The peoples of the world look to the United Nations to prevent aggression and genocide as well as to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes. As the principal organ entrusted with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security under the UN Charter, the Security Council has failed to live up to that responsibility.
The Security Council’s legitimacy has been repeatedly called into question for its lack of representativeness; its lack of effectiveness and its lack of enforcement. It has repeatedly failed to prevent or to decisively respond to aggression and mass atrocity crimes. Its permanent members have compounded the erosion of the Council’s credibility by committing some of the most consequential violations of the UN Charter, including the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine, as well as by misusing their vetoes.
Modern threats require immediate multilateral action. Reforms that require amendment of the UN Charter will not yield change in time to save us from the current scourge of war, terrorism and genocide or from converging existential threats such as climate change, pandemics and nuclear escalation. The United Nations must therefore rely on the existing tools and mechanisms to address modern threats.
In our book entitled Empowering the UN Security Council: Reforms to Address Modern Threats (Oxford University Press, 2024), which we co-authored with a distinguished group of diplomats, practitioners and scholars from all five regions of the world, we propose concrete reforms and other measures for improving the Council’s legitimacy and effectiveness without amending the UN Charter.
Drawing on the proposals in our book, this article presents six ways to empower the Council in particular and the United Nations in general: from improving the representative character of the Council to restraining the use of the veto; from tapping the full potential of the General Assembly to reinforcing the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC); and from engaging with civil society to coordinating with regional organizations. These practical solutions explore the intersections of international law and international diplomacy to ensure more credible and more successful multilateral action.
Improving the Representative Character
Any reform must begin with the Security Council itself including its composition. The General Assembly can and should adopt a more equitable regional distribution of the ten elected seats – one that better reflects the current UN membership and the multi-polar global order.
Pursuant to Article 23 of the UN Charter, the General Assembly must consider the contribution of candidates to international peace and security in the election of the ten non-permanent members. Once elected, the latter should leverage their collective bargaining power to better fulfill the will of the international community.
Restoring respect for the UN Charter also requires reminding the Security Council of its affirmative responsibility, pursuant to Article 24, to act promptly and effectively on behalf the entire membership as well as to discharge its duties in accordance with the UN’s purposes and principles.
Restraining the Use of the Veto
The elected members can leverage their ten votes into an indirect veto under Article 27(2) to gain greater influence in the deliberations and decision-making of the Security Council. For too long, the members of the Security Council including the permanent members have ignored Article 27(3) of the UN Charter whereby they shall refrain from voting much less vetoing Chapter VI resolutions on disputes to which they are a party.
Member states must ensure a measure of accountability, through bilateral or multilateral action, against a permanent member when it exercises its veto in a manner inconsistent with existing and binding legal obligations under the common articles of the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention and/or with the universally accepted principles and prohibitions under the UN Charter.
Member States should engage more meaningfully with civil society by allowing for greater inclusivity as well as by encouraging greater public scrutiny to ensure greater public accountability for the use and abuse of the veto by the permanent members, especially in situations involving aggression and mass atrocity crimes.
Tapping the Full Potential of the General Assembly
While the Security Council can impose binding obligations on all states, the General Assembly can only make recommendations to Member States. In doing so, however, the Assembly can provide Member States that are willing and able to act with the legal, political and moral authority to do so.
The Assembly has untapped powers under Resolution 377 (V), also known as “Uniting for Peace”. It can authorize collective measures to ensure a more effective UN response to threats to international peace and security when the veto paralyzes the Council and prevents it from fulfilling its responsibility. The ongoing tenth and eleventh emergency special sessions on the situations in Palestine and Ukraine demonstrate that the Assembly is willing and able to act but that it has yet to exercise the full potential of that resolution.
By way of example, the General Assembly can deploy peacekeeping missions at the request or with the consent of the host country; it can extend military assistance to aggressed States; and it can authorize sanctions, including arms embargoes, against aggressing States. The readiness of the Assembly to authorize such sanctions and other measures can achieve a greater measure of automaticity and accountability in the UN’s response to aggression and mass atrocity crimes. As such, when the Council is paralyzed by a veto, the Assembly can authorize collective measures to give effect to the will of the international community and to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.
