• The United Nations was set up after World War II to ensure that there were peaceful ways of resolving conflicts. It consists of a number of bodies.
  
  
• The most important of these bodies are the General Assembly, the Secretariat and the Security Council.
  
  
• The General Assembly is a one-vote-per-member forum, with representation from all 193 member states.
  
  
• The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the UN and has been established in 1945, when the UN Charter went into force.
  
  
• The Charter gives the Security Council extraordinary powers, as it is mandated as the international body with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. However, the permanent five members can prevent the Council from taking action through the use of their veto power.
  

1. To maintain international peace and security;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms;
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

The United Nations is made up of a number of bodies and committees, among which the most important are the General Assembly, the Secretariat and the Security Council. The General Assembly is the main forum, where all member states have a seat and a single vote – no matter how populous or influential they are. The Secretariat is the administrative body of the United Nations and it is headed by the main UN representative, the Secretary General, who is elected for a maximum of two terms of five years each.

United Nations Security Council

The Charter gives the Security Council a special role in the UN structure. The Council is tasked with maintaining international peace and security, and is the most powerful body in the UN. This is because the Council, unlike all other bodies, can decide on binding resolutions that member states must adhere to. A criterion for any state joining the United Nations is accepting and implementing the binding decisions.

The Council consists of fifteen member states. Ten of these occupy rotating seats, which means that these members have a limited term of two years before the seat is given to the next state. Five of these non-permanent members are exchanged every year, so that not all of them have to be replaced at the same time. The non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly.

The remaining five members are the so-called permanent members. These seats are always occupied by Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom and the United States. This has been the case since the beginning of the United Nations, although the Chinese seat has been occupied by the the Republic of China until the 1970’s after which the Peoples’ Republic of China took the seat. Similarly, Russia replaced the Soviet Union in the 1990’s.

Because of this the permanent members do not need to worry about ever getting re-elected onto the Council. This is not their only extraordinary power, however, they also have the power to veto any decision they do not like, except for those relating to day to day working procedures. This means that the permanent members can veto binding resolutions on humanitarian aid, peacekeeping and reactions to crises – just to name a few topics.

The consequence of this is that you not only need the support from nine members of the Council in total for a resolution to pass. You also need the acceptance of all five of the permanent members. A permanent member cannot vote “No” to a decision without the decision inevitably failing. They can, however, abstain from voting – which is often understood as a “No” vote where the permanent member does not like the proposal, but does not want to be the sole obstacle to its passing. However, the influence of the veto power goes beyond the actual votes- the mere threat of a veto, either explicit or implicit, is a powerful tool during negotiations and sometimes important issues are not even put to a vote because it is understood that one of the permanent members would use the veto.

The Security Council convenes whenever there is a need for it to do so. Because the Council has the right to determine what events are a threat to international peace and security, they also have the power to decide on what the UN can do in reaction to a conflict or a crisis. If the Security Council determines a conflict to be international in its reach, and therefore threatening to disrupt other states, the UN through the Council’s decisions can react strongly to ensure that the severity of the conflict is minimized. The Security Council has come to play a very important role in international relations. A seat on the Council is a desirable position for any state. It is also in the Security Council that decisions to respond to crises such as Libya, the Balkans and in the Ukraine have – or have not – been taken. While often sidelined by political schemes, the Council is still seen by the international community as the only body that can legitimately decide on the use of military force for reasons other than self-defense.

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