The unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is only the latest example of how the veto powers of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, Britain and the United States — are helping to destabilise global security in the 21st century.
Since September 11, the council — the key organ within the UN for maintaining international peace and security — has been repeatedly paralysed by the willingness of permanent members, such as the US, Russia and China, to act unilaterally to protect their national interests.
In March 2003, the George W. Bush administration bypassed the Security Council and launched the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 2011-12, Russia and China used the veto three times to thwart council resolutions to end the Syrian civil war, enabling Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship to prolong a conflict that has killed more than 230,000 Syrians.
In February 2022, Russia vetoed a council resolution that demanded it immediately end its invasion of Ukraine. More recently, Joe Biden’s administration has vetoed two council resolutions — in October and December — calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
These vetoes were cast after a horrendous terrorist attack on October 7 by Hamas, which killed 1200 Israelis and took an estimated 240 hostages, prompting Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, backed unconditionally by the Biden administration, to embark on a relentless bombardment of and ground offensive in the densely populated Gaza Strip "to annihilate" Hamas.
Quite predictably, the results of Israel’s disproportionate military retaliation have been devastating. The UN said 70% of more than 22,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are women and children and about 85% of Gazans have been displaced. About 70% of residential buildings in Gaza have been levelled, and half of its population of about 2 million face starvation.
The dysfunctionality of the council was underlined on December 22 when it finally reacted to the Gaza situation by adopting a watered-down resolution. It demanded the provision of much greater humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza but failed to address the massive violence causing extensive human suffering.
The key factor behind the marginalisation of the council in the current Gaza conflict has been the stance of its most powerful member, the US. Washington has a long history of using its veto to support Israel at the UN. It has blocked 53 council resolutions relating to Israel in the past 50 years, including the two Gaza resolutions last year.
As well as staunch diplomatic support, the Biden administration has pledged, on top of an annual $US3.8 billion ($NZ6.1b) military aid package for Israel, to send Tel Aviv what it needs to "defend itself". In early November last year, the US House of Representatives approved a Republican proposal to provide more than $US14b in additional military aid to Israel.
Moreover, the US has sent an aircraft carrier, destroyer ships and battle cruisers to help deter Iranian-backed actors from getting involved in the Israel-Gaza conflict, and established a multinational maritime task force to protect merchant shipping in the Red Sea.
Yemen’s Houthi fighters behind the Red Sea attacks threaten to disrupt global trade.
In effect, the Biden administration’s carte blanche support for Israel’s right of self-defence has frustrated international diplomatic attempts to halt a conflict that has killed thousands of innocent people in Gaza and clearly does not respect humanitarian law.
Of course, Biden may calculate that backing Netanyahu’s hyper-military response to the Hamas terrorist threat and managing the resulting international fallout helps to maintain US leverage over Israel, but that remains to be seen.
A more important question for an increasingly interconnected world in the 21st century is why questions of war and peace rest almost entirely on the whims of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
It should be recalled that the founders of the UN in 1945 conferred the right of veto on the five great powers of that time to ensure they remained in the organisation and helped to solve the world’s problems.
But about 80 years on, it is clear that great powers cannot run today’s world, even if they have the political will, because many of the challenges facing states in the security, health, environmental or economic spheres do not respect borders and are simply too big even for powerful states to resolve.
To be sure, great powers such as the US can block council resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and provide impressive amounts of military aid to the Netanyahu government.
But the international costs of the Biden administration’s Gaza approach clearly outweigh its benefits. These costs include undermining the US’ global standing and increasing the prospect of long-term insecurity for Israelis, Palestinians and the Middle East.
In essence, the disastrous Gaza situation confirms that the use of veto power by the council’s permanent members is largely incompatible with the broader goal of maintaining international peace and security in the 21st century.
At present, global security matters are hostage to the interests of the five permanent members. Without curtailing the use of the veto or significantly increasing the power of the UN General Assembly, it is difficult to envisage any real improvement in the security of the world.
The five permanent members will obviously be reluctant to lose their veto privileges, but pressure from the wider UN membership could yet force a new arrangement whereby General Assembly resolutions with two-thirds support or more become binding and not subject to a veto.
- Robert G. Patman is an inaugural sesquicentennial distinguished chair and a specialist in international relations at the University of Otago. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post.
