History and Politics: Is the United Nations Security Council an "obsolete relic"?

Note: The following article was written by Ishaan Tosawar Year 11

The phrase “obsolete relic” should be separated, these two words aren’t pointing  towards the same accusation. A relic can be old and still work fine, but obsolescence is independent, it means the thing no longer does its job, regardless of its age, condition, or other contributing factors. A business founded yesterday could be obsolete if it made  no profit. Therefore, when the UN Security Council fails, that’s not necessarily a mistake  or malfunction: in its worst moments, vetoed interventions, and deadlocks over  atrocities, it was working exactly how the creators designed it to. The second half shows  a similar assumption, that the Council must either cause peace or prevent it, as if only  one can be true at once. A further distinction is important, is the peace specified  negative or positive? If negative, it would mean just the absence of peace, if positive, it  would mean the presence of justice and stable institutions that stop violence occurring.  The Council was built almost entirely for negative peace and judging it by potentially  including the definition of positive peace holds it to a standard it never was chosen for.  So, this essay judges the Council on two separate claims: obsolete in structure, but not  obsolete in function. 

The Security Council’s current structure isn’t a failure to predict the future, but instead  it’s a deliberate design built to keep the great powers inside its system (Nations, 1945). The founders of the UN, particularly the major Allied powers, learned from the failures of  the League of Nations. The veto was introduced to avoid repeating the League of  Nations’ failure– it required near unanimity even for the smallest of issues (The Office of  the Historian, 1945). At the time of the League of Nations, several countries such as  Japan and Italy left when the League didn’t serve their interests. The permanent  members (consisting of China, France, Russia – previously the USSR, the United  Kingdom, and the United States), and veto therefore reflect 1945’s priorities, not a  futureproof judgement on which states deserve authority, Article 27(3) (The United  Nations, 1945) supports the notion that the inequality and disproportionate power given  to the Permanent members was essential to ensure that those states would help in  enforcing the Security Council’s decisions (Council, 1945). This means that the Security  Council is frozen in the past rather than a realistic image of global power. Its structure  can accurately be described as that of a relic of 1945 (when it was agreed upon at the  Yalta Conference). This is especially evident given the absence of permanency for any  African state (despite having the largest number of UN member states), India (even  though it’s one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping operations (despite the  controversy on morality) and a major global economic powerhouse) or any Latin American states or Japan and Germany (regardless of their economic weight) which  were campaigned against by the G4 Campaign and The Ezulwini Consensus (Security  Council Report, 2024). Although all UN members are bound by Council decisions under  Article 25 (United Nations Security Council , 1945), elected members cannot veto them regardless of their level of power or significance, while the permanent members can, which makes the Council’s power structure explicitly unequal. P5 and the Council’s  structure is inexplicably flawed but this is not proof of a failure in function. 

Ukraine provides the clearest evidence that the Council cannot act when Article 27(3)’s  veto is exploited by a P5 member. In 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was met with  immediate international condemnation, which was hopeless once Russia was able to  use its power as a P5 member to block the Security Council’s response directed against  its own invasion (Releases, 2022). This isn’t just an act of disagreeing; this is a structural  failure. The Council couldn’t act impartially in a crisis involving one of its prominent  members – a permanent member’s veto can block any decision related to its own  conflict (The United Nations Security Council, 2026). This failure was further shown  when the Security Council had to call upon the General Assembly’s “Uniting for Peace”  procedure rather than having the issue resolved within itself and its sole purpose (Law,  1950). Even though due to the procedure, it allowed the world to oppose the war, it  didn’t produce binding enforcement (FAQ, 1950). This case study of Ukraine shows that  the Council can become obsolete and powerless exactly when it’s most needed, which  supports the claim that it does more to prevent peace that secure it. 

Syria is another example of the Council’s inability to act when geopolitical interests  block opposition and unanimity. Unlike Ukraine, where an impossibility to act was  linked to one P5 member’s direct involvement, Syria shows us that the use of the veto,  can still hinder preventive action for many years and the humanitarian cost is obvious. Russia, often along with China, repeatedly blocked resolutions on access,  accountability, and measures against the Assad regime (who notably used weapons  against their own civilian population), this means that the Council couldn’t only fail to  stop violence but to even respond minimally (Indian Journal of International Law, 2017).  This is a prime example of why the Council is not only obsolete as it couldn’t stop one  scenario of veto exploitation but how it couldn’t stop numerous, patterned veto abuse.  With this argument, it further proves how the Council can do more to prevent peace  than to secure it, as its structure allows alliances to override even the simplest of  responses regardless of humanitarian outrage (Human Rights Watch, 2014). 

