U.N. Security Council Reform Badly Needed

Kofi Annan announced a proposal to reform the United Nations and to add more permanent seats to the U.N. Security Council and, presumably, the all-powerful veto that goes with those seats. He wants to add two from Africa, three from Asia and one from Latin America.

Consider this: why should the permanent seats have resolution-killing veto power?

Because the U.S., Russia, China, France and Great Britain possess nuclear weapons? Other countries do too (in varying states of development): Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, India and others that are suspected of working on developing these weapons. Does military might make a country eligible to have a permanent seat and the super-veto power on the Council?

Because the five permanent members were victorious in World War II sixty years ago? To the U.S., that was about five wars (and countless smaller campaigns) ago. Germany and Japan ceased to be the enemy after they surrendered and were rebuilt by the victorious Allies.

Proof of U.N. Security Council bumbling: Europe and the U.S. did not intervene in Rwanda. They haven’t done anything to stop ethnic cleansing in Darfur. It was not the Security Council that stopped the Serbs in Bosnia, it was NATO air strikes; Russia vetoed U.N. action. Now a renewed conflict appears to be just over the horizon there too. Serbia wants Kosovo territory back, and Macedonia is moving toward an independence vote in 2006.

The U.N. Security Council was paralyzed over Iraq; they couldn’t enforce seventeen often-quoted resolutions calling for Iraq to disarm and gave the U.S. administration a silent (and unintended) affirmation to go after Iraq’s (still) sought-after WMDs by trumping one another's motions with their all-powerful veto. It was like watching five bullies beat up ten weaklings to get their way while they were trying to beat the tar out of each other.

While the Security Council bickered under the current system, 200,000 lives were extinguished in Darfur, one million Rwandans were murdered, 200,000 people were killed over the years while the Security Council bickered over Bosnia, 1/3 of all Catholics living in East Timor were killed by the Muslim government of Indonesia between 1975-1994; the list is too long and too tragic to continue.

Failure after failure can be laid at the Security Council’s feet because the permanent members have trump veto power; it doesn’t matter what the other fourteen members wanted; if one permanent member vetoed a resolution, the resolution died on the spot.

That power should be ended and resolutions should be passed with a simple majority. The U.N. needs consensus, not obstructionism.

The current U.N. Security Council is broken and will remain broken while five members have super-veto power. It needs to be ended. That's what the Secretary-General should be doing instead of adding more permanent seats.