In 1950, the General Assembly adopted resolution 377 A (V), named “Uniting for Peace”. The adoption of this resolution came as a response to the strategy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to prevent the Security Council to make any decision. This resolution enables the General Assembly to act to maintain or restore international peace and security, if the Security Council fails to perform its primary responsibility to maintain or restore international peace and security. This could be another route for the UN to take collective measures against atrocities, but at the same time, this “Uniting for Peace” resolution could
threaten the delicate balance of power provided for in the UN Charter, if it is used for a military action imposed by the UN General Assembly without the Security Council authorization.
Therefore, under the current UN Charter, UN military action based on this resolution would likely violate the UN Charter. Under the current UN Charter, UN military action based on this resolution would likely violate the UN Charter. In 2013, France proposed a code of conduct for the use of veto in the Security Council in situations of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing. This proposal resulted in a “Code of Conduct regarding Security Council action against genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes” in October 2015, which was submitted to the UN Secretary General and opened to all UN Member States. More than one hundred supporters of this Code of Conduct, including France and the UK, have pledged to take decisive action against atrocity crimes and, while serving as members of the UN Security Council, not to vote against credible resolutions to that end. In the current situation, perhaps it sounds mere cynicism, but we may have to hope that voluntary veto regulations will be effective.
The reform of the U.N. Security Council has been on the table for quite some time and there are several reform efforts. Which one would you prefer?
While amendments of the UN Charter are desirable, it would be impractical to make amendments that would threaten the vested rights of the current permanent members of the UN Security Council, since ratification by all P5 of the Security Council is a requirement under Article 108 in order to amend the UN Charter. And even if the current UN Charter is outdated, drafted on the basis of the post-World War II order, we should not forget the fact that it has effectively prevented nuclear war and World War III to date. This fact implies that the veto system under the UN Charter has shown a certain degree of effectiveness in preventing all-out military confrontation between the major powers, and that it has become a cooling device for the friction between the major powers. The above approach can be said to be optimistic or positive about the status quo. However, given the difficulty of abolishing the veto, which is a vested right, the
UN Charter should include restrictions on the use of the veto and provide for a “right of veto” in the event that the veto is exercised against a situation of serious human rights violations by one or more countries.