Saying No to the Veto

Introduction

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The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) must voluntarily restrict their use of the veto in situations involving genocide, major war crimes, and major crimes against humanity.

The use of veto power, or more often the case, the threat of using the veto power, can have devastating effects on U.N. missions in critical areas of the world. The world does not have time for the permanent UNSC members to play politics when innocent civilians are at the mercy of brutal dictators. In both Kosovo and Rwanda, U.N. action was stalled because of the permanent or P-5 nations threatening to veto a resolution.

Kosovo

In April 2007, Kosovo was on the verge of independence after eight years as a U.N. protectorate. The war torn region had escaped the carnage of Slobodan Milosevic and spent the subsequent years rebuilding. However, Russia, an ally of Serbia, threatened to veto the proposed U.N. plan to transfer power to the people of Kosovo.

After U.N. gridlock through the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008, the people of Kosovo declared their own independence in April 2008 and followed the proposed U.N. plan, despite no official U.N. resolution. Russia's veto threat delayed Kosovo from gaining their independence, putting politics ahead of aide, and could have broken the fragile peace that was in place.

Rwanda

Historians have called the Rwandan Genocide the "darkest hour" in the Security Council's handling of human rights cases. According to a number of reports, including Ivan Carlsson's report to the U.N., the UNSC's inaction in the early 1990's allowed Hutu aggression to go unchecked and led to the slaughter of over 500,000 Tutsis.

While all members of the Council are to blame, the permanent members must be held accountable for not making the genocide a higher priority. In a 2001 article for the Atlantic, genocide expert Samantha Power explained:

In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the U.N. peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements.... The United States in fact did virtually nothing "to try to limit what occurred." Indeed, staying out of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objective.

Power's indictment of U.S. policy is even more upsetting when you understand that this behavior directly influenced the rest of the P5 nations. By working against any genocide prevention efforts, the U.S. made it clear to the other four nations that it would block any efforts of the Council to provide relief.

Policy Recommendations

The U.S. must follow the policy recommendations laid out by the Genocide Task Force in their 2008 Preventing Genocide report. Co-Chaired by Madeline Albright and William Cohen, the Task Force's report has been widely praised by genocide experts and government officials. There are three recommendations that pertain to the UNSC: 

1. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations should initiate a dialogue among the five permanent members of the Security Council on the special responsibility they have to prevent genocide and mass atrocities.

2. A principal aim should be informal, voluntary mutual restraint in the use or threat of a veto in cases involving ongoing or imminent mass atrocities. The P-5 should agree that unless three permanent members were to agree to veto a given resolution, all five would abstain or support it. This should apply, in particular, to resolutions instituting sanctions and/or authorizing peace operations in situations when mass atrocities or genocide are imminent or underway.

3. The P-5 should also agree that a resolution passed by two-thirds of the General Assembly finding that a crisis poses an imminent threat of mass atrocities should add further impetus to an expeditious Security Council response without threat of a veto. An agreement along these lines would make the Security Council a more effective vehicle in cases when a permanent member might otherwise prefer to block action.

Photo Courtesy of U.N. TV

For more information about this fact sheet and the use of the veto contact Abigail Long, Programs Coordinator, along@globalsolutions.org, or (202) 546-3950 x105 or Don Kraus, CEO, dkraus@globalsolutions.org or (202) 330-4103