This House Would Abolish the Veto Power in the United Nations Security Council

...

not only their nations’ interests but also their allies’. Thereby the Security Council has become a “weapon” in hands of these superpowers to facilitate the change in political issues pursuant to their interests and to veto all the resolutions in which the interests of their allies are threatened. For example, for the past 2 decades the US has exercised its veto power 40 times to protect Israel and Palestine from resolutions proposed and supported by 14 members of the UNSC . . The case is clearly shows how national interest of supporting the ally, even if ally is wrong, is more important for the state than the interest of international society to show what is just thing to do and what is not.

There are a lot of other examples when one of the P5 countries vetoed the resolutions or agendas for the benefit of its own country even though it was very important issue and matter of a big concern to international society the permanent member. For instance, recent Russia and China’s veto on the resolution that imposes economic sanction on Syria . Even though the whole world recognized that it was urgent situation and delay in addressing the issue can cost the life of innocent citizens, due to some political reason these two countries used their veto power to stop the passing of resolution.

As we can see from the examples, in the practical level the priority is given to the national interest over the world peace and security. It should be emphasized that every issue that is raised in the Security Council is the matter for the global concern and is very crucial to deal urgently. However because five permanent members has the right to use veto power in their self-interest and therefore has the capability to go against the interest of the international society this power itself threatens the world peace and global security. For this reason we strongly believe that veto power should be abolished.

Affirmative argument 3

Absence of veto power contributes the Security Council to operate more efficiently.

Besides just following the principles that the UNSC set up, the efficient implementation is important as well. We believe, that veto power is the main obstacle that interfere draft proposal to be carried out in order to keep world peace and international security. Referencing to efficiency, we want to break down this argument into two levels – the first is related to prompt decision-making, and the second is implementation itself.

On the first level, we want to point out the ability of the Security Council to react swiftly in case if the peace and security, they were designed to protect and maintain, are threatened. This time aspect, we believe, is very important as long as people lives are on the one side of the scales.

So-called “pocket veto” or, in other words, the threat of using veto that is being experienced by the US Government for a long time , is also being used by the Permanent Five. This type of veto gives them opportunity to keep agenda out of the resolution to be approved that allows these members achieve intentional outcome without actual meetings. For instance, even though that France didn’t use its veto power since Cold War had ended, it still uses its “pocket veto”. In 2003, France threatened to use its veto on any resolution put forward by the USA, the UK, and Spain in order to authorize military actions in Iraq . So, what they actually do, they do not take any measures in order to prevent violent acts on peace and security. Whereas they delay resolutions people are dying it can be seen in case of Sri Lanka (2009), when Sri Lankan army was killing Sri Lankan Tamils, while Russia and China were keeping this issue off the agenda .

From these examples we can see how important to take measures as soon as possible. We believe, that if we deprive P5 member a veto power it would contribute to swift implementation of resolution in order save people lives, to ensure safety to them.

Moving on to the second level we want to point out the aftermaths of vetoing the resolutions – unsolvation. When any permanent member rejects resolutions by using its veto it means that not any measure would be taken to keep peace and to save peoples’ lives, which they were obligated to secure. That is what it was founded for. Why do we need such kind of ineffective organization that doesn’t carry out its duties and sacrifices people lives? For instance, according to BBC News (2012), in Syria the number of casualties has almost reached 40,000 people, averagely 165 has people a day since 1st of August . From this example, we can clearly see outcomes of existence of veto power. We want to say that if there was no veto this issue could be prevented on its initial level and the number of dies would be minimal. In that case the Security Council would be more efficient in terms of its initial principles to keep world peace and security.

To conclude, again, we want to emphasize that the United Nations Security Council need to be reformed - eliminate this absolute power wielded by P5 in order to ensure an effective and prompt respond on arising issues that put the world, us, and our security under the jeopardy.

Refutation on Affirmative argument 1.

In first argument proposition side claimed about depriving Permanent Five members of their veto power in order to establish democracy within the UN Security Council structure that would allow to other nations to have the same power of voice, that allegedly would contribute to the fairness in terms of voting. But we would like to argue on this issue; because they are wrong, as long as proposition side so concentrated on democracy, they cannot see the whole picture, the aftermaths of depriving P5 of veto.

Unfortunately, our world is not perfect. Imagine that all nations have the equal power to vote, no matter whether it is big country or small. We want to say that there are small countries, which would be on the same level with current permanent members, that can be corrupted and used by larger nations to push forward their will draft resolutions without any problems; and the number of these countries exceeds the number of more reasonable nations. In fact, in areas like Africa and Middle East almost every country is ruled by dictators, if to be concrete by corrupt leaders. Also there are other highly corrupted countries in other parts of the world like Myanmar, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Belarus and so forth .

Likewise, there are other ways to facilitate adoption of desirable resolutions through nations’ masses. For example, countries can unite into informal coalitions if they have similar interests like in case of EU Council, where some if its member states built the coalitions in order to improve