Zulfiqar Ali Shirazi
The United Nations Organisation (UNO), once considered the número uno conflict-resolution option for the world, seems to have failed to deliver. Data analysis of resolutions tabled in the UN Security Council (UNSC), compared with those adopted or implemented, supports this claim. These resolutions mostly demanded that states cease rhetoric or fire, withdraw troops, vacate annexed lands, or end human rights abuses. The gap between draft tabling and implementation remained infested with contentious vetoes. The practice manifested a pattern indicative of absolving a permanent five (P5) member of the UNSC either from the violation of the Charter it committed or from protecting its close ally.Plan Routes
The veto power was the sine qua non for the creation of UNO and was provided under Article 27(3) of the UN Charter, based on mutual agreement between the erstwhile USSR, USA and UK, under the Yalta Declaration of February 1945. The need for a veto was advocated, citing the failure of unanimous adoption of resolutions on a majority-rule basis, as a reason for the disbanding of UNO’s predecessor, the League of Nations.
Therefore, granting veto power to bigger powers was considered to influence the outcomes to make the UN deliver. The P5 states also linked their role as world peace guarantors to the veto power. Notwithstanding, a strong dissenting view considered the veto arrangement as a breach of the principle of sovereign equality for all, and the same echoes even today.
According to UNO’s own report, from 1946 till the end of 2025, P5 member states have cast 320 vetoes, blocking 264 draft resolutions and amendments. The erstwhile Soviet Union and now Russia lead the pack by casting 155 of those vetoes, followed by the United States (94), about seventy-eight per cent together.
The other twenty-two per cent of vetoes stand divided between the UK, China and France. There was for sure a method to this madness. Veto power was mostly and frequently used by the Soviet Union in Cold War years, from 1946-1989; 96 vetoes, out of which 37 vetoes blocked new memberships to the UN, primarily not to allow Western democratic influence in UNGA and partly due to its own insecurity of an eventual breakup into constituent states.
USA remained less active on this front, as it cast its first-ever veto in March 1970; thereafter, the USA has employed its veto power more often than any other member, mainly to ensure that Israeli interests are looked after. China vetoed only once during the Cold War, and that was within a year of taking up its seat as a permanent member in 1971, and that too to block a Bangladeshi bid for UNO’s membership for obvious reasons. The use of the veto by the UK and France can be jumped over for now to save space and focus.
If followers of any particular religion or faith have been favoured or affected through the use of veto power, they are undoubtedly, respectively, the Jews of Israel and Muslims of Palestine, including Gaza and Syria directly. Traversing a bit further back in history, in October 1956 Britain and France vetoed US and Soviet drafts calling on Israel to withdraw from Egypt. The US vetoed six Gaza drafts between October 2023 and September 2025 despite 14 members voting in favour. It also vetoed a draft on admitting Palestine to the UN in 2024.
The indirect impact of inaction on the part of indifferent UNO fora on Muslim states is for the world to see for itself. The massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica by Serbs was not formally declared a genocide due to a Russian veto, despite the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) favourable ruling. Similarly, Resolution 425 of 1978 demanded that Israel withdraw from Lebanon, which came in 2000, 22 years later. In the case of Kashmir, the inefficacy of the UN is evident through its inability to get resolutions implemented and not taking decisive action on India changing the disputed status of Kashmir in 2019.
Vetoes rose from 36 between 1990 and 2014 to 47 between 2015 and 2024. This happened despite efforts at restraint since 2001, when a Canadian-launched commission asked permanent members not to veto action against mass atrocities. In 2012, five small states proposed that permanent members explain each veto and avoid it in cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, but withdrew the draft after permanent members objected. In 2022, the General Assembly decided to meet within 10 working days of every veto. In 2024, the Pact for the Future committed states to discuss limiting the veto. Nothing changed much, and it remained obvious that abolishing or limiting the veto required a Charter amendment, and the ratifying five permanent members would never vote away this power. The practical way forward already known to all is to make each veto harder to justify and less effective, through steps that a committed group of states can take now.
Foremost, the core group behind the 2022 initiatives making UNGA more potent against a veto in UNSC is required to prepare an action-oriented draft resolution that does not fizzle out in debates but actually ensures that the meeting ends in a vote on action. Then is employing the provision of Article 27(3) that can make a party to the dispute abstain from voting. The same can also be applied preemptively to all states through a joint pledge that all members shall abstain from UNSC votes on disputes they are party to. But before that, UNGA needs to define the “party to a dispute” through a resolution.
Such a measure can remove the main excuse for ignoring Article 27(3). Another option is that UNGA can ask the ICJ, by a simple majority vote, to review a veto that blocks action against atrocity crimes as unlawful. Moreover, a central record of vetoes should be kept updated and public at all times. It is high time to revitalise the UNSC to curb further decline of the UN caused by vested interests and reinstate its lost status.
