You might well laugh it away when thinking of Groucho Marx’s remarks about the exclusive club that he would not want to join if he was a member of it! But there is another exclusive club that does not provoke any humour, but only scorn and ridicule — the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) dominated by its five permanent members — the P-5 (US, Britain, France, Russia and China) — who consider it as their fiefdom. Although the UNSC has 15 members, ten of whom are non-permanent ones that change every two years, the P-5 with their veto powers can often become obstacles to conflict resolution.
Indeed, the P-5 members zealously guard their exclusive club and relish the concentration of power in their hands. They were inducted into this august body in the aftermath of Second World War with the grudging acceptance of many well-meaning but naive fellow members. China’s place was initially held by Taiwan, but China took its place in 1971 after Taiwan, then called the Republic of China, was shown the door.
For decades, the P-5 members have been culpable of indifference, self-righteousness and even indirectly contributing to, rather than preventing and resolving, conflict and deaths of civilian populations just to protect their vested interests. Indeed, the selfish and egotistic culture within the P-5 has deteriorated to such an extent that the individual members themselves could be put in the dock to face charges of prolonging conflicts and human misery. Each autumn, when the UN General Assembly gets into session, the theme of UN reforms invariably crops up. But the subject also gives rise to infighting and jealousy within the international community — a fact that is cleverly exploited by the P-5 members to preserve their exclusivity and the nauseating anachronism called the veto right.
The creation of the UN at the end of Second World War raised hopes among many newly independent countries that had shaken off the yoke of colonialism, that the new body would lead the way to the dawn of an age of peace, stability and prosperity. Their hopes were dashed on the sharp rocks of parochialism and self-interest of the P-5 members, whose “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude demonstrated that they cared little for the welfare of humanity if their vested interests were threatened.
The P-5’s obstructive behaviour is chronicled by poor judgement in crises starting with Algeria (1954-62), Suez (1956), Hungary (1956), Vietnam (1947-1975), Sino-Vietnamese conflict (1979), Afghanistan (1979-88), Panama (1989), Iraq (2003) and Georgia (2008). Although the veto has not been indiscriminately exercised in recent years, China and Russia have been sharply criticised for twice aborting the draft resolution that supported the Arab League’s plan to end violence and push ahead with a political transition in Syria. The US also vetoed a resolution to stop Israeli colonies in the West Bank in February 2011.
Critics are particularly severe about Russia and China on their stance over Syria because they believe that many thousands of lives could have been saved by timely action. Russia is a supplier of arms to the Syrian regime while China, also an arms supplier, played second fiddle to Russia on this. While the P-5 exchanged heated words at the UNSC, shocking images of corpses of small children wrapped in white sheets, killed in the Syrian conflict, showed the P-5’s apathy. Then there was in the early 1990s the classic case of Rwanda which, thanks to the UNSC inaction, witnessed the genocide by Hutus who massacred more than 500,000 Tutsis. Amnesty International, which called the UNSC “unfit for purpose”, criticised that the people’s sacrifices to bring about changes in the Arab world were not matched by strong international support because alliances and financial interests mattered more than human rights. All the P-5 members are suppliers of arms in the international arms bazar. So how can they ever agree on anything that will stop their arms’ business?
There is a cry to reform the UNSC, add new permanent members, restrict or completely do away with the veto right which, in fact, has helped prolong many international crises. New entrants like the G-4 members — Brazil, Germany, India and Japan — have been knocking at the club’s door for admittance. The combined G-4 — with foreign ministers Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado (Brazil), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Germany), Sushma Swaraj (India) and Fumio Kishida (Japan) — recently led another charge in New York, calling for UNSC reform that reflected the 21st century’s geopolitical realities, reminding that the UNSC’s difficulties to effectively address current international challenges were a compelling reminder of the urgent need for the body’s reform. The G-4 ministers lamented that 70 years after the UN’s creation, 50 years after the first and only time when the UNSC was reformed, and nearly 15 years after the Millennium Summit and nine years after the 2005 World Summit, discussions were still stuck in a stalemate.
A practical way would be to replace the veto right with individual voting rights for each of the members of an expanded UNSC. Resolutions could then be passed based on majority votes with each member, including newcomers, casting a single vote. It is high time for the P-5 members to realise that if they do not allow the UNSC to reform they risk being brand-marked as power-hungry villains of international diplomacy with little concern for the rest of humanity that stares into the abyss.
Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.
