THE UN system, established after 1945, reflected the realities of a Hobbesian world, in which the victors’ justice was codified in the UN Charter that gave the five major World War II victors the power to keep their interests protected and their rivalries ring-fenced in a veto cage. Though the present UN Charter defines the legality of war and the territorial rights of each member state through Article 2(4), there is no check or meaningful cost on the breach of the same article by veto-wielding powers of the P5.
The result is the inability of the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council to prevent genocide and violation of sovereign states’ territorial integrity. The Atlantic Charter that birthed Nato too suffered from the same anomalies of power politics. Nato, instead of the putative collective security under Article 5, was known more by its first secretary general Lord Ismay’s observation: “Nato was created to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”
The UN system and UNSC are beset with the same anomalies. Despite the best intentions and exertions of the 10 non-permanent member states, the five permanent veto-wielding states can stymie all efforts at peace enforcement. The veto-based system reflects power asymmetry, not the democratic acuity needed to prevent conflicts in a fragmented world. Democratic retreat in global politics appears in the form of unilateralism, tariff wars, de-globalisation and emasculation of institutions of economic cooperation (WTO).
At a time when great power competition is redefining the rules of the game for the weak, the Kantian world is giving way to a Hobbesian one. In an environment when the weak fend for themselves and the UN Charter fails to prevent crimes against humanity, annexations and genocide, it makes little sense to add more layers of privilege to the UNSC. Reforms should aim to make it more democratic, inclusive and capable of increasing the cost of veto against genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of territorial integrity.
UfC’s model provides an incremental approach.
Without this, reforms cannot resolve peace and security issues. There are several groups peddling ideas for UNSC reform. One is the G4 Proposal(Brazil, Germany, India, Japan), which espouses the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent UNSC membership by granting permanent seats to G4 countries, allocating two permanent seats to Africa and increasing elected non-permanent seats. Another one is the African Group comprising 54 African Union member states. It is asking for two permanent seats with full prerogatives, including veto powers as they exist and five non-permanent seats in an expanded Council.
The France-Mexico Initiative has called on P5 to voluntarily refrain from using veto in situations involving mass atrocities such as genocide, crimes against humanity and large-scale war crimes. The United for Peace (UfC) proposal led by Pakistan and supported by Italy, Mexico, Argentina, Canada and South Korea rejects any expansion of the permanent membership category, with or without veto powers. It advocates for expanding elected non-permanent seats through longer-term and re-electable membership.
A cursory look at these proposals indicate that except for the UfC, the proposals do not address the core issue at the heart of the UNSC’s dysfunctionality — veto powers and the rest of the member states’ inability to confront the veto even when it’s used in pursuit of the P5’s geopolitical objectives that might run athwart international law, the notion of collective security and fidelity to Article 2(4). It is good to support the idea of geographical representation especially for African nations; however, the metamorphosis of victims into veto-wielding hegemons would exacerbate the present iniq-uity.
The quest of individual countries for permanent seats has to be seen in the context of the broader aims of equitable representation, justice and efficacy of an expanded UNSC. The UfC’s is the only proposal that offers the UNSC’s expansion by increasing the number of non-permanent seats with a re-election provision and essentially freezing inequity by limiting permanent seats to the existing P5, besides enhancing regional representation from Africa, Asia-Pacific, West Asia and Latin America. The UfC model provides an incremental approach that can adapt to evolving geopolitical realities through periodic elections rather than permanent structural changes.
Finally, due care should be taken to not enhance iniquity by adding more wannabes as permanent UNSC members. Countries like India, which are serial violators of the UNSC resolutions and have annexed disputed regions besides remaining outside UN-affiliated treaties like NPT and CTBT, certainly do not fit the bill as permanent UNSC members.
The writer is a PhD from Nust.
Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2026
