Imagine a World at peace - without the Security Council Veto

It could happen - a brave contingent of UN members have launched an effort to implement Article 109

We live in precarious times … not unlike the early 1960s when the cold war was at its peak. The Cuban missile crisis was 1962; The Cold War was at its height and Viet Nam was brewing.

Not unlike today.

In the early 60s while I was in high school, I was president of the World Affairs Club at my school and like 60-70 other high schools in Toronto we were participating in a model United Nations. Each school represented a different country. We met every Sunday to discuss/debate the issues of the day. I still have my copy of the UN charter.

Back then the UN was only a decade and a half old, but already it was clear that the Security Council veto was a problem. By agreement at the Feb 1945 Yalta Conference, the five victorious allies in the 2nd World War - the UK, France, USA, Soviet Union and China, were promised permanent seats - and vetoes - in the Security Council of the new United Nations which was founded in October of the same year. Any one of them could block any decision of the Council regardless of the majority of the other members.

The intent was to bring stability in a world still recovering from the War. But it didn’t work out that way. Even as the War was winding down, the alliance that won the War was breaking up - the USSR was rushing to establish puppet governments throughout Eastern Europe - and the Iron Curtain was going up. The Soviets found the veto a useful tool to block all kinds of actions. By the early sixties they had vetoed more that 70 resolutions while the other permanent members only a handful amongst them.

That changed around 1970 - The USA found itself more frequently at odds with the majority and began exercising its veto to protect the interests of its own proxies.

Recent history illustrates the problem - Russia has vetoed every effort to end the war in Ukraine and the US has vetoed every effort to curb Israel’s assault on the Palestinians.

The General Assembly has shown overwhelming support to end these conflicts and without the veto in the Security Council, both of those issues might have been solved quickly and likely never would have occurred.

Even as UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban was declaring recently “Sudan is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis - and children are paying the highest price”, Russia had vetoed a quite tepid resolution calling for a ceasefire in Sudan last November.

Situations like this demand action but the UN’s hands are tied.

Built right in to the original UN Charter, Articles 41-49 contemplate that the UN might have to intervene militarily to end conflicts and protect civilians. All UN members were expected to provide support, including armed forces, to such efforts.

Article 41

All members of the United nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security

If the UN had been able to put armed forces on the ground it could have prevented such hot spots as Ukraine, Gaza, Viet Nam, Iraq, Iran, Falkland Islands, Sudan, Lebanon, Myanmar, Kashmir, etc. But apart from a few examples of peace-keeping forces, the UN has been blocked by the veto from inserting peace-making forces.

As students in a model UN, 60 years ago, we tackled these problems and designed a permanent rapid deployment force which could be dropped into any hot spot in the world in real time - as contemplated in the UN charter. The need was there, the logic was there, the Charter was there, but, in the real UN at least one of the five major powers has always blocked such actions. The mere existence of such a force would have prevented most of the conflicts cited above.

Most countries would bask in the security that the UN could deter incursions from their neighbours. They would be able to reduce military expenditures in favour of supporting economic and human development.

It is possible that the entire arms race including nuclear weapons could have been avoided.

But in addition to armed conflict we have the existential threat of climate change. Four years ago in December 2021, Russia vetoed a resolution on Climate Change

The council has occasionally discussed the security implications of climate change since 2007 and it has passed resolutions that mention destabilizing effects of warming in specific places, such as various African countries and Iraq. But Monday’s resolution would have been the first devoted to climate-related security danger as an issue of its own.

Stronger storms, rising seas, more frequent floods and droughts and other effects of warming could inflame social tensions and conflict, potentially “posing a key risk to global peace, security and stability”, the proposed resolution said. Of the UN’s 193 member countries, 113 supported it, including 12 of the council’s 15 members.

But India and veto-wielding Russia voted no, while China abstained.

Government projections show fossil fuel production will exceed Paris-aligned levels by more than 120% in 2030, and by 2050, production is expected to be 4.5 times higher than what a 1.5°C pathway allows, highlighting the urgency of a coordinated global effort to phase out coal, oil, and gas.

But the veto has blocked any such coordination.

Changing the situation requires amendments to the UN charter. The will of the vast majority of countries is there but amendment like everything else is subject to the veto.

However, a brave coalition has set out to overcome this problem:

a diverse network of global citizens, diplomats, UN officials, scholars, philanthropists, journalists, and civil society organizations launched Article 109 (formerly known as the UN Charter Reform Coalition), an international coalition mobilizing to activate one of the United Nations’ most powerful, but long-dormant, mechanisms for reform: the UN Charter Review Conference outlined in Article 109 of the UN Charter.

This effort was launched informally in May 2024 and has now built an organization with a secretariat and advisory committees. It has the support of several countries and is aiming at a resolution at the 2027 General Assembly “calling for a General Review Conference, as called for in Article 109 of the Charter.”

That will be the beginning of a process that may well drag on for a few years. The coalition hopes to build such an inescapable case for reform that it will outlast the main impediments, namely leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.

On a somewhat parallel path Canada is spearheading a proposal to get the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to provide an opinion on the legality of the veto exercised by the permanent members in certain circumstances.

Recently, [May 2025] the World Federalist Movement of Canada pressed Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs on this matter. It asked Canada to assemble a coalition of like-minded states to support a resolution in the UN General Assembly seeking an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the illegality of any veto of a resolution addressing aggression or atrocity crimes. At the present time 44 Canadian and global international law and politics experts have already endorsed the World Federalist Movement’s letter to the Minister and the list is growing. Such opinion is not new but has been ignored in the operation of the Security Council. So it is hoped that an opinion from the top world court will strengthen the hand of Security Council member states seeking to block a potential veto. (Such a procedural block on its own cannot be vetoed.)

If Canada truly supports international law, and seeks to regain the respect it once enjoyed on the international stage, it must demonstrate its support of international law. Canada should show leadership by immediately seeking an ICJ advisory opinion on the illegality of Security Council vetoes in the face of aggression and atrocity crimes. To do so now, urgently and publicly will demonstrate to the world that we are the ‘true north strong and free.’ The world needs Canada to step up.