When the Security Council Refuses to Change, Who Pays the Price?

It was not unexpected, but the news was still dispiriting and depressing. Yesterday, the United Nation's Secretary General's top lawyer effectively put the brakes on a resolution which would have, among other things, urged the five permanent members of the Security Council (known as the P-5) to refrain from using their veto power to prevent U.N. action in situations where genocide or mass atrocities are threatening civilian lives.

The resolution had been proposed by a group of nations termed the "S-5", or small five, in contrast to the veto-wielding P-5 countries. The S-5 group--Costa Rica, Liechtenstein, Jordan, Singapore and Switzerland--had called for a vote on a resolution to urge the Council to reform the way it works, allow more scrutiny of its actions, and, most significantly for those civilians suffering from oppression by regimes such as Syria and Bahrain, hold off on using their veto when atrocities are being committed and the lives of innocent people are at stake.

But the P-5-the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and the United States-worked actively to thwart the small countries' resolution, pressing its sponsors to abandon it. Top U.N. lawyer Patricia O'Brien recommended that the resolution require a two-thirds majority vote in the General Assembly, rather than the usual simple majority. This set the threshold too high for a vote on the resolution to succeed, and allows the P-5 to continue conducting business as usual. I guess the P-5 finally found something they can all agree on: they don't want to be held accountable for their actions.

As a citizen of a P-5 nation, this decision is highly upsetting to me. But my reaction pales in comparison to the real price that will be paid for this decision by those men, women and children living in countries around the globe where governments attack their own citizens and violate their rights with impunity. As long as one vote in the Security Council can hold up U.N. action in places like Syria, none of this will change. I can only hope that one day the tide will turn on the kind of thinking that protects Security Council privilege rather than the lives of innocent civilians.

For more information about the Responsibility Not to Veto, click here.