The Veto Trap
The Veto Trap
The veto trap is this: There are five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, each of whom have a right of veto. That is, a right to prevent the implementation of any action of the UN that they consider adverse to their interests.
Those countries are:
Russia
USA
France
China
UK
They are 5 out of the 196 countries in the world. They represent less than one third of the global population.
They are the beneficiaries of the current status quo, and ,as they can block any change to the UN Charter, they have absolute power to maintain the status quo.
Meaning, the United Nations is blocked from becoming more useful.
And so the United Nations can never be an institution for global governance, nor a vehicle to usher in any other form of global governance. Because everybody knows that any proposal to change the current structure will be vetoed down every time.
The problem is that without structural change, the United Nations will continue on as a goliath and usually benevolent NGO, with some special powers. It can never be a forum for the kind of global governance that is needed today.
How Did This Happen?
The UN was set up in 1945. Its purpose was to promote world security post World War II. Special privileges (the power to veto any decision) were given to themselves by the winners of the war. Fair enough.
Back then security, not governance, was paramount. There were 2.3 billion people in the world (there were 14 cities in the world with over a million people). Interconnectedness between peoples was limited. International conflicts were represented by border wars. Resources were plentiful .
Now it is 2025. The global population is over 8 billion (there are over 1,000 cities with over a million people). People have the ability to affect the interests of one another from afar – on purpose (eg cyber), or by accident (eg pollution). Resources are not plentiful.
Common sense global regulation in response to our capacity to pollute, shoot and commute to each other from one side of the world to the other is needed.
It is true that the UN has expanded its functions since 1945.
But not nearly enough. One of its functions is not (and has never been) global governance.
What To Do
Ultimately, we all as global citizens will need to engage; to petition, pressure and cajole the UN veto powers to let go of their privileges and make way for a new, more democratic and more powerful United Nations or equivalent body.
It is asking for a lot. But what is the alternative? We all sit here and and watch as self appointed tyrants control your children's futures, simply because there is no power above them?
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