Permanent Membership of the Security Council, as proposed in the various States’ Submissions, and finally get results from the open-ended working group after 16 years of deliberations? Yes! This would be a paradigm shift for the UN, but it is one that is badly needed to ensure the UN reclaims its legitimacy and credibility to help address Global Conflicts and ensure World Peace through “the maintenance of international peace and security”.