United Nations Security Council Veto Power - The Experience of The Veto Power

The Experience of The Veto Power

The actual use of the veto, and the constant possibility of its use, have been central features of the functioning of the Security Council throughout the UN's history. In the period from 1945 to the end of 2009, 215 resolutions on substantive issues were vetoed, sometimes by more than one of the Permanent Five. The average number of vetoes cast each year to 1989 was over five: since then the average annual number has been just above one.

The figures reflect the fact that a Permanent Member of the Security Council can avoid casting a veto if the proposal in question does not in any event obtain the requisite majority. In the first two decades of the UN, the Western states were frequently able to defeat resolutions without actually using the veto; and the Soviet Union was in this position in the 1970s and 1980s. Use of the veto has reflected a degree of diplomatic isolation of the vetoing state(s) on the particular issue. Because of the use or threat of the veto, the Security Council could at best have a limited role in certain wars and interventions in which its Permanent Members were involved – for example in Algeria (1954–62); Suez (1956), Hungary (1956), Vietnam (1946–75), the Sino-Vietnamese war (1979), Afghanistan (1979–88), Panama (1989), Iraq (2003), and Georgia (2008).

Not all cases of UN inaction in crises have been due to actual use of the veto. For example, re the Iran–Iraq war of 1980–88 there was no use of the veto, but the UN role was minimal except in its concluding phase. Likewise the limited involvement of the UN in the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan from 2003 onwards was not due to any actual use of the veto. A general lack of willingness to act was the main problem.

Since 1990 the veto has been used sparingly. The period from 31 May 1990 to 11 May 1993 was the longest without use of the veto in the history of the UN. Up till the end of 1989 the number of resolutions passed by the Security Council had been 646 – an average of about 15 per annum. The figures for the years since then show a peak of Security Council activism in 1993, followed by a modest degree of retrenchment.

In 1950 the Soviet Union missed one important opportunity to exercise its veto power. The Soviet government had adopted an "empty chair" policy at the Security Council from January 1950, owing to its discontent over the UN's refusal to recognize the People's Republic of China's representatives as the legitimate representatives of China, and with the hope of preventing any future decisions by the Council on substantive matters. Despite the wording of the Charter (which makes no provisions for passing resolutions with the abstention or absence of a veto-bearing member), this was treated as a non-blocking abstention. This had in fact already become Council practice by that time, the Council having already adopted numerous draft resolutions despite the lack of an affirmative vote by each of its permanent members. The result of the Soviet Union's absence from the Security Council was that it was not in a position to veto the UN Security Council resolutions 83 (27 June 1950) and 84 (7 July 1950) authorising the US-led military coalition in Korea which assisted South Korea in repelling the North Korean attack.