[ Ambassador C Rajasekhar | India’s Former Ambassador to Cuba, Latin America Specialist | ]
Mankind has made great progress but is unable to save itself from war. As the global attention shifts to the UN on the eve of the UN Day, we may reflect on the way forward. Preventing war and wanton destruction is within the reach of human genius. When the UN Security Council is paralyzed by the veto, the international community can, inter alia, conceive a shift from great-power unanimity to enforcing collective accountability through structural reforms and alternative legal pathways.
Reforming the Security Council Veto
Uniting for Peace Activation: Empower the UN General Assembly to take binding collective security measures (via emergency special sessions) with a two-thirds majority vote, if the Security Council is deadlocked by a veto.
Veto Restraint Codes: Codify self-denying agreements among permanent members (P5) to voluntarily recuse and abstain from using the veto in cases of mass atrocities, genocide, or large-scale military aggression.
Veto Overrides: Establish a legal mechanism where a veto by a single permanent member can be overridden by a supermajority (e.g., 12 of 15 votes) in the Security Council combined with a majority vote in the General Assembly.
Compare to national law: a ruling of the Supreme Court is the law of the land and thus, Judges of the Supreme Court are omnipotent. But a nation is not helpless without a remedy, if judges go rogue and act unintendedly.
Strengthening Enforcement and Accountability
Standing International Peace Force: Create a permanent, independent international emergency police and military force under UN command, rather than relying on ad-hoc national contributions, to enforce ceasefires and protect civilians. Cost of such a force would still be only a fraction of war.
Mandatory Jurisdiction for Aggression: Expand the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice(ICJ) to automatically cover all disputes involving the use of cross-border armed force, removing the requirement for state consent before a case is heard.
Individual Criminal Enforcement: Remove immunity for heads of state under international criminal law and establish reliable apprehension protocols via allied coalitions when national police forces refuse to cooperate with international arrest warrants.
Decentralized and Regional Security Frameworks
Regional Enforcement Mandates: Legally authorize regional security organizations (like the African Union or European Union) to execute peace-enforcement missions and impose mandatory economic blockades without requiring prior Security Council approval if the council fails to act within a defined time window.
Secondary Sanctions on Aggressors: Implement automatic, pre-legislated global financial and trade embargoes that trigger instantly upon the objective determination of an unprovoked cross-border invasion by international monitors, bypassing political voting bodies entirely. This may be analogous to liquified damages in contract law.
I. Practical Hurdles to Amend UN Charter Article 108
Article 108 of the UN Charter sets out a rigid formula for any formal amendment. The process faces three virtually insurmountable barriers:
The Double Two-Thirds Hurdle: An amendment must first be approved by a two-thirds vote of the entire UN General Assembly. Following this, it must be formally ratified by two-thirds of the member states through their respective domestic legislative processes (such as senate approvals or parliaments).
The Ultimate P5 Veto: Most critically, the text of Article 108 explicitly states that the two-thirds ratification must include all permanent members of the Security Council (the P5: US, Russia, China, UK, and France). This gives the P5 a “meta-veto”—they have a veto over any changes to the veto power itself.
Structural Self-Preservation: Because any restriction on the veto directly reduces the geopolitical leverage of the P5, it is structurally impossible to get all five nations to simultaneously vote to diminish their own constitutional privilege.
II. Ongoing Wars, Destruction, and Loss of Lives
The international legal framework is under severe strain, with data from institutions like Statista and ACLEDindicating that interstate and civil conflicts have reached their highest levels since World War II. Dozens of active armed bloody conflicts are ongoing globally, with several high-intensity wars causing massive devastation and wanton loss of lives. Here’re some major conflicts:
| Conflict Zone | Devastation and Human Cost |
| The Middle East (Gaza, Lebanon, Regional Escalations) | A widespread humanitarian crisis has unfolded across the region. Intensive military campaigns have resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties, decimated critical civilian infrastructure, and displaced nearly 2 million people in Gaza alone, leaving the population facing severe food insecurity. Continuous cross-border strikes have further destabilized broader regional security. |
| Ukraine | Years of high-intensity conventional warfare have resulted in hundreds of thousands of military and civilian casualties. Entire cities in the eastern regions are reduced to rubble, and the destruction of the country’s energy grid has triggered a long-term economic and refugee crisis across Europe. |
| Sudan | A brutal civil war has caused widespread atrocities, particularly in regions like Darfur and Kordofan. The conflict has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and created one of the world’s largest internal displacement and famine crises, throwing regional trade into chaos. |
| Myanmar | The protracted civil war between the military junta and various armed resistance groups has resulted in over 100,000 casualties. The conflict continues to trigger massive civilian displacement, systematic village burnings, and the functional collapse of state infrastructure. |
Global Secondary Collateral: Beyond direct casualties, these wars have thrown international commodity, food, fuel, fertiliser and agricultural markets into turmoil. Supply chain disruptions have caused a spike in the global fertilizer price index, threatening food security and compounding inflation in vulnerable, import-dependent developing nations.
Past Successful Instances of Uniting for Peace
When the Security Council is paralyzed by a veto, UN General Assembly Resolution 377 (V), known as “Uniting for Peace,” allows the General Assembly to bypass the roadblock and recommend collective action via Emergency Special Sessions. Historically, it has been invoked to successfully alter the course of crises:
The Suez Crisis (1956): When France and the United Kingdom vetoed Security Council resolutions aimed at halting their military intervention in Egypt, the General Assembly invoked Uniting for Peace. It successfully established the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF I), which was the first true UN military peacekeeping operation, effectively enforcing a ceasefire and supervising the withdrawal of foreign troops.
The Congo Crisis (1960): Following a deadlock caused by Soviet vetoes regarding UN intervention in the newly independent Republic of the Congo, the General Assembly used the mechanism to protect the mandate of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC). This allowed the UN to deploy military forces to restore law and order and preserve the country’s territorial integrity.
The Independence of Bangladesh (1971): During the Indo-Pakistan War, the Soviet Union repeatedly vetoed Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire. The Security Council used a procedural vote (which cannot be vetoed) to refer the matter to the General Assembly under Uniting for Peace. The Assembly passed a sweeping resolution that paved the path for political resolution and massive humanitarian relief for millions of East Pakistani (Bangladesh) refugees.
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