Reform of the Security Council and its Implications for Global Peace and Security

Abstract

In the beginning of September 2003 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for the reform of the UN Security Council. The necessity of the reform has been brought up a number of times since the beginning of 1990s by several UN member-states. The Security Council has been seen as lacking in transparency and legitimacy. Furthermore, it has occasionally been described as a legacy of the Cold War and a post-colonial arrangement where African, Asian and Latin American states were underrepresented with China being the only Third World country among five permanent members of the Security Council. The Security Council is the most powerful organ of the UN. Under the UN charter it is responsible for maintaining global peace and security and its decisions are binding for all UN members. Each of the five permanent members of the Council has a right to veto any of its collective decisions. The latter circumstance has had particularly strong implications for global peace and security. During the Cold War it translated into effective incapacity of the Security Council to act in the sphere of maintaining peace, as the USSR and the USA blocked the majority of the decisions related to peacekeeping operations. After the Cold War this obstacle was removed. However, in a number of cases the vetoes, actual or potential are still hindering the decision-making process and undermining the legitimacy of Security Council and be extension the efficiency of the United Nations. This paper looks at the possibilities of the reform in the Security Council and reviews the potential strategies of such reform. It then reflects on the implications of changes in the Security Council for the global peace and security and the future of peace operations in particular. Finally, it will address the benefits that Canada could gain from the reform both as an international actor and as a peacekeeping force.