United Nations Security Council veto power

Based on Wikipedia: United Nations Security Council veto power

In 1945, with the ashes of the Second World War still smoldering across three continents, the architects of a new world order faced an uncomfortable truth: the United Nations they were building could only work if the most powerful nations on Earth agreed never to fight each other through it. The solution they devised was elegant, cynical, and still shapes global politics today. They gave five countries—and only five—the power to stop the entire machinery of international security with a single word: no.

That power is the veto.

The Five Who Can Say No

The United Nations Security Council has fifteen members, but they are not created equal. Ten of them rotate in and out, elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. But five seats are permanent, occupied by the same countries since 1945: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia (which inherited the Soviet Union's seat), and China. These five nations are known simply as the P5, the permanent five.

Any of these five can kill any substantive resolution—anything involving sanctions, peacekeeping operations, military action, admitting new members, or selecting the Secretary-General—simply by voting against it. It doesn't matter if the other fourteen members unanimously support the measure. It doesn't matter if every other nation on Earth thinks it's the right thing to do. One permanent member says no, and the proposal dies.

The word "veto" never appears in the United Nations Charter. The framers were too diplomatic for that. Article 27 simply requires that decisions on non-procedural matters receive "the concurring votes of the permanent members." But everyone understood what that meant. Without all five permanent members voting yes—or at least abstaining—nothing happens.

And here's an interesting wrinkle: abstaining doesn't count as a veto. If a permanent member doesn't like a resolution but doesn't want to be seen blocking it, they can simply not vote. Being absent from the chamber has the same effect. Only an explicit "no" triggers the veto.

A Deliberate Design, Not an Accident

The veto wasn't a bug in the system. It was the entire point.

The League of Nations, the United Nations' predecessor created after the First World War, had given every member of its council veto power. By 1936, fifteen countries could each block any action. The result was paralysis. When Japan invaded Manchuria, when Italy invaded Ethiopia, when the crises that would ignite the Second World War began to cascade, the League could do nothing. Too many vetoes, too many conflicting interests.

The founders of the United Nations took a different approach. Instead of giving everyone a veto and getting nothing done, they gave only the great powers a veto and got a functioning organization—one where the most powerful nations would stay at the table because they knew they could never be forced to do anything against their will.

The negotiations that created this system happened in three stages. First, at Dumbarton Oaks, a Georgetown estate in Washington D.C., where diplomats met in the autumn of 1944. The Soviet delegation wanted an absolute veto that could prevent topics from even being discussed. The British wanted to prevent countries from vetoing resolutions about disputes in which they were directly involved. Neither got exactly what they wanted.

Then came Yalta in February 1945, where Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin hammered out what became known as the Yalta formula: permanent members could veto actions, but not discussions. You could stop the Security Council from doing something, but you couldn't stop them from talking about it.

Finally, at San Francisco, where the United Nations Charter was drafted and signed, the smaller nations tried to fight back. They presented twenty-two formal questions about how the veto would actually work, demanding clarification. The P5 responded with what's called the San Francisco Declaration, a ten-point statement that interpreted their veto power as broadly as possible—including, remarkably, the power to veto the question of whether an issue was procedural or substantive in the first place.

This created the theoretical possibility of a "double veto": first, a permanent member could veto a motion declaring an issue to be procedural (and thus not veto-able), forcing it to be classified as substantive. Then they could veto the substantive issue itself. The smaller nations protested. The issue was never formally resolved. But the P5 eventually reached an informal agreement to stop using the double veto, and it hasn't been invoked since 1959.

The Blunt Threat That Built the System

At San Francisco, when smaller nations complained about the unfairness of giving five countries such extraordinary power, the great powers made their position brutally clear.

Senator Tom Connally of Texas, a member of the American delegation, grew so frustrated with the objections that he dramatically tore up a copy of the draft Charter during one of his speeches. His message was simple: you can go home and tell your people you defeated the veto. But then you'll have to answer the question—where is the Charter? Where is the United Nations?

It was the veto or nothing.

Francis O. Wilcox, an adviser to the American delegation, later described the scene: "At San Francisco, the issue was made crystal clear by the leaders of the Big Five: it was either the Charter with the veto or no Charter at all."

President Harry Truman, who took office in April 1945 after Roosevelt's death, later explained the American position with characteristic directness: "All our experts, civil and military, favored it, and without such a veto no arrangement would have passed the Senate."

The U.S. Senate, still haunted by its rejection of the League of Nations a quarter century earlier, would never ratify a treaty that could force America into a war or action it opposed. The same was true of every great power. The veto was the price of their participation.

How the Veto Has Been Used

The history of the veto falls into distinct eras, each reflecting the shifting balance of power in world politics.

