International Organisations and Peace

Beyond the Veto: Roles in the UN Security Council Decision-Making - Jess Gifkins (2021)

What is the role of the UN Security Council? How does its membership and formal role limit its ability to function as intended?

→ The UN Security Council is one of the six main parts of the UN that is responsible for international peace and security. It has 15 members, five that are permanent; France, UK, China, Russia and the USA and ten non-permanent members; who serve a 2 year mandate.

→ The institutional structure of the Council creates greater disparities between permanent and elected members, for example Permanent members of the power of veto (both informal and formal).

→ Permanent members also have significant power over agenda-setting from their decision-making power (mainly from the UK, USA and France).

→ Institutional power enables permanent members to dominate negotiations through informal penholding practices (drafting decisions about specific situations).

→ Legitimacy and Legitimation → Unanimous decision-making is highly valued within the security council, so any threat to unanimous voting can increase the potential leverage of a dissenting state.

The legitimacy value of support from elected members is not equal between elected members; support from states that are within the region under discussion are especially prized by drafters.

→ Connecture and Diplomatic

→ UN Secretary General → Guidance for the Security Council, 50+ UN states can also shape individual decisions by providing expert recommendations that inform deliberations.

The Crisis of Peacekeeping: Why the UN Can’t End Wars? - Severine Autesserre (2019)

Why does Autessere (2019) argue that peacekeepers cannot always perform their mandate as intended in her article ‘The Crisis of Peacekeeping’? What are the key challenges and limitations?

→ 'Instructions from the security council to support the host government further complicate their task, since rebels are less inclined to cooperate when they believe that the UN is aiding the enemy.’

→ Great powers couldn’t care less about the crises so peacekeepers are given precious few resources with which to accomplish their ambitious mandates ($7 billion - 5%).

→ UN must rely on its member states to provide soldiers but countries are hesitant to risk the lives of their troops leading to the UN having to wait months and when they get them they are poorly trained and paid from the Global South.

→ Commanders report back to their country and UN leadership expect them to come back alive, so they may sit back and do nothing (Rwanda and Srebenica).

→ UN’s usage of quick elections and work with national elites to stop violence could do more harm than good.

→ UN fails to acknowledge the local aspect, UN’s peacekeepers live in lavish whilst the people struggle. Foreigners → Expertise, management, language skills, etc but they do not have the skills.

→ Neocolonial? Local people do not cooperate. The solution is to work locally.

Protecting Civilians With Force: Dilemmas and Lessons from the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti’ in The Use of Force in UN Peacekeeping (Peter Nadin) - Walter Dorn (2018)

Did the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti successfully combat the gangs? What lessons were learned regarding protection of civilians?

→ Arguably a mix of successes and failures.

For starters, the threat of collateral damage especially in Cite soleil due to rumors of Haitian/US HR groups that the UN massacred groups with a lack of confirmation of who died, there was referral to UN as foreign occupiers, gang killings and organised crime increased, kidnapping became more prevalent and an inforce commander committed suicide in January 2006.

→ However, UN support elections which led to President Renepreval giving the UN the Green Light to use force, which were successful.

→ The UN studied the defences and tactics of the gang, particularly in relation to civilians, leaflets to warn civilians and gang leaders, street cleaning, multiple points targeted at the same time.

Key Ethical Dilemmas and Challenges:

Gathering intelligence → Could be false information, protection should be necessary.
Smart and smooth power through military-police-civilian coordination → Weak police power over strong.
Overwhelming force → Less causalities → Firepower or fewer causalities.
The ethical application of force?
Mandate → Overcomitting → Side note - what about Haiti today? - Turmoil.

Beyond The Veto: Roles In The UN Security Council Decision-Making - Jess Gifkins (2021)→ Extra Notes ↴

Abstract ↴

‘Institutional power is used to show how permanent members adopt dominant positions in negotiations extending far beyond their Charter-given privileges.’
‘Dominance of permanent members is moderated, however, by the legitimacy that support from elected members brings to a resolution. Similarly, the UN Secretariat can use its legitimated authority to influence decisions.’

Introduction ↴

‘Institutional power mediates relationships between participants and enables the P5 to increase their influence via informal veto and by dominating drafting and agenda setting, all of which draws from their formal powers but extends beyond them.’
‘Seeking legitimacy for a decision increases the influence of elected members. In addition to considerations of legitimacy, elected members can enhance their influence via collective action or the diplomatic capacities of their individual permanent mission in New York.’
‘Departments of the UN Secretariat also contribute directly to negotiations via briefings or reports, and their input carries the weight of legitimated authority.’
‘Elected members can also increase their influence by working collaboratively together and by having strong diplomatic capacities.’
‘The UN Secretariat can influence negotiations either by providing advice directly to the Security Council or by shaping the normative environment to encourage specific types of decisions.’

2 → Formal Rules, Institutional Power, and Legitimacy ↴

Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Vincent Pouliot → “While we already knew that the P3 call the shots at the Security Council, understanding of how this is done in actual practice has remained rudimentary.”

