The Security Council is the body of the United Nations whose role is to maintain peace. It is composed of 10 members elected for a term of two years and 5 permanent members. Article 27-3 of the Charter gives a right of veto to each of the five permanent members of the Security Council.
Using its right of veto on 18 December 2017, during the vote of the Security Council on the status of Jerusalem, the United States said yes, for the maintenance of war between Israel and Palestine. The right of veto is the right of war.
Would the revision of article 27-3 of the Charter of the United Nations make the UN a fair organization capable of maintaining peace in the world?
The question is always present at UN general assemblies and many affirmatively answered to that question. In his speech at the 64th general Assembly, Mohamed Kaddhafi said:
‘’ The Preamble (of the UN Charter) is very appealing, and no one objects to it, but all the provisions that follow it completely contradict the Preamble. We reject such provisions, and we will never uphold them; they ended with the Second World War. The Preamble says that all nations, small or large, are equal. Are we equal when it comes to the permanent seats? No, we are not equal.The Preamble states in writing that all nations are equal whether they are small or large. Do we have the right of veto? Are we equal? The Preamble says that we have equal rights, whether we are large or small.That is what is stated and what we agreed in the Preamble. So the veto contradicts the Charter. The permanent seats contradict the Charter. We neither accept nor recognize the veto’’.
The United Nations was born with a birth defect, article 27-3, which makes it incapable of maintaining peace. Even if the anomaly were to be cured, it would not change anything, as long as some UN members can exercise various pressures on others such as financial threats. These various pressures are hidden and unseen rights of veto.
One thing is sure, at 73 years of its existence, the United Nations has reached menopause.
The United Nations is not failed organization; peace has never been its existential purpose. The UN is a very successful organization that has achieved is mission of creating and maintaining wars. The direct participation of United Nations’ Peacekeepers in the overthrow and assassination of DR Congo’s Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961, and the slaughtering of Tutsis by Hutu on the first day of the Rwandan genocide at a school where 90 UN troops armed with a machine gun were planted at the entrance of the school, are just few pieces of evidence.
In less than a century of the UN’s existence, the world has known at least 65 wars, deadlier than both ‘world wars’ and UN Members have acquired nuclear weapons.
John J. Mearsheimer wrote:
“The most powerful States in the system create and shape institutions in order to maintain their shares of world power or even increase”.
MASSOCKI MA MASSOCKI