Banish the Security Council

The real problem with the UN was revealed in its inability to do anything about a rogue Security Council member making illegal war on an unthreatening country. That's because of the unjust, undemocratic, and un-needed Security Council itself

by Kevin Potvin <kpotvin@republic-news.org>

Canada occupies a truly unique place in the world of diplomacy. It is all at once a member of the G8 (comprising the most prominent economies in the world), NATO (the most prominent military alliance in the world,) the Commonwealth (remnant of the most prominent empire in history), Francophonie (comprised of French-speaking nations), the Organization of American States (comprised of nations of the Western Hemisphere), and APEC (comprised of nations of the Pacific Ocean rim).

But one thing Canada is not a member of is the United Nations Security Council. Nor has Canada ever been considered a candidate to be such a member in any UN reform scenarios ever suggested in its 56 year history.

Surely no other country on Earth is as diplomatically connected as Canada. And yet for all that, Canada is excluded from the most powerful diplomatic club of them all. So too are 185 other countries so banished from that hallowed chamber.

Though a major contributor to the Allies' success in World War II—supposedly the deciding factor for membership in the Security Council—Canada may not count as a big enough leader on the world stage to justify any argument it might make to be included now, and indeed, few Canadians would seriously make that argument. But among those 186 nations left on the outside of this most exclusive diplomatic club, Canada, by virtue of its unmatched web of high-level diplomatic connections, is surely a pre-eminent leader.

Reform is in the air around the United Nations, and that reform is so far taking the shape of expanding the club of those invited to take permanent seats at the Security Council. Yet any kind of reform that perpetuates that exclusive, veto-wielding club, even if it opens itself up to three or four new members drawn from those 186 languishing in the General Assembly, will only serve to prolong and entrench the profound non-democracy at the core of the United Nations.

As surely the most prominent member of the General Assembly sure to never be considered for inclusion in the Security Council, Canada must defend the interests of all General Assembly members it falls to this country to represent. Those interests are best served not by perpetuating the obese power of the Security Council, or by expanding its exclusivity by just a few new members, but only by banishing the Security Council entirely to the scrap heap of history.

The Security Council served its purpose in stabilizing the post-War world. It is no longer a required element in a world parliament. There is no counterpart to the Security Council in any existing democracy's parliaments, mostly because there has never been a need for any group of provinces within a nation to receive special powers not available to all provinces. And nor could such an imbalanced federation of provinces ever be expected to work in any nation aspiring to democracy. This core imbalance could never have been expected to work at the international level either, and in fact, it does not.

Secretary General Kofi Anan struck a committee earlier this year to study possible scenarios for reform of the United Nations. Two problems, one of little global consequence but a long lingering one, and another of great consequence and appearing only very recently, prompted his call for reform ideas.

The first problem was credibility. With economic powerhouses India, Germany, Brazil and Japan excluded from the Security Council, while relatively minor economic powers France and the UK were included, the decisions of the Security Council could hardly be understood as representative in any way of the distribution of economic power in the world.

Furthermore, with 80% of the members being from European nations plus the United States, representing in total only about 10% of the planet's population, it could hardly be understood as representative of the people of the world either.

All five members have become, since the formation of the United Nations in 1943, nuclear powers, and interestingly, all nuclear powers were members of the Security Council. So the Council did at one time represent very well the distribution of military power in the world. However, there are now possibly six other members of the nuclear club, and most of these are not being invited to the Security Council in any reform scenarios. So now the Council no longer represents even the distribution of military power in the world anymore. The Security Council represents, in fact, nothing except the unjust grip on power the five permanent members have kept for themselves lo these many years.

The other problem, more recent and more severe, arose in the UN's failure to reign in a member of the Security Council bent on initiating an aggressive war of conquest on another member of the General Assembly. This is certainly the most serious sort of problem the UN could ever be expected to confront, because it is exactly the problem the UN was formed to solve.

Because the United States wields one of five Security Council vetoes, neither the General Assembly nor the Security Council could ever successfully vote to oppose the American plan to invade and occupy Iraq.

Likewise, the United States has repeatedly vetoed both General Assembly and Security Council-initiated resolutions condemning life-long ally Israel in its illegal prosecution of invasions and attacks on its neighbours. Along with Israel and occasionally a small smattering of bullied tiny mid-Pacific island nations, the US has been alone in voting against resolutions condemning Israel. The US then uses its unjust veto to reject resolutions passed by large majorities in both the General Assembly and the Security Council, countering the will of up to 187 other nations, at times, representing over 95% of the planet's population.

Similar odds faced the US when it asked in the spring of 2003 for United Nations' blessings for its war on Iraq. Support was not forthcoming, and the US withdrew the resolution rather than see it become subject to such a strongly negative vote. Despite the fact the US failed to convince almost anyone outside America of the legal and moral justifications for its planned war, and despite the obvious opposition to it throughout all chambers of the United Nations, the US was able anyway to expose the world to the consequences of its extreme folly and to do so without suffering any serious consequences.

Expanding the Security Council to include India, Germany, Japan and Brazil, plus a few others, addresses the first problem to a limited degree. But it does nothing to solve the second, far more serious, problem.

Both problems can be addressed by dissolving the Security Council altogether, however. That way, all nations would be equally empowered, leaving none to resent not being recognized, while at the same time, none may use a special power to escape reprobation of the United Nations in situations where reprobation is clearly the intent of the world community.

The United Nations' catastrophic failure to do anything about rogue members of the Security Council launching illegal attacks on other UN members created the energy and urgency for reform of the UN. Allowing that energy to be dispersed by only altering the make-up of the Security Council destroys any chance that the more basic unjust elements of the structure of the UN will ever be fixed.

It would therefore be counter to Canada's interests, and negligent of its duty to represent the non-Security Council members of the United Nations, to support any reform initiative at the UN that retains the Security Council at all. Better to let resentments linger than to dissipate them with a reform that misses the main problem that led to the need for reform in the first place.

****