From 1946 to 1969, the United States didn't cast a single veto. It didn't need to. The Security Council was dominated by Western powers and their allies. America won every vote that mattered. The Soviet Union, consistently outvoted, became the veto's primary user—casting 93 percent of all vetoes during this period, blocking resolution after resolution that its adversaries had the votes to pass.

Then the world changed. Decolonization swept across Africa and Asia throughout the 1960s, and the newly independent nations joined the United Nations in waves. Many of them were suspicious of Western powers, their former colonial rulers. The automatic Western majority in the General Assembly, and increasingly in the Security Council, began to crumble.

In 1970, the United States cast its first veto. The Soviet ambassador couldn't resist commenting on the occasion: "Using your automatic majority you imposed your will on others and forced it down their throats. But times have now changed."

From 1970 to 1991, the pattern reversed. The United States became the most frequent user of the veto, casting 56 percent of all vetoes, often to protect Israel from resolutions critical of its policies. The Soviet Union, no longer so isolated, vetoed less than any Western power during this period.

The end of the Cold War brought a brief thaw. From May 1990 to May 1993—nearly three years—no country used the veto at all, the longest such period in United Nations history. The Security Council passed more resolutions in those years than ever before. For a moment, it seemed like the body might actually function as its founders had hoped.

It didn't last. Since 1992, Russia has been the most frequent user of the veto, followed by the United States and China. The Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011, prompted a wave of vetoes as Russia and China blocked resolution after resolution aimed at the Assad regime. France and the United Kingdom, interestingly, have not used their veto since 1989.

The Numbers Tell a Story

As of September 2025, the cumulative veto count stands like this: Russia (including the Soviet Union) has vetoed 129 times. The United States has vetoed 89 times—and 51 of those, more than half, were to protect Israel from criticism or sanctions. The United Kingdom has vetoed 29 times. China has vetoed 19 times. France has vetoed only 16 times, and used its veto alone just once, in February 1976.

About a quarter of all vetoes in history have been cast to block new members from joining the United Nations. In the early years, from 1946 to 1955, this created a deadlock where both sides blocked each other's preferred candidates. The logjam broke with a 1955 package deal that admitted sixteen countries at once. The Soviet Union alone vetoed 51 membership applications over the years. The United States vetoed Vietnam's application six times before finally dropping its objection in 1977.

In 2024, the pattern continued when the United States vetoed the admission of Palestine as a full member state, insisting that Palestinian statehood should come only through a comprehensive peace agreement.

The Selection of Secretaries-General

The veto reaches even into the selection of the Secretary-General, the organization's chief administrative officer and global diplomat. The Secretary-General is technically appointed by the General Assembly, but only on the recommendation of the Security Council—meaning any permanent member can block any candidate.

Since 1981, the Security Council has used a system of straw polls to narrow down candidates before the formal vote. In these polls, a vote by a permanent member to "discourage" a candidate is treated as equivalent to a veto. The actual selection is done by secret ballot, so vetoes of Secretary-General candidates don't appear in the official record. But the vetoing country usually makes its opposition known before or after the vote.

Every permanent member has vetoed at least one candidate for Secretary-General. The United States even found a way around a Soviet veto once, in 1950, by asking the General Assembly to extend Trygve Lie's term without bothering to get a Security Council recommendation—a procedural maneuver that hasn't been repeated since.

The Veto of One's Own Actions

Article 27 of the Charter contains a provision that sounds like a check on the veto: parties to a dispute are supposed to abstain from voting on resolutions about that dispute. The idea is that you shouldn't be able to judge your own actions.

In practice, this provision has been almost meaningless. There are no clear guidelines for determining when a country is a "party to a dispute," and the permanent members have rarely let this technicality stop them from voting in their own interest. When Russia vetoed resolutions about its invasion of Ukraine, no one seriously expected it to abstain because it was a party to the conflict. The abstention requirement remains in the Charter, but it's more a pious hope than an enforceable rule.

Can the Veto Be Bypassed?

The veto applies only to the Security Council. The General Assembly, where every member nation has one vote and none has a veto, can discuss anything it wants and pass whatever resolutions it can muster. But General Assembly resolutions aren't binding. They're statements of opinion, not enforceable law.

Or are they?

In 1950, backed by the United States as a hedge against Soviet vetoes, the General Assembly passed what's known as the "Uniting for Peace" resolution. This resolution declared that if the Security Council fails to act because of a veto, the General Assembly can meet in emergency special session and recommend collective measures—including, if necessary, the use of armed force.

The legal status of this resolution is disputed. Some scholars argue that it effectively gives the General Assembly "final responsibility" for international peace and security when the Security Council is deadlocked. Others say it's just a workaround that allows the Assembly to make recommendations that still aren't technically binding.

