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Nations Line up to Slam Big Powers' UN Veto Rights
UNITED NATIONS - African and other developing nations joined several European powers at the United Nations to denounce the veto rights of the five official nuclear powers on the U.N. Security Council, diplomats said.
The United Nations Security Council meets to discuss the crisis in Gaza, at the United Nations headquarters in New York January 7, 2009. (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton) The chorus of criticism began on Monday and continued on Tuesday at a closed-door session of the General Assembly on reforming and expanding the most powerful U.N. body.
Diplomats said most speakers attacked the blocking powers of the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia. As the main allies against Germany and Japan in World War Two, the five received permanent seats on the council with veto rights.
The five later acquired special status as official nuclear weapons states under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty.
According to diplomats who attended, most speakers said the veto was obsolete and should be abolished. They said the strongest criticism came from Africa and developing states.
The critics also complained that it has repeatedly prevented the council, which can impose trade embargoes or authorize the use of military force, from fulfilling its responsibility to maintain international peace and security.
The veto has been used 261 times since 1946. But Italy's U.N. Ambassador Giulio Terzi said that even when not used, the veto can alter or block the discussion of urgent issues.
"Again and again the 'hidden veto' has prevented substantial discussions of questions that are crucial to international peace and security," he said.
Recent examples where veto powers have stopped the council from taking effective action include Israel and the Palestinian territories, Myanmar, Georgia and Zimbabwe, diplomats say.
SECURITY COUNCIL EXPANSION
Last month, U.N. member states launched talks on enlarging the council so that its composition would better reflect the world of the 21st century. Diplomats say that one of the main sticking points dividing the 192 U.N. member states is whether to grant any new permanent members veto powers.
According to the text of his speech, Terzi opposed granting more countries veto powers. He also called for a moratorium on use of veto followed by its gradual limitation and elimination.
German Ambassador Thomas Matussek said the veto was "an anachronism and should be abolished." But hopes of scrapping or giving it to new council members were unrealistic, he added.
Germany, like Japan, India and Brazil, has aspirations of someday becoming a permanent member of the Security Council.
U.S., British and Russian speakers made clear they saw no need to abolish the veto, diplomats said.
French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert spoke of the veto as a "weighty responsibility," adding that the French had used it sparingly -- 18 times since 1945, most recently in 1989.
Only China, with six vetoes, has used it less.
Although the issue remains divisive, Ripert and Matussek said it should not be allowed to stop what Ripert described as a "necessary and urgent reform of the Security Council."
The Soviet Union and its successor Russia has used the veto the most -- 123 times. The United States is in second place, with 82 vetoes. Since casting its first veto in the early 1970s, Washington has been its most frequent user, mostly to block resolutions it deems negative for Israel.
Britain comes in third place with 32 vetoes overall.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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9 Comments so far
Show AllIt's funny that three of the five vetoing powers are democracies which supposedly uphold the notion that the rights of the majority should prevail.
Vetoing should be banned so that the U.N. can become democratic rather than a tool to be manipulated at will by countries like America.
www.dangerouscreation.com
"It's funny that three of the five vetoing powers are democracies which supposedly uphold the notion that the rights of the majority should prevail."
Actually the real principle is majority rule, but minority protections. But I agree...it should be abolished.
The veto power is the single reason why UN is perceived as a failure when it comes to securing peace in the world.
And the US is the biggest abuser of the VETO power. And Israel is the country that has benefited most from that veto power.
Funny, considering we pretty much made the fricking UN. But it has never had the power or authority to live up to its expectations.
Wow, when you think of it, this is really a divisive issue. Especially when you read that it'e most been used on issues related to Israel. It's just another example of how the power mongers are sitting ducks for the transformations of the 21st century. This is not going to go away...
Think on it: the UN is the only global forum we humans have formally established, and its performance toward 'security' is heavily skewed towards the richest and most powerful countries. Not exactly a set-up for fair and balanced debate, now is it?
Just these days the human world more than ever needs equal input to its actions from all the 'sensors' of humanity we the people constitute.
The veto-power was set up to stop abuses of power by the Security Council, but has instead been used to continue abuses of power (cf. Israel). The veto has been abused and must go or be changed. Maybe a veto-right by a group of countries might work, to counter the possibility of the Security Council itself being hi-jacked for power-abuse.
Gee, I wonder how the April (global financial crisis) meeting of the G-20 governments/financiers will turn out?
Will they agree that "weapons of mass financial destruction" need to be completely eliminated?
In the late forties, we were still reeling from one of the most destructive wars in history. We were trying to figure out how it had come to pass, and how we could head off a repetition in the future. The cold war was just beginning it's international freeze, but still we had hope.
The League of Nations had been established at the close of the first "war to end all wars." It failed because it had no teeth, no authority. It was just a debating forum.
The UN was formed with the intention of avoiding that problem and giving the UN the ability to maintain peace, through peace keepers. A number of times, the UN successfully put peace keepers between warring factions, to keep them separate until negotiations could solve the problem.
The UN might have worked except for the fact that the "big five," the "winners" in WW-II, refused to support the UN unless they had veto power over the wishes of the world body. Nobody was going to tell the "superpowers" what to do. They got it. As the cold war got more intense, what it boiled down to was, anything that the US was supportive of, the CCCP vetoed. Anything Russia was for, the US vetoed. Every little thing that got accomplished was by kowtowing to and caging votes from the US and the CCCP. If things did not go their way, they refused to fund UN programs, or the UN itself. Gradually, the dream died and the UN became essentially the same debating forum that the League had been.
Read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN on 10 December 1948. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html Read this over and think about it. It embodies the hope we had in that far off time. Compare it with the current nightmare. We need leadership that will try to live up to the dream of humanity, not the greed of billionaires and power brokers who only want more at our expense.