Reinforcing the International Court of Justice
The ICJ, the principle judicial organ of the UN system, plays a vital role in upholding the rule of law. However, its relationship with the Security Council has not developed as foreseen in the UN Charter, limiting the ICJ’s ability to complement the Council’s work more effectively.
Advisory opinions issued by the ICJ under Article 96(1) of the UN Charter can provide authoritative guidance on contentious legal issues. These opinions, though generally non-binding, clarify international legal principles and offer greater legitimacy to Security Council action. The Council also has a critical role in enforcing ICJ judgments and provisional measures. Article 94(2) of the UN Charter empowers the Council to take measures against States that fail to comply with ICJ rulings.
Strengthening enforcement would enhance both the ICJ’s authority and the Council’s legitimacy as a guardian of international law. Integrating the Court’s expertise into the Council’s decision-making would ensure greater alignment of the Council with the UN Charter and customary principles of international law. As such, it would also ensure that its decisions are more accepted and better understood and thus more likely to be implemented by the affected State and non-State parties.
Enforcing the Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions
Accountability for violations of international law is essential to ensuring sustainable peace and security. The Security Council’s engagement with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its role in upholding the ICC’s founding Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions are crucial for ensuring justice for the survivors and accountability for the perpetrators of those violations.
Clear and consistent criteria for Security Council referrals to the ICC are necessary to ensure that decisions prioritize the gravity of crimes rather than political considerations. Such criteria would strengthen the ICC’s mandate and enhance the credibility of the Council’s commitment to accountability. In addition to referrals, the Council could provide more robust support by enforcing arrest warrants, ensuring adequate resources, and calling upon Member States to cooperate with the ICC.
Justice and accountability are not only moral imperatives but also practical tools for conflict prevention and resolution. Without the Council’s consistent support for and enforcement of the ICC, the former cannot achieve sustainable peace and security and the latter cannot deliver justice or accountability.
Strengthening Regional Cooperation
While Chapter VIII of the UN Charter recognizes the indispensable role of regional organizations in resolving regional conflicts, these organizations and other arrangements remain underutilized in the Security Council’s efforts to maintain international peace and security.
The efforts of regional organizations such as the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the League of Arab States (LAS) are often undermined by limited resources, unsustained will and insufficient coordination with the Security Council. To ensure the sustainability of regional peacekeeping operations, more predictable financing mechanisms must be established by supplementing assessed contributions with a multilateral trust fund supported by voluntary contributions, setting predefined funding thresholds, encouraging long-term financial commitments, and implementing clear allocation frameworks to enhance reliability and transparency. Regular consultations between the Council and regional organizations would enhance coordination and response as well as ensure that regional perspectives are integrated into global strategies.
The Security Council must enhance its responsiveness to emerging threats while ensuring that its actions align with local realities. This approach reflects the interconnected nature of regional and global multilateralism.
Empowering the Security Council
In light of the converging crises and existential threats, there is a realistic possibility borne out of the imperative of necessity to meaningfully reform the Security Council without amending the UN Charter.
The challenges facing the Security Council and the threats facing the international community require immediate and multilateral action.
The need for a responsive, representative and effective Security Council has never been more urgent. To enhance the Council’s legitimacy, credibility, and accountability, its permanent members must restrain the use of their veto. Member States, at large, must reimagine the role of civil society, the General Assembly, the international courts and the regional arrangements. These are essential steps toward restoring respect for the international rule of law and pave the way to a more peaceful, just, and secure international order.
Above all, by adopting these reforms and measures, the Security Council can better serve “We the Peoples” in whose name the UN Charter was adopted and can better fulfill the mandate entrusted to it by that Charter for the sake of current and future generations.
About the authors
Mona Ali Khalil is a public international lawyer with 30 years of service in the United Nations. She is the Director of MAK LAW International and an Affiliate of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict.
Floriane Lavaud is a senior partner at Withers law firm with 20 years of experience in international arbitration and public international law, including in the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, with particular emphasis on the Middle East.
This think-piece is based on the co-authors recent book Empowering the UN Security Council: Reforms to Address Modern Threats which they co-edited and co-authored with a distinguished group of diplomats, practitioners and scholars (Oxford University Press, 2024).