Regardless of the legal debates, the resolution has been invoked eleven times as of 2022. Its most famous use was during the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Britain and France—both permanent members—vetoed Security Council resolutions condemning their invasion of Egypt. The General Assembly, meeting in emergency session under Uniting for Peace, demanded their withdrawal. They complied.

In April 2022, the General Assembly passed another procedural innovation: a resolution requiring that whenever a veto is cast in the Security Council, the General Assembly must hold a debate about the issue. It's not a way to overrule the veto, but it does force the vetoing country to face scrutiny from the full membership.

The Curious Case of China's Seat

One of the strangest episodes in veto history involves not a veto that was cast, but one that couldn't be.

From 1945 to 1971, China's permanent seat on the Security Council was held by the Republic of China—the Nationalist government that lost the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and retreated to the island of Taiwan. For more than two decades, this government, controlling only Taiwan, represented "China" at the United Nations, while the People's Republic of China, controlling the mainland and its hundreds of millions of people, was excluded entirely.

In 1971, the General Assembly voted to recognize the People's Republic as the legitimate government of China. The Republic of China was expelled, and the People's Republic took its permanent seat and veto power.

But wait—doesn't a permanent member have the power to veto its own expulsion? In theory, yes. But the General Assembly framed the issue not as expelling a member but as deciding which government had the credentials to represent China. The membership of "China" wasn't changing; only the question of who spoke for it. Through this legal sleight of hand, a permanent member lost its seat despite theoretically having the power to prevent exactly that.

The Republic of China did use its veto once, in December 1955, to block Mongolia from joining the United Nations. The Nationalist government in Taiwan still claimed all of China—including Outer Mongolia—as its territory, and refused to recognize Mongolian independence. It was the Republic of China's first and only veto.

Reform: Much Discussed, Never Achieved

Almost from the moment the Charter was signed, nations have proposed reforming or abolishing the veto. The suggestions fall into several categories.

Some proposals would limit the veto to vital national security issues, preventing its use on humanitarian matters or mass atrocities. Others would require multiple permanent members to agree before a veto could be cast, turning the single-country veto into a coalition requirement. The most ambitious proposals would abolish the veto entirely.

None of these proposals have gone anywhere, for a simple reason: any amendment to the Charter must be ratified by all five permanent members. And unlike abstention on regular votes, abstention on ratification isn't allowed. Each permanent member has an absolute veto over any change to the veto power itself.

The American Journal of International Law has noted that the only way around this might be to supersede the Charter entirely—to create a new international organization with a new founding document that doesn't include the veto. It's the kind of proposal that sounds radical until you realize that's exactly what happened in 1945, when the United Nations replaced the League of Nations.

The Central Paradox

The veto is simultaneously the most criticized and most essential feature of the United Nations.

Critics call it the most undemocratic element of the entire system. It allows powerful nations to commit atrocities with impunity, knowing that their allies on the Security Council will block any action against them. It has prevented effective response to war crimes from Syria to Sudan. It is, as many observers have noted, a recipe for paralysis whenever the interests of the great powers diverge.

Defenders offer a different argument. The veto, they say, is exactly what keeps the great powers at the table. Without it, any permanent member that found itself on the losing end of a Security Council vote might simply leave the organization, just as nations left the League of Nations when it tried to constrain them. The veto is a pressure valve. It acknowledges the reality that the United Nations cannot enforce its will against countries with nuclear weapons and massive military power. Better to have these countries inside the system, even if they can block action, than outside it and truly unconstrained.

Russia and China, in particular, argue that the veto promotes international stability by preventing the Security Council from becoming a tool of Western military intervention. From their perspective, the veto is what stops the United Nations from being weaponized by the United States and its allies.

The United States, for its part, has used the veto more than any other nation to protect a single country: Israel. More than half of all American vetoes have been cast to shield Israel from criticism, sanctions, or international action. Without the veto, U.S. diplomats have made clear, America's ability to stand by its allies would be dramatically constrained.

The World the Veto Made

Eighty years after San Francisco, the veto remains exactly what it was designed to be: a mechanism for great power management of international affairs. It is not fair. It was never meant to be fair. It was meant to be functional—to create an organization that the most powerful nations would actually participate in, even if that participation came at the cost of giving them extraordinary privileges.

Whether this bargain was worth it depends on your counterfactual. Would a United Nations without the veto have actually been able to restrain the great powers? Or would it have simply collapsed, as the League of Nations did, the moment it tried?

We can never know. What we know is this: the veto exists because in 1945, the men who built the United Nations believed that a flawed organization was better than no organization at all. They believed that keeping the great powers talking, even if they couldn't always act, was better than watching them fight.

Senator Connally's question still echoes: without the veto, where is the Charter?

The answer, for better or worse, is that there wouldn't be one.