3 → The Role of Permanent Members ↴

‘Institutional power increases the dominance of permanent members in three key areas: the capacity for “informal veto”, agenda setting, and penholding, each of which are addressed below.’
‘Informal veto occurs when permanent members use the threat of veto to reject provisions of a resolution or an entire resolution during informal negotiations.’
‘A high-profile example of this occurred in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War when the United States sought a resolution that would formally authorise the use of force. Both Russia and France threatened to veto this so-called second resolution, which was not put to a vote.’ Thompson 2010.
‘However, informal veto is more often used as leverage in a negotiation, whereby provisions are removed from a draft following a threat of veto. For example, in 2019 during debate toward a resolution on Women, Peace and Security, the United STates threatened to veto the draft until provisions on sexual and reproductive health for survivors of sexual violence—provisions that had been included in previous resolutions were removed.’ Allen and Shepard, 2019.
‘In the context of the draft referral of Sudan to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over crimes committed in Darfur, the United States obtained a highly coveted exemption from prosecution for individuals from nonparty states to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute (excluding Sudan) after having threated to veto the draft. Cryer 2006.
‘Veto powers apply only to substantive (nonprocedural) questions, while adding items to the agenda is procedural and therefore the veto does not apply. Bailey and Daws, 1998.
‘Dominance over agenda setting is not assumed equally by the P5, but predominantly by the P3, with Russia and China showing little interest in adding new items to the agenda.’ Von Einsiedel, Malone and Stagno Ugarte, 2013.
‘The United States and the United Kingdom resisted efforts to add the situation in Darfur to the agenda of the Security Council through late 2003 and early 2004 because they did not want to jeopardise the concurrent peace negotiations in Sudan between the government of Sudan and southern region of Sudan (now South Sudan). Traub, 2010, Kapila and Lewis 2013.
‘Being able to influence the agenda means that an actor can use their influence to promote values and practices that are inoffensive to them.’ Bachrach and Baratz, 1962.
‘Conflicts in states that border a P5 member and crises where one or more P5 members are part of the conflict are less likely to have extensive UN involvement than other conflicts.’ Beardsely and Schmidt, 2012.
‘The penholder takes the lead on drafting decisions for a given conflict situation or thematic area and holds political ownership of the topic, meaning that if the penholder does not create a draft it is unlikely that other states will create one.’ Ralph and Gifkins, 2017.
‘In 2019, out of thirty-nine agenda items that had penholders, P3 members held thirty (77 percent).’
‘It is worth noting that penholding also extends beyond drafting and includes, informally, organising open debates, deciding whether to hold emergency meetings, and leading visits when the Security Council travels abroad.’
‘In 2019 China was not a penholder for any agenda items, and Russia was a penholder for Central Asia and joint penholder on Golan Heights.’

4 → The Role of Elected Members

The dominance of permanent members could indicate that elected members are of little significance to negotiations. Indeed, one study bluntly concluded that “a fair approximation as far as voting is concerned is that the Security Council has five members.” O’Neill, 1996.
Robert S. Junn and Barry O’Neill - ‘Both argue that each individual elected member of the Council has almost no power, if you conceptualise “power” as the ability for an individual state to determine the outcome of a particular vote.’
‘Even though the power that permanent members wield extends beyond these formal rules, elected members can still have significance in negotiations.’
‘Legitimacy and legitimation have long been recognised as central concepts for the functioning of the Security Council.’ - Hurd, 2007.
‘Legitimacy as a “social status” drawing on Katharina Coleman’s work (2017)’
‘The argument is that states — particularly P3 members sicne they dominate drafting — engage in legitimation practices inside Security Council negotiations and these practices enhance the role and influence of elected members in two main ways.’

‘First, drafters’ privilege unanimous decisions so elected members can leverage this to enhance their influence.’ Dunne and Gifkins, 2011.
‘Second, when an elected member is from the region under discussion the “legitimacy value” of its support increases. In each of these scenarios the symbolic power of support from elected members increases, which in turn affords greater scope for leverage by elected members.’ Hurd 2002

