UNSC

Total number of UNSC resolutions

2817

Resonsibility

• Maintain international peace and security

4 UNSC powers

1. Issue binding resolutions in international law (must be adhered to by 🇺🇳 member states… so basically the whole world)

2. Issue economic sanctions and call on member states to adopt them

3. Authorise military action (humanitarian action, no fly zones, negotation of a ceasefire)

4. Decide recognition of new member states by UNGA

2 aspects of the UNSC that no other 🇺🇳 branch can do

1. Authorise military action

2. Issue binding resolutions

Membership

• P5 (🇨🇳, 🇷🇺, 🇫🇷, 🇬🇧, 🇺🇸)

  • Have special powers under 🇺🇳 Charter (i.e. veto)

• 10 elected non-permanent members

  • No veto

  • Have to be approved by P5

Regional allocation of temp UNSC members

• Africa — 3 seats

• W. Europe and Oceania — 2 seats

• Asia — 2 seats

• Latin America and Caribbean — 2 seats

• E. Europe — 1 seat

🇯🇵 — number of terms served on UNSC

11

🇧🇷 — number of terms served on UNSC

12

🇧🇷 and 🇯🇵 UNSC membership — what it shows about the P5

• Willing to elect powerful temporary members

Purpose of UNSC membership

• Agree but protect national interest

• Designed to increase activeness and decisiveness compared to clunky League of Nations

‘Sixth veto’

• 7 temp members = against

• P5 = for

• Won’t pass

• Yet to happen — shows ideological alignment of UNSC but also lack of diversity in temp members?

Veto usage — 🇷🇺

• 129

• More times than any other state during CW

Veto usage — 🇺🇸

• 89

• 51 to protect 🇮🇱

• Now uses more than 🇷🇺

Veto usage — 🇬🇧

• 29

• Not since 1989

  • Prefer to abstain rather than shut down an issue; very active on UNSC

Veto usage — 🇫🇷

• 16

• Not since 1989

  • Prefer to abstain rather than shut down an issue; very active on UNSC

Veto usage — 🇨🇳

• 19 and rising

• Problematic re. 🇸🇾

Threat of veto that’s led to withdrawal of a resolution

• 2003 🇮🇶

• 🇬🇧 and 🇫🇷 threatened use of veto

• Led to military action w/out UNSC approval

3 instances of P5 defying UNSC

• 2003 🇮🇶 — 🇬🇧, 🇺🇸

• 2014 Crimea — 🇷🇺

• 2018 Salisbury — 🇬🇧, 🇺🇸 (independent issue of sanctions)

4 recent vetoes

• 2015 — 🇷🇺 against investigation of 2014 MH17 crash over 🇺🇦

• 2017 — 🇺🇸 against call for states to refrain from recognising Jerusalem as capital of 🇮🇱

• 2018 — 🇺🇸 against condemnation of 🇮🇱 force in 🇵🇸

• 2020 — 🇷🇺 and 🇨🇳 against humanitarian action in 🇸🇾

5 disadvantages of the veto

1. Gives excessive power to P5

2. Causes UNSC to be ineffective as important resolutions are blocked — this is also undemocratic

3. 🇷🇺 and 🇨🇳 often block important resolutions like humanitarian aid

4. Smaller states rarely get rotated onto the UNSC as the P5 don’t want them there

5. One state shouldn’t have the power to shut down a resolution

5 advantages of the veto

1. Prevents powerful states leaving the UNSC

2. Reduces the instability that would be caused without a forum like the UNSC

3. ‘Great power unamity’ — it’s in international interest if all states have to agree, otherwise some would gang up together and push something through

4. Recognises some states have more power and therefore need to stay in UNSC and have their interests recognised

5. States abstain if they recognise the importance but don’t agree

3 types of UN peace missions

1. Observer missions — monitoring (🇮🇱/🇵🇸)

2. PK missions — military (🇸🇩)

3. Humanitarian intervention (🇱🇾, Yugoslavia)

3 types of UNSC action

1. Peace talks

2. Sanctions

3. Ceasefires

Peace talks

• Between key parties in 🇸🇾 since 2015

  • Still no conclusion or resolution

Sanctions (3)

1. 2005-15 — against 🇮🇷

2. Recently strengthened against 🇰🇵

3. Also against non-state actors like ISIL and al-Qaeda

Ceasefire

• 🇱🇾 — ceasefire and suport meission led to ceasefire agreement in 2020

Sig. UNSC resolutions — 1967

• 242

• Called for 🇮🇱 to withdraw from occupied territory

• Did not comply

Sig. UNSC resolutions — 2002

• 1441, unanimous

• 🇮🇶 given final opportunity to disarm

  • 🇬🇧 and 🇺🇸 claimed this authorised 2003

  • Kofi Annan disagreed

Sig. UNSC resolutions — 2006

• 1696

• 🇮🇷 told to stop trying to develop nuclear weapons

• 2006-2010 — 4 successive resolutions implemented economic sanctions

Sig. UNSC resolutions — 2011

• 1973, 🇷🇺 and 🇨🇳 abstain

• Demand for a ceasefire in 🇱🇾

• Establishes no-fly zone

• NATO air campaign begins

Sig. UNSC resolutions — 2013

• 2118

• Requires 🇸🇾 to get ride of chical weapons — OPCW

• 🇸🇾 continued and used them against civilians