Tuesday March 30' 2004

Abuse of a veto power

The US has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the killing of the spiritual leader of Palestinian militant group Hamas. Is anyone surprised that it would veto this “one sided” Algerian sponsored resolution to condemn the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin who died on Monday in an Israeli missile attack, that did not name any Palestinian militant groups in it?
A majority of council members voted for the resolution, but the US employed the veto reserved for permanent members. Eleven members voted in favor of the resolution that condemned "the most recent extra judicial execution committed by Israel;" two more than the required 13 votes when a veto killed it on its tracks. There were three abstentions.
So, the UN Security Council will once more have nothing to say on the terrible tragedy that has been unfolding in the Middle East although a majority of the Security Council Member states voted in favor of a simple statement on the single most important issue of global security.
The resolution may now be taken to the 191-member UN General Assembly, where the US has no veto. Unlike resolutions endorsed by the Security Council [SC], the draft would not acquire the force of international law were it passed in the General Assembly, but it would send a strong message.
Over the years it has become increasingly obvious that the special interests of the Permanent Members take precedence over the norms of international law or the view of the majority in the UN. It is an open secret that geopolitical interests of the major powers largely motivate SC. During the 1980s, for example, Britain and the US repeatedly blocked council action to impose economic sanctions on apartheid South Africa.
Not only does the Security Council remain grossly unrepresentative of the member states of the UN, it is also glaringly undemocratic in its decision making and working methods.
The Council’s method of doing business behind closed doors, in smoke filled rooms, dubbed “informal consultations” at times even excluding other Council members is particularly deranged.
The Permanent five are known to present other Council members with a “fait accompli” resolutions. And give no advance notice to member states of Council resolutions even when the resolutions have had great impact on their countries.
It has little, if any credibility or legitimacy in the Middle East where Israel completely ignores dozens of SC resolutions.
Exclusive and dominant role of Permanent members is contrary to the aim of democratizing the UN. What we have today is yesterday’s Security Council. It is obsolete and soon to be rendered irrelevant by the unilateral act of a lone Super Power.
It is argued that the Permanency in SC reflects political realities of the time and the most powerful nations should be given special privileges or they will not play ball.
For over half of the lifetime of the UN, China was excluded from membership and the government of a small island nation, the looser to the Chinese revolutionary war, occupied a permanent seat as representative of mainland China. Where, prey tell, was the political reality in that?
It is only in the mid-1970’s when US president Richard “Watergate” Nixon decided to recognize the Peoples Republic of China, that Taiwan was tossed out of the Council chambers.
Britain and France have steadily declined in importance since the loss of their many colonies in Africa and Asia and are now considered as secondary in the world scene. Even the superpower USSR has been down sized to an impoverished middle-level power that is Russia today. Using the old ‘great power” yardstick only the US should retain veto power.
So the aged political order of post WWII is frozen in the Permanent Membership of the SC, preventing it from adequately adjusting to today’s world political reality.
The life time members of SC are not unlike the thugs in Africa who appointed themselves “President for life” and while they resist the democratization of relations among nations, they constantly preach democratic governance within nations.
Permanent Members are possessors of nearly all the world’s nuclear weapons as well as most of the stock of chemical and biological weapons. Collectively they spend two thirds of the worlds obnoxious $800 trillion in military outlays and 85% of the world’s major arms exports. If they are parties to any disputes or if they abstain from a Council decision, they regularly ignore Charter injunctions. Do they sound like peacekeepers to you?
Should the “great powers” continue to have the exclusive power and the responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security? Aren’t some of the self appointed custodians themselves a threat to world peace?
The exclusive clubs right to veto is an obsolete privilege that undermines the principle of sovereign equality of states provided in the UN Charter. Why should any state, however powerful, arbitrarily stand in the path of collective wish of the world community?
 

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