‘Legally, the requirement to pass a resolution is only nine affirmative votes, with no negative votes from permanent members. Yet the vast majority of resolutions put to a vote in the Council since the end of the Cold War have not only passed, but passed unanimously.’ Dunne and Gifkins 2011.
‘Between 2000 and 2020 there was 1,328 resolutions voted on in the Security Council, of which 87 percent passed with the support of all fifteen members.’
‘Unanimous voting is recognised as a mark of legitimacy within the Council and is seen to strengthen a decision and the likelihood that it will be implemented.’
‘The former Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) Capstone Report, lists unity among the key attributes that influence the success of a peacekeeping operation: “Anything other than unanimous Security Council backing can be a serious handicap.”
‘Sudan in 2006, Security Council members knew that it was particularly important that the next resolution on peacekeeping in Darfur was unanimous. The meeting record for the unanimous adoption of subsequent Resolution 1769 includes statements from both Qatar and Indonesia where they explain that they had reservations in supporting earlier drafts of the resolution, but that drafters accommodated their concerns in the draft so that they were able to vote for the resolution.”
‘While Junn (1993) and O’Neill (1996) are right that individual elected members have limited power to determine the outcome of a vote, elected members can leverage more power in exchange for an affirmative vote due to the legitimation practices used drafters.’
‘Support from states can be through affirmative votes, cosponsorship, or other leadership roles.’
‘A draft resolution on Syria in 2012 was initially led by the P3 before it was presented to the Council by Morocco, as the Arab representative on the Council.’
‘The think tank Security Council Report explained at the time of this draft: “Arab support is seen as crucial in getting a unanimous Council position on the Syria crisis.”
‘As such, Arab leadership on the draft was a legitimation practice to secure wider support. Similarly, a leaked US cable discusses a strategy where support from Ghana was sought for a draft resolution on Darfur, as a stepping stone toward gaining support from China, Qatar, and South Africa.’
‘Regions are increasingly seen as playing a “gatekeeper” role and, while support from regional groups is sought, support from regionally relevant states is also prized in Security Council negotiations.’
‘Elected members also can increase their capacity for influence via strategic means, either by collaborating with fellow elected members to act as a bloc, or by having strong diplomatic capacities in terms of their competencies in Security Council practices and the size and effectiveness of their diplomatic corp.’
‘There is growing recognition from elected members that they can magnify their influence by acting collectively.’
Richard Gowan → “A nascent ‘E10 culture’ has emerged in recent years, with small and medium-sized countries working together across regional divides to make their presence felt.”
‘Elected Security Council members outlined their intentions to work more collectively in a series of documents in 2018.’ Sivers and Daws 2018
‘E10 members often have divergent foreign policies, but they have found strength in working collectively on topics where they can find common ground.’
‘On Yemen a group of five elected members have worked together to submit joint proposals and have even threatened to “take the pen” from the UK, which is the penholder on Yemen.
‘Elected members can increase their influence via their diplomatic capacity. The duration of tenure for permanent members means that they benefit from institutional memory and detailed knowledge of procedures and precedents.’ Farrall et al. 2020
‘Elected members can mitigate their institutional disadvantage via diplomatic capacity, meaning both competence in Security Council practices can enhance the ways in which elected members are able to influence decision-making.’ Farrall et al. 2020
‘Australia used diplomatic skill and constructive relationships to secure a resolution calling for an investigation following the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, despite Russian resistance to this proposal. Langmore and Farrall 2016
‘Elected members can also benefit from engaging in “niche diplomacy” during their tenure and using their presidency to facilitate debates on favoured topics can be a useful strategy.’ Lupel and Mallksoo, 2019
‘An area where elected members dominate is chairing Sanctions Committees, which are subsidiary bodies of the Security Council, giving them influence over how sanctions are applied.’ Eckert 2016
‘Through diplomatic skill and activism, some elected members can and do “punch above their weight.”
‘By the time drafts are circulated to the E10, they have “a de facto disclaimer: do not call for amendments that might upset the consensus achieved among permanent members.” Nadin 2016

5 - The Role of the UN Secretary-General and Secretariat

‘The Secretariat does not have a vote in Security Council negotiations but has the capacity to influence decision-making, nonetheless.’
‘The Secretariat has legitimated authority that enhances its capacity for influence.’ Cronin and Hurd 2008
‘This can be done via the role of the social environment which in turn encourages certain types of decisions.’
‘By doing so, the Secretariat can create a linguistic and political repertoire that enables normative change and the development of new tools.’
‘The other way that the second UN can shape decisions is by providing information and advice that informs decisions.’
‘Former head of the Department of Peace Operations (DPO), Jean-Marie Guehenno, has said of the Secretariat: “It actually has much more power than is generally assumed, and except for the few crises where a major power has a strategic interest, the Secretariat can often be in the driver’s seat, like a sixth permanent member of the council.’
‘First, the UN Secretary-General can provide normative guidance for the Security Council via norm entrepreneurship and as a moral leader.’
‘Secretaries-General can increase their influence by acting as a “norm entrepreneur.” Norm entrepreneurs frame issues in innovative ways and shape the agenda in new directions.’
‘Prominent examples of past Secretaries-General acting as norm entrepreneurs are: Dag Hammarskjold and his advoacy on armed peacekeeping; Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s advocacy on democratisation; and Kofi Annan and his advocacy on the responsibility to protect.’
‘Although they cannot tell states what to do “it is the job of the Secretary-General to make it harder for an international community to make manifestly wrong decisions, or to take no decision at all.’
‘The Secretary-General and departments of the UN Secretariat also can shape individual decisions by providing expert recommendations that inform deliberations.’ Chesterman and Franck 2007

Conclusion

‘There has also been growing frustration with the dominance of penholding by P3 members. A welcome step from the UK in 2019 was to co-penhold with Germany on Libyan sanctions, where Germany is the chair of the Libyan Sanctions Committee.’