What Is the UN Security Council? Five Permanent Members and a Veto
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It is the only body in the world that can make decisions binding on every country, authorise the use of force lawfully, and impose sanctions that all states must implement. It has fifteen members, five of whom hold their seats permanently and can block any substantive decision by voting against it. That arrangement was written in 1945 by the states that had just won a war, it has barely changed since, and whether it is a fatal design flaw or the reason the institution still exists is the oldest argument in international politics.
What it can do
The Charter of the United Nations gives the Council powers that no other international body has, and the distinction between two chapters matters:
- •Under Chapter VI it may investigate disputes and recommend terms of settlement, which is advisory
- •Under Chapter VII it may determine that a threat to peace exists and then impose measures that are binding on all member states, including economic sanctions, arms embargoes, travel bans and asset freezes
- •If those are inadequate it may authorise the use of force, which is the only lawful basis for war other than self-defence
- •It establishes and mandates peacekeeping operations, which now involve tens of thousands of personnel
- •It creates subsidiary bodies including sanctions committees and, historically, the criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda
- •It recommends candidates for Secretary-General and for admission of new member states, where the permanent members can and have blocked applicants
The membership and the veto
Five states hold permanent seats: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which were the principal victors of the Second World War, with Russia inheriting the Soviet seat and China's held by the government in Taipei until 1971. Ten further members are elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms on a regional distribution, and cannot be immediately re-elected. A substantive resolution requires nine votes in favour and no negative vote from a permanent member, which is the veto. An abstention does not count as a veto, a practice established early and confirmed by usage, which is how the Korean intervention was authorised in 1950 while the Soviet delegate was absent in protest. The veto was not an oversight: the major powers made clear in 1945 that they would not join an organisation that could compel them, and the alternative to the veto was no organisation at all, which is the standing answer to the standing objection.
How it has actually behaved
The Council's record divides sharply by period. During the Cold War it was largely paralysed, with well over two hundred vetoes cast, most by the Soviet Union in the early years and later increasingly by the United States, and it authorised force only twice in forty-five years. The period from about 1990 saw a surge of activity, with the authorisation to reverse the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, a rapid expansion of peacekeeping, sanctions regimes against a dozen states and the creation of criminal tribunals. That cooperation narrowed again from the mid-2000s and has since contracted further, with repeated vetoes blocking action on Syria, on Ukraine, where one permanent member is a party to the conflict, and on Gaza. The pattern is consistent across the whole history: the body functions when the permanent members agree and does nothing when they do not, which is precisely what its design provides for.
The workarounds
Several mechanisms have developed to route around a blocked Council. The Uniting for Peace procedure, adopted by the General Assembly in 1950 during the Korean conflict, allows the Assembly to meet in emergency session and make recommendations when the Council is deadlocked, though its resolutions are not binding and its legality has been disputed by states that dislike the outcome. Regional organisations have acted without authorisation, most contentiously in Kosovo in 1999, which was widely described as illegal and legitimate at the same time, an uncomfortable formula that has not been resolved. States have invoked broad readings of self-defence. A procedural reform adopted in 2022 now requires the General Assembly to convene and debate within ten working days whenever a veto is cast, which does not change the outcome and does impose a cost in explanation. And the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court operate on separate legal bases, which is why proceedings there continue when the Council is stuck.
Why reform never happens
Almost everyone agrees the membership no longer reflects the world, since Africa and Latin America have no permanent seat and India, the most populous country, is excluded while two European states are not. Proposals have circulated for thirty years and the obstacles are structural. Any change to the Charter requires ratification by two thirds of members including all five permanent ones, so each of them holds a veto over reducing its own veto. Candidate states block each other, with regional rivals opposing any neighbour's elevation, which is how the coalition known informally as the coffee club has operated. And the permanent members disagree about whether new permanent seats should carry vetoes, which the candidates want and the incumbents do not offer. The only substantive change in eighty years was an expansion of the elected membership from six to ten in 1965. The realistic assessments now discuss working methods, transparency and voluntary restraint on the veto in cases of mass atrocity, which France and Mexico have promoted and which more than a hundred states have endorsed without the states that matter agreeing.
The takeaway
The Council is the only body able to take decisions binding on all states, impose mandatory sanctions and lawfully authorise force, and it has fifteen members of whom five hold permanent seats with a veto over any substantive resolution. The design was the price of the major powers joining at all, and the result is a body that works when those five agree and is paralysed when they do not, as it was for most of the Cold War and increasingly is now. Reform requires the consent of the states whose privilege it would reduce.