The UN and Atrocity Crimes: The Over-Politicization of Decision-Making in the Security Council

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There is much evidence of the omnipresent over-politicization of issues in the United Nations Security Council, writes MARTIN DAVENAS in a working paper published by University College London’s Global Governance Institute.
“First, one negative vote from any permanent member, the national interests of which are fully ‘globalized’, can paralyze the whole organization and therefore let mass violations of human rights continue unhindered.”
Secondly, he states, the authority of the UN is undermined by those states that were initially considered collectively responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, as well as those states that resist collective responses to atrocity crimes because they accuse the organization of being partial. Furthermore, balancing the need for sanctioning or intervening in states for the enforcement of peace in the long term, and the present protection of the concerned population's human rights, are a controversial and political issue in the Security Council, which ultimately generates distrust for the organization, hence the legitimacy deficit affecting the UN.
Finally, the UN’s credibility is greatly affected by its past failures, including situations where interventions have had direct detrimental effects on human rights as well as those where UN mandates have been manipulated for the attainment of national political and/or economic advantages. This further contributes to the ‘delegitimization’ of the UN, since legitimacy is nothing but the belief that the institution must be obeyed.
The UN was, from the beginning, susceptible to over-politicization, fueled by institutionalized inequalities. Compliance with or resistance of UN institutions are used as an instrument of political posturing on the international stage. “Consequently, one could consider that the UN, a most ambitious idea, may have been too modern at the time of the drafting of the Charter, in the sense that states clung to a traditional approach to international politics and diplomacy, which was not compatible with the collective acknowledgement that international cooperation was vital in order to uphold human rights and humanitarian law,” DAVENAS writes. “In the end, it appears that the disagreements between the powerful states were too great for them to carry the collective responsibility of maintaining international peace and security.”
The UN was envisioned to be a forum where states could coordinate their efforts to tackle international problems, and it has created a body of international law to promote economic and social development and advance international peace and security. From the codification of international law, to the judicial settlement of disputes and the quest for accountability, the UN could be considered the embryo of a real supranational organization with authority over its members, but it is still tainted by the political views and ambitions of its most prominent members.
The systematic over-politicization of issues in the Security Council discredits the organization and its legitimacy. Logically, an international organization supposedly representing the whole international community should only act in the interests of that community. In order to do so, the UN needs to be more detached and independent from individual concerns of state actors, which necessarily implies that ‘Great Powers’ must relinquish at least some of their privileges, so that the UN can fulfil its function of ‘center for harmonizing the actions of nations’.
While there is a certain consensus on the necessity to reform the Security Council, there are disagreements on the changes that need to be made. The most frequent propositions are the addition of both permanent and non-permanent members for the sake of representativity as well as changing the Security Council’s working methods, notably restriction of the use of the veto. For instance, the ‘G4’, namely Brazil, India, Japan and Germany, have been bidding to obtain a permanent seat at the Security Council. It is true that these states' economic growth and political influence give them a good claim on any future permanent seat in the Security Council, but in the framework of an organ dedicated to the maintenance of international peace and security, it is doubtful that economic might is a relevant criterion. It would also be difficult to extend permanent membership because there will always be opposition from rival bidders or influential neighboring states. If the Security Council is to be extended, the principle of fair regional distribution has to be respected.
As a response to the G4 request, the ‘Uniting for Consensus’ movement advocated for maintaining five permanent members but having twenty elected members. There would be six African states, five Asian states, four Latin American and Caribbean States, three from Western Europe and Other States and two from Eastern Europe. Marcello Spatafora, former Permanent Representative of Italy to the UN, said in 2005, while discussing the United for Consensus proposition, that the credibility of the organization and its process of reform was at stake, and that these reforms could not be dictated by power or money, but had to be dictated by principles. The consequences of veto use so far suggests that there should not be more states able to wield that power, as it will likely hinder the work of the Security Council even more.
In the context of atrocity crimes and mass violations of human rights, DAVENAS stresses, there is a need to separate the discussion from political concerns: the question of how to prevent or put an end to gross violations of basic human rights is about morals, not about politics. “If states cannot be trusted to forego national interests or political advantages even in such terrible contexts, then the veto power should not be given to new states, and its use should be restricted for those that already have it.”
This sort of proposal has already been made: for instance, the S5, a group of five states, namely Costa Rica, Jordan, Liechtenstein, Singapore and Switzerland, suggested in 2005 that permanent members should, upon casting a veto, provide ‘an explanation for [their] decision that is consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and relevant international law’, and further called on the P5 to ‘refrain from using the veto 'to block Council action aimed at preventing or ending genocide, war crime and crimes against humanity’. Unsurprisingly, this proposal encountered strong opposition from some permanent members.
Since the Syrian conflict, however, various proposals have been made, aimed at improving the work of the Security Council in preventing and responding to atrocity crimes. For instance, the French and Mexican initiative of 2015 advocates for the suspension of veto powers in situations of mass atrocities. The proposal gives responsibility to the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Council ‘situations involving, or likely leading to, genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes’. Truly, if permanent members could be persuaded to relinquish this power in cases of atrocities, it would constitute a major improvement as the Council could not be a bystander to these atrocities.
The Secretary-General, as an independent actor in the UN, could raise the matter ‘automatically’ as soon as alarming reports appear, and when UN experts would reach the certitude that such crimes may take place, the veto power would be suspended. This sort of reform is not entirely far-fetched, in the sense that already France and the United Kingdom have not used the veto since 1989. Further, in September 2015, then-French President François Hollande pledged, at the UNGA, that ‘France will never use its power of veto where there have been mass atrocities’, and the United Kingdom also has reiterated that it would not use its veto to block credible action aimed at stopping mass atrocities.
Still, without real determination from other permanent members, these proposals will have to be negotiated, and compromises found between the ‘Big Five’, since the United States, Russia and China would only accept to give up this power in return for insurances or compensations, which might end up undermining the reach of these reforms.
Nevertheless, DAVENAS concludes, it is an encouraging thought that some states are willing to freely relinquish their special powers and thus shift priorities in order to focus on attaining international peace and security and respect for human rights.