The strongest counterargument is that the Security Council is not totally obsolete,  because it can still act fully when the permanent members are in near-harmony. Libya in  2011 is the most pertinent example of this. Through Resolution 1973, the Security  Council agreed upon a resolution of “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from  factors such as the Gaddafi regime, proving that it was still capable of Chapter 7 action (Security Council, 2011) (Nations, 1945). This signifies that change and intervention took place and that it was authorised through the Council itself with permanent  members choosing abstention rather than vetoes. In this sense, the institution cannot  be deemed a relic as its internation action is still relevant in the modern world. 

Studying Libya also helps explain later inability and paralysis especially when relating to  Syria. Even though Resolution 1973 showed that the Security Council could still act  decisively and effectively, the experience of Libya shaped later distrust, especially  among Russia and China, who argued that the resolution or mandate had been  stretched beyond civilian protection into a regime change. This potentially shows why  the Council became far more obsolete and divided over Syria, at the cost of many  human lives (Nations, 1945). The issue was that the P5 members no longer trusted one  another to use the Council’s power and authorisation, not that the Council had stopped  to function. This makes the argument that the Security Council is flawed and fragile,  especially depending on trust, but not obsolete. 

The Security Council still has real functional value as it remains the main entity that the  World and its great powers must deal with each other. Even when they disagree,  abstain, or veto a proposal they still have to sit alongside one another and debate and  negotiate over the same crises and circumstances. The Council’s role isn’t to just pass  resolutions, but also to keep opposing nations engaged. The continuous use of  sanctions, regimes (such as the different Branches of the UN) and peacekeeping  mandates shows that the Council continues to produce real-world outcomes that  affect people on a day-to-day basis (UN Peacekeeping, 1945). However, the UN  peacekeeping also has a darker, more controversial side. Repeated allegations of sexual  exploitation and abuse have damaged its reputation and legitimacy and show that  peacekeeping mandates and missions, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo,  don’t automatically mean that justice and protection for civilians are actually occurring (Independ Commission for Aid Impact, 2020). In that sense, the Council is not obsolete  in theoretical function, but the lines can become blurred depending on practical use. 

The strongest evidence against the notion that the Security Council is a dead relic is  that states continue to attempt to reform it from within rather that abandoning it  altogether. A clear example of this is the G4 campaign where Germany, Japan, India,  and Brazil seek permanent membership for states that are now major global powers but  remain excluded from the Council’s permanent membership and core authority. This  matters as it shows that the states are not rejecting the Council as obsolete, they argue  that it remains important enough to keep changing and reforming. Along with this, the  Ezulwini Consensus makes a similar point from an African perspective. Africa holds the largest number of member states and rightfully demands greater representation and  challenges the legitimacy of a system that lacks any permanent African seat. Altogether,  these reform movements show that the Council’s structure is widely seen as outdated,  but still relevant enough to reform. 

The Veto Initiative focuses on the clearest recent example of the system reacting to its  own failure and organisation. General Assembly Resolution 76/262, adopted in 2022,  requires the General Assembly to meet and debate when a veto is cast in the respective  Security Council (UN General Assembly, 26 April 2022). This resolution provides a  formal response within the whole UN against the Council’s deadlock. The measure  doesn’t actually remove the veto or make Council decisions binding in a new way,  therefore not solving the structural problem but it shows that the UN has the capacity  and resources to adapt to a deadlock within the Security Council rather than to submit.  A truly dead institution wouldn’t create new mechanisms to create accountability in response to its own structural failures. 

The UN Security Council is thereby not a useless relic, but a compromise that manages  peace imperfectly but fails largely when its most powerful members are associated with  any issue. It is obsolete in structure as its permanent membership and veto aren’t  rightfully representative of the modern world, but it isn’t obsolete in function because it  still authorises sanctions, peacekeeping, and Chapter VII action, remaining the UN  body with the highest relevance and responsibility for international peace and security.  The biggest problem with the Council is not that it doesn’t work, but that it doesn’t work  where it is needed the most – when a permanent member is involved (United Nations, 1945). A P5 member’s veto can overturn any decision. Even though this is true, reform  efforts and new accountability mechanisms such as the Veto Initiative or the G4  campaign show that the system hasn’t been discarded as irrelevant and that many states and people are attempting to force change within (United Nations General  Assembly, 2022). In that sense, the Council is better understood as an outdated but still consequential subsection of global politics than as an obsolete relic.