The United Nations (U.N.) was established in 1945 with a founding charter drafted by 50 countries gathered in San Francisco, California. The most influential organ of the U.N. is the Security Council, which is in charge of carrying out the “maintenance of international peace and security” on behalf of the general assembly, according to its website. As part of this responsibility, the Security Council is in charge of supervising and directing the military resources of the U.N. to interfere in interstate or intrastate conflicts and choosing to intervene in situations of human rights violations with force or sanction.

With so much power invested in their judgments, the states selected for membership on the council have a great deal of influence over global affairs. However, under Article 23 and Article 27 of Chapter V of the U.N. Charter, there exists a paramount problem which has been in place since the Security Council was first drafted in the minds of the diplomats from the founding members. A portion of Article 23 states, “The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council.” Additionally, a portion of Article 27 states that “decisions of the Security Council on all other matters [other than procedural vote] shall be made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes of the permanent members.” This means that any single one of the permanent five members on the security council can veto any resolution at their discretion, even if all other permanent members and 14 states wish to pass the resolution.

China, an autocratic and communist nation, is currently engaged in what could be considered a cold war, and definitely a trade war, with the United States, a democratic nation. As each country tries to one-up the other, their permanent status on the council will likely lead to vetoes over extremely important human rights issues, such as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis and even security council decisions over the new Taliban government in Afghanistan. The United Kingdom and France are major powers that have been on the decline in terms of economic and political power since the pre-World War II era, and India, Japan and Germany have larger economies. Their permanent status on the council is questionable at best, and an archaic and discriminatory function in truth. Why these former imperialist states should have the power to singlehandedly veto the resolutions brought up by the entire continent of Africa simply because they played important roles on the side of the Allies during WWII is blatantly ridiculous. Finally, there is a big divide in the Western pro-democracy, albeit flawed, interests of the United States, United Kingdom and France, and the autocratic or oligarchic anti-democracy interests of China and Russia. This divide should not prevent necessary military intervention or sanction when human rights are abused, but this stark divide in interests combined with veto power does and will. There exists a homogeneity of developed nations with large economies on the council too, which may lead to representation problems.

The major powers within the security council have generally been less willing to come to a consensus, causing static movement in the council on human rights and intrastate conflict fronts. This is obviously a major problem. I will present some historical and contemporary examples of the Security Council’s work over the years and ask whether anything really can be done about this institution frozen in uncooperativeness.

To be fair to the Security Council, over its history, it has had some relative successes in organizing intervention in conflicts. One example is the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953, where U.N. Security Council Resolution 83 recommended U.N. members provide all resources and means necessary for South Korea to fight back against the invasion by North Korea. Coalition forces were successfully able to prevent the autocratic North Korean regime from taking over the peninsula. Another example of successful collective defense on behalf of the international community is the Gulf War, from 1990 to 1991. When Saddam Hussein chose to invade Kuwait without warning, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 678, in which member states agreed to work with the Kuwait government to use any means necessary to fight back against the Iraq invasion — this worked quickly and efficiently. In order to outline the flaws of the permanent five veto power structure, examples of historical failures and recent unwillingness to collaborate are needed.

Apartheid, or institutionalized racial segregation in South Africa in which the white minority tried to maintain total control over the Black majority, was a prominent human rights problem in international relations and for the U.N. in the 1980s. With the support of the vast majority of states, the U.N. Security Council had intended to pass a resolution calling for selective but mandatory economic sanctions against South Africa. The purpose of these sanctions was to try to get the international community to impact South Africa’s rigid system of racial separation by forcing the government to meet with Black opposition leaders. However, it was vetoed by the United States and Britain. Even the U.S. Congress had passed a resolution earlier declaring that the Reagan administration should advocate for sanctions to the U.N. This is a perfect example of how wide consensus on human rights violations among many member states can be blocked by only two states. Recently, the Security Council has not been able to form a consensus on some major international points of concern, such as the lack of U.N. intervention in Syria and Venezuela despite calls of human rights violations and human strife. Since 2011, Russia has had 19 vetoes — 14 of them over Syria. Eight out of the nine vetoes from China on the Security Council have also been over Syria. For the United States, its allegiance to Israel has led all three of its vetoes since 2011 being on Israel-Palestine issues.

The structure of the Security Council is obsolete. Today, many African countries are rightly asking for permanent membership on the council or for the council to alter its procedures to better match the general assembly procedures due to obvious discrimination of the continent within the structures of the Security Council. While African nations make up the largest member state group of any of the continents, they are extremely disadvantaged due to the power of the permanent five to have vetoes and total power over whether their own security and human rights interests are represented in the council. Additionally, states such as India and China are advocating for the increased influence of developing nations and non-permanent five member states on the council, and are willing to limit or get rid of the veto, in order to fix the centralization of power vested in only the permanent five. However, both the Russian Federation and the United States refuse to get rid of veto power. Indeed, the United States had refused to join the U.N.’s predecessor, the League of Nations, over fears of losing control of foreign economic and military policy, and the veto was a way to convince skeptics in the United States that they would still be able to maintain their power.

To be frank, the institution of the Security Council is extremely complex, and actions to amend the problems within the institution itself will not yield any significant change. The problem of the veto, permanent five power and lack of representation of African countries cannot be solved by a simple resolution. Also, a solution of self-regulating the veto solely when mass atrocities occur, like that proposed by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, will not work. Under the French proposal, Security Council resolutions on genocide, crimes against humanity and large-scale war crimes would not be subject to any vetoes from the permanent five, and passage would require a 9-6 or greater split in favor of the resolution. However, there is no way to be sure that any of the other permanent five nations would support this amendment, or whether they would continue to veto based upon their own definitions of mass atrocities.

While likely not being the most realistic, the best solution is to get rid of the current structure of the Security Council altogether. Similar to some of the out-of-date writing within our own constitution and amendments, the U.N. charter was written at a time of completely different world affairs and major powers and doesn’t necessarily have relevance anymore. For this reason, the best way to improve collective security and intervention by the U.N. in conflict and mass atrocities is to remove this organ from the general body of the U.N. and replace it with something new and improved. This new Security Council should not give the permanent members any significant veto power unless all of the permanent members are seeking a veto, and should be more inclusive of developing and African nations.

My ideal solution would be a council composed of rotating member-states of the U.N. — the current 15-state model is sufficient but perhaps could be increased to 20 or 30 states — with five of the 10 largest economies always holding seats on the council but rotating under the current two-year rotation system. Representatives would be assigned based upon the population of said member states, like a parliamentary system. There would be no veto power granted to a single state, but perhaps if all five of the largest-economy states desired a veto, this could be approved to solve collective action issues. Ultimately, it would be a security council not unable to reach consensus due to centralization of power, but one able to reach consensus through the rule of the majority. That sounds awfully like democracy, doesn’t it?

Sean Reichbach is a freshman double-majoring in economics and philosophy, politics and law.